Do you advise buying plywood at Lowes?

Do you have local lumberyards that you can check? Don’t assume that L’s or HD’s have the lowest price.

-- John

As John said, there may be less expensive places. There certainly places with better quality.

Lew

John has a good point. I go to the lumber yard where all the cabinet makers in town get their stuff. The plywood is high quality and it is very comparable to the borg’s prices. The last time I was at Lowes, I looked at the stack of oak plywood just for kicks. It was all warped and damaged from being misshandled by an oaf with a forklift. They left that crap out till it all got bought by some poor soul.

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

I have found that the material sold by Lowes and HD is junk. Their plywood is full of voids and tends to Delaminate. It is made in China, and has no know useage.
I would find out where the cabineymakers in your area buy from. Price should not five where you buy from. Go somewhere where they stand by what they sell, sometimes you only get what you pay for.

-- Ed Collinge- Edmonds, WA.

Many thanks for your warnings. I will do some calling around. A local building supply store (Boozers Lumber) is going out of business (bad timing: expanded into the housing bubble burst) and they had a lot of wood for sale, all at half price. There are other lumber dealers and lots of experienced people I can ask.

I have to echo with EdC.

I’ve been using some of the product as supplied, but be aware of potential issues.

From the size of both racks, I assume you’re going to store more than three bottles of Boones Farm…

Caveat emptor, buyer beware…Paying more at a specialty shop doesn’t fix the problem if it came off the same boat.

Short changing quality in this stage may lead to a disaster later with a delam problem…

“Let’s all sing…300 bottles of wine on the floor, 300 bottles of wine,,,can’t pass them around , ‘cause they came crashing down, 300 bottles of wine on the floor…” Anyone want to see my shark bite scar? ( in a poor imitation of Captain Quint.)

Q

-- I don't make sawdust...I produce vast quantities of "Micro Mulch."

The problem in living our in the low populated areas, mean the choice is minimal. I need about 12 sheets of maple ply for the kitchen cabinets that I’m going to make. I hope that I can find some good stuff.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Yesterday I stopped by a couple of places, including a cabinet shop that will sell hardwood sheets (ripped if I want for a small extra charge) for slightly more than Lowes, but much higher quality: B2 Birch He thought Lowes sold C2 for Birch. I went down the road to Stock building supply and was finding Birch in different thicknesses for less than Lowes and higher grade.

Now I need to do some thinking about what I want this to look like. I have a structural design in mind, and I think I know how to make my cuts and joints. But what kind of wood with what kind of finish remains to be decided. Most of the people I’m talking too say birch would be a common, good look, especially if I were to stain them.

Check the plywood for that “Made in China” stamp first. You’ll find we’ve been hashing it over and over here at LumberJocks. Avoid that crap. Avoid the hassles. Avoid the anger.

-- Bob Vila would be so proud of you!

Only buy plywood from these places if its your only outlet. Generally the quality is not there. You will see problems in staing where the veneers butt up to each other.

-- Andy, Liberty,Indiana, www.mccormickwoodworking.com

You can spot the Chineese stuff easily if you know what you are looking for. If it looks bowed on the pile, don’t even get close, just walk away. That is unless you want your project with the same curve to it… Other things to look for, are many thin plies… Almost like baltic birch. Another, is the thinness of the exterior (face) veneer. If you can see the grain if the next layer through the veneer, walk away.

Noted here in the Chicago area, I have seen some ply marked with a Canadian maple leaf on the edge! It does not say made in Canada nor does it say China, but it is some pretty nasty stuff.

Tom

-- Anybody can become a woodworker, but only a Craftsman can hide his mistakes.

Canadian Maple leaf stamps? The stuff I got from Lowes was tagged with “SamLingUSA” which throws you as well. And Don, it was labled as a cabinet grade, maple faced ply. Looked good on the pile…Lowes sells a lot of it…but it’s some of the worst stuff out there! Like I said, there’s been numerous discussions here about the Chinese plywood…all bad.

