Opinions on cabinet plywood grades/quality

MaineShop said:
I have used a mountain of the pre finished from columbia, it is excellent stuff and running about 100ish a sheet to by by the lift. I can also get 5x5 baltic birch from my local lumber yard for around 70ish for a 3/4 sheet. Or I can get unfinished columbia at my local HD for around 55ish. I can tell you you get what you pay for. the prefinished is worth it every time in my book. My local lumber yard also has prefinished vietnames "birch" that they sell for 60 a sheet for prefinished, its ok but the finish is no where near as good as the columbia, and the columbia is purebond so far less harsh on the chemicals
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Thank you [member=32538]MaineShop[/member] .  That is pretty close to what I have here.  I have a ;umber yard, about 60 miles away.  The only prefinished they have is the Asian version.  He said he sells a lot of it but I am not comfortable taking the chance.  I have already seen the value of prefinished so I don't have a problem with the extra cost from the Columbia products.  Thanks for the confirmation on Columbia.
 
This is a timely discussion.  [smile]

The last couple of days I've been cutting up ply for carcasses. I purchased this stuff from Menards, it's called Tigerply. It's actually 18 mm thick, it runs .702"-.706" even though it's labeled & sold as 3/4" material.

[attachimg=1]

It's a 7-ply, poplar core, pre-finished European birch with a 4-coat (2 per side) UV cured epoxy acrylate finish. Each top birch veneer is .015" thick with no plugs or knots. The stuff is rather nice especially for carcass building. Everything's flat and extremely square and a 4 x 8 sheet was only $49. Here are a couple of photos.

The only issue thus far is that the coating does scratch rather easily. Maybe they can be touched up with some wipe-on poly?

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[attachimg=3]
 

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Cheese said:
This is a timely discussion.  [smile]

The last couple of days I've been cutting up ply for carcasses. I purchased this stuff from Menards, it's called Tigerply. It's actually 18 mm thick, it runs .702"-.706" even though it's labeled & sold as 3/4" material.

It's a 7-ply, poplar core, pre-finished European birch with a 4-coat (2 per side) UV cured epoxy acrylate finish. Each top birch veneer is .015" thick with no plugs or knots. The stuff is rather nice especially for carcass building. Everything's flat and extremely square and a 4 x 8 sheet was only $49. Here are a couple of photos.

The only issue thus far is that the coating does scratch rather easily. Maybe they can be touched up with some wipe-on poly?
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Thanks Cheese, $49 pre-finished seems like a great deal.  The closes Menards is a couple hundred miles away.  Have heard they have good deals there.
 
New here, new to woodworking.  Longtime lurker, just acquiring the needed tools to get started.

Hopefully in the vein of the OP...What is the minimum quality you'd accept for painted (non-shop) cabinets?  What's your floor for plywood that is too nice to paint?

 
My go to plywood is a 3/4 domestic shop birch. it does have some boats on te surface but if you plan right a can cut correctly you wont notice te boats. depending on what they get in some times the shop grade is better than the better quality graded ply. Very good for painted projects.
 
Tiger ply is absolute crap it has voids and smells terrible when cut. I have also had several sheets delaminate on me. I would never buy again.
 
I was finally able to submit an order to Home Depot, which they source through Columbia Forest products.  I got 7 sheets of 3/4 and 5 sheets of 1/4.  Its BB grade, both sides finished (3/4 only), and in Maple.  I have no idea what its going to look like but I got my fingers crossed.
 
Rick Herrick said:
I was finally able to submit an order to Home Depot, which they source through Columbia Forest products.  I got 7 sheets of 3/4 and 5 sheets of 1/4.  Its BB grade, both sides finished (3/4 only), and in Maple.  I have no idea what its going to look like but I got my fingers crossed.
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Hi Rick, I'm wondering how that worked out for you - are you happy with the plywood you received?
 
Did you specify rotary cut, plain sawn, quarter sawn, regular sawn, etc.?

On many species of wood these can  make a world of difference.  On birch, not much difference; on maple more.

If you click the link on my post above you will see images comparing the grain.  Rotary cut for oak looks awful in my opinion, OK in birch and maple.  It is the least expensive veneer.
 
AlexGn said:
Hi Rick, I'm wondering how that worked out for you - are you happy with the plywood you received?
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[member=73911]AlexGn[/member] I am just finishing up the last of 3 projects with this plywood.  It took a week longer than expected to get it because my sales rep at HD was on vacation.

