Over 5 million m 3 of engineered wood products (EWPs) are produced in the EU annually and the market is rising. However, EWPs have a high degree of petrochemical use in their manufacturing. In addition, throughout the life span of these EWP products from manufacture to disposal, they emit formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which makes recycling very difficult. In this paper, preliminary experimental work on Adhesive Free Engineered Wood Products (AFEWPs) is presented, which covers (1) manufacture of compressed wood (CW) dowels, (2) fabrication of adhesive free laminated beams and connections, (3) structural testing of AFEWPs. Also, the finite element models are being developed to assist designing of AFEWPs in terms of size of compressed wood dowel and dowel patterns in order to maximise their stiffness and load carrying capacities.