# Plywood movement?



## IcemanSam (Feb 8, 2008)

I have been working on an assembly table and came across a problem. I bought some cheaper blondwood 3/4" ply and after cutting into 4"x35" strips it has started bowing down the length. The bow is not noticeable as a whole 4×8 sheet, but after cutting it is extremely bowed. Is this normal? I have never come across this issue before and was wondering how to stop this from happening.


----------



## motthunter (Dec 31, 2007)

unfortunately, plywood tends to be worth what you pay for it.

Every time I try to save a buck and go with the lower price stuff, I end up losing.


----------



## khop (May 2, 2008)

I ran into the same problem recently with cheep birch plywood. Besides bowing, I cut a piece 2'x3' and when I layed it on the bench, I heard a loud crack. The plys separated almost all the way through. No doubt, you get what you pay for.
KHOP


----------



## IcemanSam (Feb 8, 2008)

Well, I can say I won't be buying this plywood again.


----------



## tenontim (Feb 24, 2008)

Sam, if you're going to be edging it with some solid stock, you should be able to get the bow out, or you may have to flip one over and face glue it to another one, so they counter-act each other, to get a straight piece.
I think almost all of the plywood is bowing now days. I bought some $80 a sheet ash plywood and it even gets a little bow to it when you cut it down.


----------



## Hazspec (Feb 22, 2008)

Gentlemen it seems I am reading a lot on plywood problems and quality. I can tell you from a friend of mine here in Canada, China is shipping a lot of it here to North America. I had always thought that we had the trees and species of maple, birch and oak to make it but apparently the China has got mills to produce it My buddy has had a lumber yard for 25 years and he is now seeing the difference. Many of the plys have void spaces; small warps and uneven layering. When I buy my plywood I'll check the side for a stamped "Made in Canada"


----------



## Dadoo (Jun 23, 2007)

http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/313

Sorry 'bout your loss bro! Try and return it. I was able to get my money back. But at the advice of Awood (above), I too check to see where it's from for now on. I won't buy that Chinese plywood again.


----------



## Slacker (Apr 7, 2008)

Here's the result of cutting some pins into Home Depot plywood… the piece was scored with a knife at the depth of the pin to avoid tearout.









I have been noticing that there are many voids in the plywood that I get from Home Depot, and they even have overlaps in the plys. This is not what they showed in How its made when they had the episode on plywood. I can just see them chinese folks, laughing all the way to the bank at the fools over here who will pay overprice for any piece of panda doo.

I am not real fond of globalization… from what I have seen, its where the US gives everything up so that they can take our industries, make things with poor quality, and sell them back to us.


----------



## IcemanSam (Feb 8, 2008)

I am going to attaempt to take the sheets back to Lowes this weekend. Cross your fingers for me. I think I will be better off spending the extra money and drive to the Fine Lumber and Plywood and paying a little more for the quality. Thanks for all your advice and concerns.


----------



## Slacker (Apr 7, 2008)

Last week I wrote Home Depot customer service expressing my dissatisfaction with their lumber. I got a $25 gift card for my trouble. I think someone else also got a gift certificate for complaining for something at Home Depot.

How many $25 gift certificates will it take them before they actually pay attention? Anyone care to find out? You know what you need to do… go to homedepot dot com, find customer service at the bottom of the page, and follow the links.


----------



## herg1 (Mar 27, 2008)

A couple of months ago I wrote to HD and told them of observing one of their Department Managers slamming two different dollies into a stack of plywood. I confronted the individual and told him I now knew why the edges were damaged. He just giggled and said OH.

HD Customer Service called me and said they were going to send a gift card for my trouble and I'm still waiting. I agree with all of you that the products we now get are of very poor quality and way over priced.


----------



## dalec (Oct 3, 2007)

A bit disconcerting to me is that I ended up with two half sheets of birch ply that came off the truck when the cabinet shop delivered our cabinets. They left it, so I dutifully stored them for future use. I finally decided to build a cabinet stand for my bench saw. Turned out the ply had voids, even from a cabinet shop! Not sure what it says about the ply used for our cabinets. They look good, but!

Dalec


----------



## Taigert (Nov 20, 2007)

The worst part of this is that they take our raw logs from here and send them to China. They turn them into plywood and senf it back here to sell. The labor is so cheap over in China they still make money. 
I was told that they don't dry the veneer properly before laminating it and that is one of the major problems that is causing the warping and delamination. Plus they dont have the quality controls.