I got the 7 sheets of 3/4 BB grade Maple (both sides prefinished) for $115 per.  Four sheets of 1/4" C3 grade Maple (one side finished) for $56 per.  I figured at this grade and price I could just grab a sheet and begin but it wasn't the case.  I had multiple sheets with big scratches in the middle.  I had about a dozen places where it appeared to be bubbling, like it had gotten wet at some point.  Some of those I could actually feel but others it still seemed smooth.  I had a couple of places where I could see ghosting of what looked like a 'banding or strapping' mark.  Even though both sides were BB grade, one side would be much darker than the other.

I am almost done with my three projects and my wife likes them a lot.  I got to use every Festool piece I have purchased in 2020 so that was cool.

The Columbia reps were good people and appeared to be concerned over the lack of quality control at the mill.  They offered me a $150 gift card, which I took.  Looking back, I don't think it was enough.  There is a skill in going through a sheet and working around defects and I need to get better at that.

All in all I am happy with my results but I don't think I will use that supplier again unless I can physically go pick out each sheet myself and I don't think thats an option.
 
[member=72312]Rick Herrick[/member] Thank you, I'm glad your project is working out well but it's disappointing that even higher grade plywood came with that many issues. My local wood store recently got acquired by a larger chain and I'm trying to figure out my backup plan in case they decide to stop selling to retail customers like me.
 
My experience has been that buying plywood from a dedicated supplier rather than a big box store solves most of these issues.  The supplier I use primarily services cabinet shops and in addition to Garnica and Columbia sheet goods they carry cabinet related hardware like hinges and drawer slides.  I have never had a sheet pulled from their racks with significant defects, so it seems that one thing you get for their slightly higher prices is that they have culled any dodgy material they receive from the manufacturers.  My experience at Home Depot is that it can be difficult to get in store help.  Since I have a basement shop with a two turn staircase there is no way a 4'x8' sheet goes down whole so I take a cut sheet and each piece gets one cut.  My supplier does this quickly and accurately and helps me load up after the purchase.  HD is fine for buying commodity items and supplies but for lumber and sheet goods their material is dodgy and overpriced for what you get.
 
kevinculle said:
My experience has been that buying plywood from a dedicated supplier rather than a big box store solves most of these issues.  The supplier I use primarily services cabinet shops and in addition to Garnica and Columbia sheet goods they carry cabinet related hardware like hinges and drawer slides.  I have never had a sheet pulled from their racks with significant defects, so it seems that one thing you get for their slightly higher prices is that they have culled any dodgy material they receive from the manufacturers.  My experience at Home Depot is that it can be difficult to get in store help.  Since I have a basement shop with a two turn staircase there is no way a 4'x8' sheet goes down whole so I take a cut sheet and each piece gets one cut.  My supplier does this quickly and accurately and helps me load up after the purchase.  HD is fine for buying commodity items and supplies but for lumber and sheet goods their material is dodgy and overpriced for what you get.
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Home Depot marketing strategy is give away the tools as a loss leader. They markup hardware, lumber, paint, building materials, cabinets. Etc. Their lumber leaves something to be desired. It’s ok for 2x4s and fence pickets if you can cherry pick the heap. Now a days construction lumber is expensive. I always go to a specialty lumber store/yard to get Baltic Birch 🌳 or any finish quality sheet good.
 
I have used independent Lumber stores as well as HD's Columbia Birch and Maple plywoods. In all honestly there is nothing better than actually inspecting every piece yourself as it will save you a ton of headache during the build. The HD's Columbia plywood is good but you need to sort trough the entire stack to find good or passable for work ones. For example I have to look through about 15 sheets or so to find 3-5 good ones. I always have another person with me sorting through the sheets and rent a HD truck and get about 10 sheets of 3/4" for carcass construction, about 4-5 sheets of 1/2" for drawers and such and about 4 sheets of 5mm underlayment plywood. The key in cost saving is with the 5mm underlayment ply, pick to find good enough looking face, less than half the cost of a 1/4" columbia birch/maple ply.

Independent lumber store near me had great white birch ply, B2 and it was back in the day about a 1-2 years ago was $50 a 3/4" 4x8 sheet. However, the outer veneer was extremely thin compared to the Columbia outer veneer a good thickness and was less than 23/32, felt like 21/32
 
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