plywood vs lumber core

Ron01960 | Posted in Wood and Materials on April 25, 2007 02:58am

I stopped in a supply house today to get 500 sq ft of cabinet grade plywood. They had 4X8 sheets.
I with help looked at the first 4 sheets of 4 bundles of ply, 5/8 & 3/4. worst I’d ever seen. delaminations, every place, none would lay flat. Both sides were scratched and filled.
The comment to my question, OK, wheres the good stuff? This is it. Nobody will pay the price for the good stuff. You could rip it and have rocking chair parts. What absolute crap.

They had Okume lumber core looked beautiful, but I’m now gun shy, should I be?
How much of a difference is there when comparing the two types of similar thicknesses.

I went to a friends cabinet shop and paid him his cost off his invoice.
I told him what I saw and he said I should just come to him. I just didn’t want to bother him. He buys in pallet quantity or how ever large amounts are crated.

I read the posts on china ply, all the bad things were present in the stacks we looked at. The smaller sizes 1/2 and 1/4, looked bad from six feet away…..

Thanks

Ron

Replies

blewcrowe | Apr 25, 2007 04:38pm | #1
In my area, we can't buy any good grade of ply anymore. The stuff in home dumpo is so crappy it's almost funny. I took to buying it internet from outfits like this ......

http://www.highlandhardwoods.com/hardwood-plywood.html and like this .........

http://woodnshop.com/HARDWOOD.htm

Usually ships in 24x48 sheets.

user-83153 | Apr 25, 2007 04:45pm | #2
Did you guys try a local lumber yard? I found a place near me that you can get A-2 Maple for $60 a sheet. They have their own cabinet shop and the plywood is supported well and covered to protect it from getting scratched. In other words they know how to treat good ply.

Rob

blewcrowe | Apr 25, 2007 05:01pm | #3
I did try two local yards. My question was followed by a long pause and a "Well, I guess we could order it." Figured I would just as well take my chances with a mail order company that specialized in hardwood plys. I haven't been disappointed. The only drawback is if you need large sheets, but in most cases, I'm even happier with the smaller sheets as they are more manageable.

Ron01960 | Apr 25, 2007 05:33pm | #4
Rob, even some cabinet shops have opted into the chinese-ply. Seems the lumber yards are in a squeze on quality vs sales. I'm an amateur, but I still have a higher quality threshold than this china-ply could achieve. If I was painting it it still would fall short. My question was core vs ply pros and cons.

blewcrowe, I still need larger than 2x4' sizes.

thanks

Ron

blewcrowe | Apr 25, 2007 08:26pm | #5
Ya good luck in your search. Finding materials seems to be becoming the bane of the business anymore.
CardiacPaul | Apr 26, 2007 04:09am | #6
I was shopping my regular lumber place & needed 3 sizes of oak plywood, 3/4"-5/8" & 1/4. The 3/4 & 5/8 were fine, but what hell happened to the 1/4"? The entire stack, maybe 15-20 sheets were so wavy not even the sheets on the bottom of the pile would lay flat. I've never seen that one before. Thankfully I can wait on the 1/4" for now & reshop it later.

Paul.

user-211435 | Apr 26, 2007 06:49am | #7
You should call Lumber Products in Tualatin, Oregon and ask them if they have a dealer anywhere near you. Their stuff is fantastic! Lumber Products is a large wholesale dealer, but they sell all over. They may even ship to you if you are a professional user.

Plan on paying for the difference in quality though.

Hal

http://www.rivercitywoodworks.com

Edited 4/25/2007 11:50 pm ET by Hal J

Edited 4/25/2007 11:51 pm ET by Hal J
tufenhundel | Apr 26, 2007 03:44pm | #8
OK, I'll be no help. But I heard this the other day from my lumber yard guy: The Chinese buys the raw lumber from us, brings it to their factory-on-a-ship off our coast, makes the ply, then ships it back to us!!!
frenchy | Apr 26, 2007 07:01pm | #9
Ron,

At the price you are paying and the difficulty you have in getting quality have you considered going back to solid wood?

I get a magazine called hardwood market report, it comes out weekly and has the sale price of hardwoods from sawmills.. these are actual prices paid and hardwood right now is in freefall! You didn't mention the variety of wood you buy but I can buy FAS quality white oak for example at 80 cents a bd.ft. that makes a 4x8 "sheet" cost only $25.60

True that's rough and green at the mill prices but heck I've seen prices of $75.00 for a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood. For the 50 dollars per sheet of potential savings you can buy an awful lot of machinery and hire some kid to run it for you for not a whole lot of that $50.00 savings.. Not only do you have a potential savings, but you could also market yourself to a more afluent clientel.

Sure you need to inventory a years worth of material in order to air dry it but if you build a kiln you can cut that down to a months worth of inventory at a time..