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Thread: What's Up With Plywood???

  1. #1

    What's Up With Plywood???

    I just made a trip to my local HD for some 3/4", one side sanded, plywood. Am I missing something or has the quality of plywood gone way, way downhill? I could probably get better stuff at a lumberyard, but it's not as convenient and it costs more $ and $ is a big factor.
    I don't use a lot of plywood, so I was pretty disappointed at what I saw. I still have some scraps from what I purchased a few years back and man, there's no comparison.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Derek Arita View Post
    Am I missing something or has the quality of plywood gone way, way downhill?
    My observation is you are not missing anything except the quality. All the plywood I've looked at in the big box stores in the last six months has been horrible. I did find better quality at the lumber yard. The last time I needed plywood I sprung for baltic birch which is excellent, at least for now.

    JKJ

  3. #3
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    My last plywood buy was also at a big box store. It will be my last. I bought a sheet of 3/4 baltic burch cabinet grade and went home. Sawed three pieces length ways 8 feet long. When I grabbed the center section to move it, it flexed so bad I could not hold it upright. It had a three foot void clear through it. All the way through the center piece and partially through the outside panels. Took it back and the women in charge did not want to refund my money at first because I had cut it. She then told me to just go get another off the same stack I had gotten that one from. Not a chance. After talking to the manager, I got my refund. Found out the stuff came from China. Poor quality.

  4. #4
    HD in our market sells Columbia Forest Products, C-3 grade. By picking thru stack, usually I can find enough to do what I need. With the housing market red hot, plywood producers can't make it fast enough to keep up with demand. I've never seen any baltic birch at either BORG.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Eure View Post
    My last plywood buy was also at a big box store. It will be my last. I bought a sheet of 3/4 baltic burch cabinet grade and went home. Sawed three pieces length ways 8 feet long. ... Found out the stuff came from China. Poor quality.
    Yikes. It sounds like they sold you "birch plywood" (4'x8' sheets) instead of "baltic birch" (5'x5' sheets). When looking for real baltic birch locally the big box stores said sure, they had it but I found out what they really had was birch faced plywood and it didn't look good. They didn't know the difference.

    I finally found the real stuff at a company that catered to cabinet makers. What I got was perfect, no voids. Wasn't cheap.

    JKJ

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Derek Arita View Post
    I could probably get better stuff at a lumberyard, but it's not as convenient and it costs more $ and $ is a big factor.
    Probably??? Of course you can. And of course it will cost more money. Seriously? You're asking for quality plywood at junk prices. Please let us all know when you locate some.

    I'm totally sympathetic to the $ matters comment but so does your time and so does the project you are working on. What if you persevere through a project using crappy plywood and then a year from now it delaminates? Everything, time and all materials are wasted.

    People need to stop providing a market for that crap. I've used it, I say this from experience.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by John K Jordan View Post
    I finally found the real stuff at a company that catered to cabinet makers. What I got was perfect, no voids. Wasn't cheap.

    JKJ
    And it shouldn't be. It is a joy to work with.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Wrenn View Post
    HD in our market sells Columbia Forest Products, C-3 grade. By picking thru stack, usually I can find enough to do what I need. With the housing market red hot, plywood producers can't make it fast enough to keep up with demand. I've never seen any baltic birch at either BORG.
    My Local Home Depot in Queens sells Columbia Forest as well, just made 2 bookshelves entirely out of The Burch Plywood, not to be confused with Baltic Burch Plywood. I had to spend quite a while sifting trough the pile to find 3 decent sheets, but I did find them eventually and the quality was quite good for the money.

  9. #9
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    It's just like tools. Yes they still make quality tools and they still make quality plywood.

    But they need to get paid for it. How else can they do it?

  10. #10
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    Um, plywood at any home center store is and as far as my experience has always been bad. You have to do to real lumber yards or construction lumber yards to get anything thats worth buying.
    If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!

  11. #11
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    Selection not the same here in Florida either. Less layers and more voids these days.

    For building anything nice I usually buy oak plywood, birch plywood or what they call blonde-wood plywood which is primed on one side. I find them to be the closest to the plywood of old that I remember getting that had a nice finish with lots of layers. These are all the 4x8 products. I've never seen the 5x5 Baltic birch mentioned above.

  12. #12
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    Find a finish carpenter and ask him where he buys his plywood. Here in SC I can buy nice plywood for less then HD. I can also get Chinese plywood that's prefinished -- 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4. It's a 30 minute drive but well worth it
    Bob C

  13. #13
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    Home Depot did indeed at least have decent shop grade plywood at one time. That has been many years gone in my area. Neither of the major home centers in my area has anything approaching cabinet grade plywood.

    Quality is a relative thing. "Good" anything is often in the eye of the beholder. We have to remember that we are going on our second generation of tradespeople who have never known life without Home Depot or the like.
    "A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".


    – Samuel Butler

  14. #14
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    I've completely given up on box store plywood. The last sheet I bought had veneer so thin that I could easily sand through it with my ROS. I now drive 90 minutes to a plywood distributor. They have many grades of plywood and prices that are quite reasonable. I used prefinished 5x5' sheets of baltic birch for my last project and there wasn't a void anywhere in multiple sheets.
    Dick Mahany.

  15. My local HD's in Portland, Oregon are carrying 3/4 "radiata pine" plywood that is very flat, has lots of nice uniform plies like you'd expect from baltic birch or appleply, and it's cheap at around $30/sheet for 4x8. Being Pine, it's probably a bit softer than a hardwood plywood so I would use it only for shop cabinets or fixtures for example.

    Just saying, complaining about plywood quality .... when all you're looking at is the construction grade stuff, is a bit silly.

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