-- Bob Vila would be so proud of you!

In my area the closet remaining lumberyard almost seems to have hand picked sheets of grade A, handled and stored with perfect sides and corners. Cost may be 10-15% higher but worth every penny. Will usually try to tack it on an order if able, when my boss needs high quality wood for a job(yes, I pay him.) Sometimes will settle for the big box, with a little picking and choosing little or no quality issues. The yard just seems to have nicer patterns, could be my imagination. For small orders at the yard I try to avoid rush hours and have list, know what I want, have proper vehicle, etc. and at all costs avoid the pain in the ass customer list.

-- Ciao, gth.

If you are willing to deal with the defects in the plywood then use it. I made my Miter Bench out of the stuff, much of the veneer was very pretty but I had a lot of waste working around some pieces de-laminating, those became drawer sides and cleats that are never seen. Just avoid any sheets with bows or cups in them unlike solid wood, cutting a piece down does not remove bow or cup.

-- //FC - Round Rock, TX - "Experience is what you get just after you need it"

EdC – Who do you recommend in N. Seattle? What about Midway Plywood on 99? Any others?

dan

The birch plywood from Lowes is junk, especially the SamLing stuff. The voids are unreal. You can usually tell it at first glance because the surface will have a bunch of holes covered with putty. Also, if you look at the edge, there is not a uniform width to the layers. I even saw some of them at the local Woodcraft store.

However, Lowes and the big orange sell what they call sandeply (?) hardwood plywood and it is made in Peru or Chile or somewhere in Latin America and it appears to be of good quality. I made some shelves from it and had no problems at all.

I dont know what wood this is… does someone?

-- There are three kinds of people... those who can count, and those who can't

The votes are in and clearly I don’t want to buy plywood at Lowes or Home Depot unless I want junk.
I’m trying to educate myself more about plywood. I find it a little confusing; it seems there is a grading standard, A1 … B2 … C2 etc., but not all sellers use them. Lowes for example was selling “professional grade” red oak sheets.
For this project, I want something that will look nice, take a stain, but it is for a basement wine bin, not fine furniture. What plywood should I use? I’m going to need up to 8 sheets, so cost is a factor. What grade could I get away with and still have nice looking win bins?
Thanks for all your help so far. As I said, I’m a novice and eager to learn more.

The Home Depot sandply stuff from South America is DEFINITELY not the quality it was just 12 months ago. I recently bought 4-5 sheets for building some shop cabinets. On the outside it looks good, but cutting up illustrates a lot of voids and even worse showed several places where the plys overlapped. :(

This combined with the price of the stuff escalating to nearly $50 per sheet has me looking in other directions for this kind of material for shop projects.

It’s a shame because it was a decent product for a decent price.

-- Chris

try ebay
http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-OF-OAK-AND-PINE-PLYWOOD_W0QQitemZ200242106428QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item200242106428&_trkparms=72%3A552%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14.l1318

http://business.shop.ebay.com/items/Business-Industrial__plywood_W0QQ_nkwZplywoodQQQ5ftrksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em1QQQ5fcatrefZ1QQ_flnZ1QQ_sacatZ12576

-- Ted, TX or PA www.around-the-bend.com

don that is a huge wine cellar—-8 sheets??? good luck…good questions I am learning along with you…

-- Matt, Napa, CA...177 days to sanity...

At least a third of that will be given over to storage space for surplus kitchen items (those appliances you buy and use once every three years but take up 3 sf of space) and other stuff, probably behind doors I’ll have to add. But yes, I will have bins capable of holding about 400 bottles or more. I have an idea of using wine crates, those 12 bottle pine boxes you see in wine stores and which some give away, to put on some of the shelves. Those can hold bottles or other stuff you won’t see. I’m going to put backing on the wine racks also to hide an ugly dirt basement behind them.
Meanwhile, I have found some good sources for quality plywood, including a local cabinet shop that will also do line cutting that will allow me to run the cut sheets home in my sedan and avoid delivery charges.