I guess if we’re talking about growing steaks in a tank, then why not planks of wood? It’s tissue from a living organism.
On a rather more basic level, I guess it would be possible to craft a living willow object (say, a chair), let it grow until it’s fused together, then cut it, dry and finish it as a piece of functional furniture. Actually I would love to try that.
Maybe not so tall. When casting metal, the crystal grains tend to follow the surface of the mold. This has practical implications during the design process: if you want sharp corners on your finished part, you design the casting form with rounded corners (to assure gradual transitions in grain orientation) and then come back afterwards to machine the sharp corners and achieve the desired final shape.
Maybe a molding process for liquid wood could utilize a similar phenomenon to achieve smooth wood grain flow across the entire shape of a part.
If liquid wood is possible, would very small rocks float in it?
Spiderwood, spiderwood,
does anything that liquid wood could?
Every time I drink Scotch, I think if wood were liquid, this would be it.
That was fascinating, as someone who builds all wood archery bows I have an intense interest in wood properties. This application might not be primitive but I can see some possibilities here in bow building. We currently use animal sinew to back our bows. This product seems to have properties of both.
There is already “wood” 3d printing filament for printing “wooden” objects. But this is just plastic with very small wood fibers, like sawdust, embedded in it. It doesn’t have the strength or structural characteristics of natural wood, which as others have said, is dependent on its fibrous nature.