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I'm building a kitchen island using the prefinished UV birch plywood from Menards. Seems like good material. I plan to sand and paint the exterior, leaving the existing finish just on the interior.
I've never worked with this stuff before and one of the issues I've encountered is the finish tends to splinter off when I make a cut. The biggest problem is in some dadoes I cut inside the cabinet. Nothing structural, but not pretty. The thought occurred to me that dribbling a little super glue along the splintered edges might seal down the splinters and may even dress it up a little. I was wondering whether there is a time proven method of repair. I didn't have much problem on straight cuts, but the dado tore it up a little. All advice appreciated!
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There isn't much of a method to fix that. I actually find that prefinished plywood chips and tears out less than regular plywood, though I haven't cut many dado channels in it.
For future reference, when cutting them with a stack on a table saw, make the first pass at around 1/64". This will just score the top veneer, and you can either eliminate or greatly reduce tearout by doing that.
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Here is a couple ideas, no guarantees. You can use masking tape over the cut before you make it. You can also score the cut with a utility knife before sawing. Sometimes you have better luck using a router than a saw, but if doing a dado, you might need to make multiple cuts because you may not have the correct size bit.
Might be more suggestions coming along,
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(09-06-2022, 08:53 PM)FS7 Wrote: There isn't much of a method to fix that. I actually find that prefinished plywood chips and tears out less than regular plywood, though I haven't cut many dado channels in it.
For future reference, when cutting them with a stack on a table saw, make the first pass at around 1/64". This will just score the top veneer, and you can either eliminate or greatly reduce tearout by doing that.
Yup, scoring them first would have been smart. Truth be known, I was a little apprehensive about feeding the 3x6 sheet through the saw at all - just a big piece to handle. Thanks for the reply!
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(09-06-2022, 08:56 PM)toolmiser Wrote: Here is a couple ideas, no guarantees. You can use masking tape over the cut before you make it. You can also score the cut with a utility knife before sawing. Sometimes you have better luck using a router than a saw, but if doing a dado, you might need to make multiple cuts because you may not have the correct size bit.
Might be more suggestions coming along, 20/20 hindsight, I think a router may have been the way to go. Somebody smart once said "the larger the work piece the bigger the advantage of bringing the tool to the work - as opposed to the work to the tool" ... or some such thing. Unfortunately, I don't have an undersized 3/4" router bit that would have let me make one pass.
I can verify that the tape trick didn't work, at least for me. The finish still splintered and most of the splinters came off when I pulled the tape. No real harm done. I plan to put pull out shelves in the bottom of the cabinet so the splintering will be well hidden! Thank you.
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I'm building an entire kitchen out of the prefinished Maple plywood. I used a freshly sharpened Forest Woodworker II blade on my tablesaw, and got extremely clean cuts on both sides. Check your blade sharpness. Barring that, maybe blue tape along the cutline first.
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My guess is along the lines mound mentioned...is the dado set sharp? I've cut a fair number of dadoes in prefinished ply and not had a problem.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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Why are you cutting dados?
Just screw the boxes together...
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09-07-2022, 03:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2022, 04:03 PM by ed kerns.)
(09-07-2022, 06:55 AM)mound Wrote: I'm building an entire kitchen out of the prefinished Maple plywood. I used a freshly sharpened Forest Woodworker II blade on my tablesaw, and got extremely clean cuts on both sides. Check your blade sharpness. Barring that, maybe blue tape along the cutline first.
Entirely possible the dado blade isn't very sharp. I don't cut dados very often, but the stack is years old and I have never sharpened it. The blue tape trick didn't work. I've not had troubles with a sharp Diablo blade either.
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(09-07-2022, 12:05 PM)rwe2156 Wrote: Why are you cutting dados?
Just screw the boxes together...
Well, I'm not a cabinet maker by trade. I am normally a glue it and screw it guy, but given the finish on the plywood, I don't think glue would do much. Insetting the dividers into dados may not be standard procedure, but I guarantee these boxes will never come apart.
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