----------



## benhasajeep (May 9, 2008)

The logs don't even go across the ocean. They have ships sitting off shore outside our territorial waters. They get the logs, mill on the ship and send it right back to us. Its a huge slap in the face of our country and skirting around our minimum wage laws. Thing is how long have the workers been on those ships??


----------



## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

In 30 years in this trade, I have yet to see plywood that is without "voids" that "doesnt warp", "twist" "curl". I just got about 12 sheets of 3/4 and 5 sheets of 1/2" maple veneered plywood " made in Canada, bought from a "reputable" wholesaler…..........voids and maybe not as warped as that which you buy from the big box stores, but all the same it sure isnt as flat as still water.

I used the "real baltic birch" for some drawers and used the blum motion guides. Frustration mounted because some drawers worked perfect while others didnt. Using a caliper I found that the thickness of the "good stuff varied by up to 2 mm…..........which caused the problems.

Thus the beauty of MDF, particle board, and solid wood.


----------



## tenontim (Feb 24, 2008)

I have a friend in the lumber business that told me the same thing that Ben mentioned. Another reason they do the manufacturing off shore is they don't have to worry about environment issues. Just dump everything over the side, the fish can go somewhere else to live.


----------



## saddlesore (Oct 17, 2007)

How much ply veneer can they hold on the ships for proper drying to occur? No wonder the plys curl so qucikly. I don't want to get political, but it's really about time we started enforcing the trade laws that are in effect, and implement new ones as needed. The IOC should have never granted China the Summer Games with their trade practices, not to mention their human rights record. That said, I don't want our leaders to "go Carter" on us and deny the athletes the opportunity to compete.


----------



## anotherbrick (May 22, 2008)

The logs don't even go across the ocean. They have ships sitting off shore outside our territorial waters. They get the logs, mill on the ship and send it right back to us. Its a huge slap in the face of our country and skirting around our minimum wage laws. Thing is how long have the workers been on those ships??

-Ben, Living the good life in Maine now (almost, just need to retire in 2 decades time)
------------------------------------------

I don't know who tell you about these, but please think about these again. 
First, chinese plywood industry mainly use 4 types of logs as material: poplar(domestic), birch(from demestic and russia),tropic hardwood(from indonesia and africa), radiata pine( from new zealand). most logs come from USA are used in furniture industry and chinese domestic decorating market, only a little be used as face veneer in plywood industry.
Second, a mill on the ship is impossible. if we build a plywood mill on a ship, the cost of plywood will be very high. double or more salary must be paid, or no one are willing to work on the sea. how milsl store foods, vegetable and meats? mills must pay a big money to rent ships,pay for gasoline…....

i'm chinese and in chinese plywood industry, we always try to produce plywood as good as american plywood. i know many low level plywood are exporting to overseas market, but there are also many good quality plywood are sold to oversea(include USA). It's truth that large quantity of chinese plywood are sold in USA market, but have you seen a chinese brand on a chinese plywood? There are over 3000 plywood factories in china,plywood from some factories are good,some are bad. Importers from USA are also different on quality control,some pay attention to quality and some only pay attention to the cost. For some reason, most chinese plywood supplier don't have capability to directly sell plywood on USA market with their own brands. They sell their plywood to USA importers with importers' brand. A USA importer normally buy plywood from many factories, then good plywood and bad plywood are mixed. So you directly users can not distinguish which is good and which is bad, you just know you'd bought a "made in china" plywood sheet.

If you are interested, i'll tell you some skill about how to distinguish a good or bad chinese plywood.


----------



## JohnGray (Oct 6, 2007)

Anotherbrick PLEASE tell us how to distinguish the good from the bad. I'm sure the folks here would ve very interested.


----------



## Dadoo (Jun 23, 2007)

*"Importers from USA are also different on quality control,some pay attention to quality and some only pay attention to the cost."*

We all face the same problem with obtaining poor quality and I'm sure this post, as well as my review on Chinese Plywood was not intended to discredit the whole industry. It was posted to advise our fellow woodworkers of the quality of sheet goods being offered by our local big box stores. As you stated above "some pay attention to quality and some only pay attention to the cost." Unfortunately Chinese "quality" suffers here in North America because of the American/Canadian buyers who are interested only in cost.

