I bought some 3/4″ oak plywood from H.D. this weekend and when I got home I noticed a nice little stamp on the end that said Made In China. Has anyone had any bad experiences with this stuff? If I would have noticed before I bought it I would have gone elsewhere. Thanks
Mike J
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Mike,
It's not great stuff, but your experience will depend on what you're doing with it. If you intend to use it for fine furniture, look elsewhere. If you're just going to make a cabinet out of it that will not be heavily used or be a centerpiece of your room, then it's probably okay.
Just don't eat it, take it as a prescription drug, or feed it to your dog!
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good news ,bad news, good news this oak they have is some of the best looking plain sawed oak you will find anywhere.also it has lots of plies and i found very few voids.
bad news,2 things i found while working with it. when you cut it it will twist around some,never was a big problem because i was building cabinets so when you nail it all together it's fine.
2nd bad news,i stained this to a pretty dark stain [red mahagony and walnut mixed] some of it stained fine some of it stained terrible. no real reason for it but one sheet i had used was really unacceptable and i had to rebuild. it gets really bad stripes in it. don't know what would happen with lighter stain. larry
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Edited 3/17/2008 11:22 am by alwaysoverbudget
Mike
If your building something that really matters you'd be better off buying some good cabinet grade ply, try a place that sells to the cabinet shops.
Doug
This is what I've found with imported plywood.
1) It can warp and twist something awful
2) The core can often be made from lung irritating plies
3) The face veneer often seems to be thinner than most domestic plywood.
4) It's just plain cheap stuff. But at HD you get what you pay for.
Ditto! Worse is the paint grade Birch, absolutely a POS. My local yard bought several hundred sheets and there being returned. I managed to assemble a few cabinets but the warping was unbelievable. And even though there multiple plies the inner plies will sometimes fish eye, or open up, when the sheets are ripped.
>>But at HD you get what you pay for.Pretty much true across the board, don't you think?
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>>>>>But at HD you get what you pay for.
>>>Pretty much true across the board, don't you think?NO.Sometime, you pay full price from a reputable place and still get ####.
just make sure it's not plastic. I bought some edge moulding for plywood, and I put it on, and stained it up. plastic doesn't stain well. lucily it doesn't take woodglue well either ;)
hmmmm, your post perplexs me
Dont know what it is about that import ply Lowes sell but u better have good tweezers or kevlar gloves caused its like working with an angry porcupine.
I'm working with some 3/4" birch ply from HD. I agree that the face ply is quite thin and it's a bit like working with a porcupine (I've still got one buried somewhere in my thumb). However, I've not had any issues with twisting.
I counted around 14 plies. Seems like they just throw them on and roll it all to dimension later. As much doubling up on plies than voids. Not cabinet grade.
The stuff from HD looked considerably better than the stuff from Lowes, but both were unfortunately from China. Stay away from the blonde wood - I've had a project waiting about four years to get finished but it twists so bad I can't bring myself to work on it.
The hd ply is ####. But you know that when you are loading it on to your orange wagon. It is 25 bucks a sheet. Shop grade birch is around 3 times that. Oak 4 times that. Cherry 5 times that. What happened to a decent product that is reasonably priced? Oil! Take out all the shipping costs and that china ply is probably worth less than the 7/16 osb. $4.98.
I got some pre-finished birch from the local wood dealer (where I get my cabinet grade stuff too) and it was 'Made in China'. Turns out, the wood was from Canada, they ship it over there for processing, and then back here to sell. Cheaper than doing the whole thing on this side of the Pacific. Amazing!I was using it to make a box for a single-layer mattress, with hardboard on the top, and it worked fine. No warping, but it is held together with lots of dado joints.
I just picked up some plywood at home depot today. 3/4" maple veneer core, $50 a sheet. Looked OK to me but what do I know. Then I went to pick out some 1/4" poplar ply. On some of the sheets the veneer would flake away just by running your finger against the edge. I grabbed a sheet that seemed to be held together a little better and crossed my fingers.
Boy do I feel bad getting pretty much what ever I want at the Ply plant for $10/sheet. They have a warehouse of rejects (delams, voids,bad one side, etc) but stacks of overruns that are first quality.
Where is this ply plant? I'm in Winston-Salem.
Menards is another big box store up here in the Midwest. I know they are in Wisconsin and Minnesota and they may have a few stores in Iowa.
Yea there are several Menards here in IA and the ply that you got isnt the worst stuff out there, not the best either but if the customer isnt willing to spend the big money then use the stuff from Menards! You could do worse.
Doug
McDowell county, but access is limited to employees. I know one of the salesman and can get some every once in a while. More of pulling in a favor kind of a thing. There is an operation across the street that has all kinds but is not as cheap. Five x five "Russian Birch" is about $30 IIRC. The name of that operation is Catawba Hardwoods.
with the high lead content it makes great fallout shelters.
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O.K. is the $45 a sheet at Menards any better? It does say that it is made in the USA. It's B1 grade so it's not top shelf, but it is for a built-in I am making for my neighbor and she doesn't want to pay for the good stuff.
Mike J
The Menards stuff is OK in my experience, but the outer veneer is quite thin.I always check the Menards bargin plywood bin. Last month I got a $45 sheet for $5, with one fork scrape on the back side.I like Menards better than the other big boxes. The store here has a good staff.
I would only use it for toe kick and other sub structure type stuff. It warps and delamintes at the edges. BUT ITS CHEAP!