In industrial practice, there are two basic methods for making the polymer into useful resins. In one method, an excess of formaldehyde is reacted with phenol in the presence of a base catalyst in water solution to yield a low-molecular-weight prepolymer called a resole. The resole, frequently in liquid form or solution, can be cured to a solid thermosetting network polymer by, for instance, sandwiching it between layers of wood veneer and then heating the assembly under pressure to form a plywood.