The plywood I had purchased though was of a "cabinet grade" quality and turned out to be some of the worst stuff I have ever used. And although I have some large pieces of scrap lying about, I really do not know what I can use it for. At this time I'm attempting on using small blocks of it in a camper table…maybe I'm a glutton for punishment and maybe I believe there might be a use for this poor product. And probably it will end up in the bonfire.


----------



## anotherbrick (May 22, 2008)

Thanks to John Gray and Dadoo, i just see your reply. 
here's some skill to distinguish the good plywood from the bad:
1,moisture content: the mc of cabinet grade plywood is not more than 14%,most of them not more than 12%
2,voids: cabinet grade have less voids inside; but if you see a 4'by8' chinese plywood have almostly no split or void on the side or you see a plywood full of putty on the side,don't buy it. It maybe a feint.normally we don't decorate the side of cabinet grade plywood,becuse it don't have big voids.
3,smell it: you can't smell formaldehyde from a cabinet grade plywood
4,face/back: most of okoume/maranti face/back plywoods is industry grade. if a chinese plywood have a B or C grade birch or poplar face or oak face,maybe it's cabinet grade plywood

Here in China is midnight now and i'll go to bed. I'll post a detailed guide later. I can't promise you can 100% avoid buy bad plywood follow these suggestion, but you can reduce the loss when purchase plywood(bad plywood isn't only from china).


----------



## rtdersch (May 12, 2008)

NT.


----------



## jcash3 (Dec 15, 2007)

There's a cabinet maker in jackson, ms that got a shipment of birch plywood that turned out to be manufactured in china. When he unstrapped it, the top sheet curled up more than an inch on both 4' sides . So he flipped it over and thought it might flatten back out, in less than an hour it had flattened and then curled up in the other direction. Now explain that one to me. He hates chinese plywood, he's honest and says that there is problems with both domestic and imported materials, but he's had more trouble with the chinese goods.
I've had trouble with it too, and personally I'm going to avoid it as often as I can


----------



## Slacker (Apr 7, 2008)

Well, the ones Home Depot buys are from Zinyan or something like this, which sounds chinese. They're not from mixed companies, as they all have the same sticker. As far as I am concerned, this is not an issue with the chinese, but with Home Depot for buying (or rather, buying without testing or verifying the quality of the product). I can relate to finding the low price supplier, but at some point, you start buying crap.

Where I'm from, they say that if you make your bed, you have to sleep on it. The chinese have managed to create quite a reputation here due to poor quality and lack of concern for human safety. So, if I think chinese plywood is crappy, its due to preconceived notions which the chinese have earned.


----------



## saddlesore (Oct 17, 2007)

Slacker you are right to primarily blame the buyers from big orange and big blue. And anotherbrick, I can't wait for you to further enlighten us on what to watch for (other thant the obvious), in bad plywood!


----------



## anotherbrick (May 22, 2008)

joey, the reason of twisting problem of plywood is: 1, not dry veneers before hot press them; 2, big moisture content; 3, semi-manufactured goods don't have enough time to release inner stress and balance the moisture content before add face/back veneer on it; 4,the temperature is low when hot pressing plywoods; 
please let your supplier to pay attention to these point, if mills follow right produce and use right technique, they can provide eligible plywood to you. 
i feel sorry about yours and your friend's experience when using chinese plywood.


----------



## jcash3 (Dec 15, 2007)

from what you say anotherbrick, it sounds like it's the chinese who are causing the problem by not drying the veneers properly. Maybe if the spend more time on quality control there wouldn't be these problems.


----------



## Slacker (Apr 7, 2008)

Today I got my $25 gift card from Home Depot for writing them and expressing my concerns about the chinese plywood (sorry, anotherbrick… it is what it is). Going to use it to buy some boards to build the newfangled workbench.

Also, kudos to Woodcraft in Orlando for their honesty. Saw some birch plywood on sale, noticed the excessive use of putty, and asked them if that was chinese plywood. To their entire credit, and knowing where I was coming from, they apologized and said yes. That plywood has been sitting outside their store for a while.

And on another front, I heard that the japanese also buy wood from us, which is delivered to a factory ship where it is veneered on the way back to Japan… not sure if the veneers are assembled into plywood while en route. So, its not just the chinese…


----------

