plywood

[michael a nelson]

im looking to build some shop cabinets and was looking online for cheap 3/4 inch plywood but cant seem to find any that are under 53.00 a sheet is their a place you prefer for plywood for shop projects or am i going to have to live with the price thanks in advance,mike

[David Hostetler]

You can get lucky at Home Depot occasionally. Not the same quality as the more expensive stuff of course, but around here Cabinet grade 3/4 ply goes for $24.99 / sheet. For shop projects it's fine... Just check the moisture content so you don't end up with a big potato chip when you cut it...

[Brian W Evans]

Many lumber yards have what is called "shop grade birch" which is what I usually get. I haven't bought any for a while so I don't know what prices are currently. The borgs are hit or miss and I've had some bad experiences. I don't want to spend my time on shop cabinets so I definitely don't want to spend my time fixing or redoing them because I bought cheap materials.

Stay away from underlayment - the price is right but you'll regret it. DAMHIKT.

Good luck.

[Victor Robinson]

I've found Arauco plywood (which is a Radiata pine core) to be a pretty decent deal if it's available in your area. In my neck of the woods, Lowes sells it, and HD did for a while. It was about $35 a sheet for 3/4". Relatively void-free and reasonably flat compared to the other crappy plywood the big box stores sell. Faces were a little more whiskery than say, birch ply, but tolerable for shop projects.

Plywood prices have gone up considerably in the last 5 years.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I have had luck buying 3/4" A-C plywood at a local lumberyard for about $35 per sheet. I would not stain it but it paints well and has worked well for my shop cabinets.

[Larry Frank]

I just built a bunch of shop cabinets Euro style out of the Aruaco plywood. I was very happy with it. I finished it with oil based poly which gave is a golden color. I got mine at Menards which is an upper midwest big box store. I believe that I paid just under $35 for a 3/4" sheet and bought about 20 sheets. I like they way that they store it so that it is flat. I have stopped buying at HD because they store on racks with arms and the plywood takes on a out of flat set.

[David Thompson 27577]

im looking to build some shop cabinets and was looking online for cheap 3/4 inch plywood but cant seem to find any that are under 53.00 a sheet is their a place you prefer for plywood for shop projects or am i going to have to live with the price thanks in advance,mike

Make some calls to the local lumber yards -- not the big box stores, but the real lumber yards. Ask them for their price for 3/4 birch ply. Here in the sandhills of NC, the going rate is about $33.

[michael a nelson]

thanks everyone i found some shop grade maple ply at my lumberyard for 24.00 a sheet

[Kevin Stricker]

All the "cheap" birch ply around here is imported from China. Not such a big deal I guess except that it warps like crazy once cut and has a paper thin veneer that likes to delam around the edges. I can get the Aruco from HD for $26 a sheet but it tends to warp too. It does have a nice thick face veneer and both the face and edges sand buttery smooth and is almost void free so for shop cabinets you can skip the edge banding if you like. The veneer tends to check so stain or paint looks just OK, if you just give it some oil poly it looks pretty good. Out of the 50 or so sheets of Aruco I have bought I can only remember a few that didn't move on me once cut, so it's not cut out for doors but works OK for cabinets.

I prefer to pay the extra cash and get a quality birch/bass ply that is more predictable or just build out of MDF.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I picked up three sheets of 3/4" oak ply at the Menards down in Massillon for about $35 a sheet. (Tigerply?)
It's not bad - but - you get what you pay for.
In this case, it's that you don't get a full 4' x 8' sheet.
The sheets are only 47" wide.
Stupid me failed to measure the actual width before I cut into one.....

[Gregory King]

It just happens that I bought my first two sheets of the 3/4"Arauco ply a few weeks ago. Never knew there was anything cheaper than the G1S fir, which runs close to fifty bucks here. The Arauco came in at $39. I painted both sides for some shelves in my daughter's classroom. There were a couple of voids on the back which needed a shot of wood filler. All told, pretty decent stuff.

[Bruce Wrenn]

It just happens that I bought my first two sheets of the 3/4"Arauco ply a few weeks ago. Never knew there was anything cheaper than the G1S fir, which runs close to fifty bucks here. The Arauco came in at $39. I painted both sides for some shelves in my daughter's classroom. There were a couple of voids on the back which needed a shot of wood filler. All told, pretty decent stuff.HD regularly has this for $24.99.