Prefinished Plywood

[lincmercguy]

Is the prefinished birch plywood from Menards any good? This would be used for cabinets in the house, not furniture. In the past, I've used Home Depot maple plywood, which was fine as long as you cut off the edge a bit. I'm looking to cut out the time required to finish the plywood. Maple would be preferable, but birch would work.

I'm also open to other sources in the Front Range area. I haven't called Paxton yet. Based on what they normally charge for plywood, I'm scared. I know it's not something they stock, but I'm sure they could order.

Also, is it wrong to build upper cabinets from 3/4" plywood? Seems silly to use a different size.

[Curlycherry]

I would use nothing but 3/4" plywood for upper cabinets. Ever lift a stack of dishes 6-8" high and feel the weight? When I make my uppers I make them out of 3/4" plywood, and I dado the bottoms, rabbett the tops, rabbet the back onto them and I glue and screw the things to oblivion. I've never ever had one fall off the wall. Yet I have seen and been asked to fix 1/2" cabinets that fell off, even ones that were sitting on a cleat. Ever see a kid pull a chair up to a set of cabinets and use the upper cabinet to pull themselves up so they can stand on the countertop? I have. No imagine the cabinet being pulled off the wall. I've heard of that happening twice because I replaced the cabinets in one case, and rebuilt the other ones in another case.

I saw some 1/2" ones made by a woodworker recently and his comment was "we won't be putting heavy stuff in those upper cabinets so 1/2" is fine." The cabinets in his current house are stuffed top to bottom with stuff. How he thinks his family is suddenly going to change how they store stuff is a mystery to me. He'll be scraping on of his cabinets up off the floor in no time. He used prefinished plywood, no screws, just staples and no glue. Even if he used glue the prefinished plywood would prevent it from sticking.

[handi]

I cannot speak to Menards plywood, but in the cabinet shop we used to use mostly prefinished ply. The finish is literally poured on and UV cured. It is not only much tougher than you can do at home, it is much tougher than 90% of cabinet shops can achieve using a full spray room and conversion varnish.

When we needed a clean face to paint or stain, the only reasonable way to remove the finish was in the wide belt sander!

Ralph

[fredhargis]

I've not used the Menard's prefinished, but I examined it closely in the store (this was when they first started carrying it). While the finish looked plenty good, the plies looked like what you might see on Chinese ply...that is, they overlapped in place and were crushed to thickness. Since the Menard's price wasn't very different than the Columbia Forest Products prefinished I normally use, I passed on it. You can call Columbia and they will give you a stocking dealer nearby, if there is one, their prefinished is absolutely top quality, and the finish is so tough it's very hard to damage when handling it. Also, if the Menard's ply is finished both side, you might prefer the finished one side stuff (CFP offers both). This pic IS NOT the Menard's prefinished, but it's the type of plies I saw at my store in their prefinished. It might still make perfectly fine cabinets, If you want to try it, buy one sheet and work with it a bit to see if you find it acceptable. Also, they may have changed suppliers, so the recent stuff might be nicer..

[Curlycherry]

Columbia prefinished dropped in quality in the last year or so. It was top knotch but the stuff I saw recently had horrible voids in the finished surface on the B side. I will agree that there is nothing stronger than that SiCarbide finish. The flip side is no glue will stick to it either so that has to be factored in.

[John Mihich]

I use it w/o and trouble. At Menards the price is good also. I use it for cabinet carcasses and just about everything now.

Time will tell if it really holds up though. I have not come across any issues with finish.

[Splinter Puller]

I've used it for the carcasses on a couple kitchens worth of cabinets. On about every tenth sheet there will be some delamination or impressions in the surface so look at the sheets carefully.

Also... the finish is fairly brittle. You can hook a sharp edge and tear off a good sized flake if your not careful. Other then that, its wonderful. I've used the 3/4" in stock material and also special ordered 1/2" and 1/4" sheets.

Its much better then finishing your own cabinet interiors.

[John Mihich]

Yes - I forgot about the cutting. The end grain will chip more. The long grain seems to cut fine. I tried scoring the cuts - finish is really hard to do that.

I haven't tried taping the cut first. When I cut any plywood I try make sure the good side (side to be seen) it up on the TS and down is I am using a CS. That prefinished stuff - sharp blades for sure.

[Splinter Puller]

John Mihich said:

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Yes - I forgot about the cutting. The end grain will chip more. The long grain seems to cut fine. I tried scoring the cuts - finish is really hard to do that.

I haven't tried taping the cut first. When I cut any plywood I try make sure the good side (side to be seen) it up on the TS and down is I am using a CS. That prefinished stuff - sharp blades for sure.

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I did not have problems with cutting because I used a fresh high quality carbide blade. The only problem I had was when I was dragging a carcase around and snagged a sharp edge or something. I got used to hitting the corners of the edges with my big edge sander for a second or two to put a micro bevel on all the sharp edges.

I did use my jigsaw quit a bit to reduce full size panels. I'd leave an 1/8" to the line and then clean up the cut with the tablesaw or the sander. I did not see too much chip out with the jig saw.

If you use a belt sander to flush up or scribe a panel and you get it too perpendicular you would sometimes flake off the finish so keep it inline with the edge.

[fredhargis]

Well, to correct something I mentioned above, the current Menard's price on prefinished 3/4" is $42 at one local store I was in this morning. They must have dropped the price, or I remember it wrong...but I thought they were getting about $55. This store was out of the stuff so I didn't get to look at it again. But that makes it quite a bit cheaper than the $60 or so I pay for CFP.