3/4 inch Maple Plywood @ Home Depot

[John Respass]

Home Depot in my area is carrying 3/4 maple plywood.

The maple veneer ia pretty thin but it does have 11 plys in the core. The edge says "Made in China" and the price is about $30.00 for a 4x8 sheet.

I was thinking about using it place of 3/4 MDF for my shop cabinets.

Does anyone have comments as to its quality?

[Mark Rios]

If it's like the stuff at my local Home Depot then it's maple on one side and birch on the other. I love it. Once in a while there is a piece that bows but 99% of them are flat and stay flat. Very nice to work with. Every once in a while there is a stray void but they are rare. I've made a lot of nice shop projects with it (i.e. roll-around work tables and cabinets). It should do nicely for nicer finish work as well. They want $35 for it around here. Sometimes you get some really nice grain patterns.

[Gail O'Rourke]

You don't see it very often, but when you do, it is great shop grade and scoop it up for the price.

[Scott Parks]

Again, great shop grade. I made my shop cabs out of it. I also made some built-ins for my daughter's room with it recently. My only complaint is that the top veneer chips off really easy at the edges.

[Mike Cutler]

I hate to be the lone voice of dissent, but if it is the same stuff I got 5 or 6 years ago, you may not be very happy.
I used it for shop cabinets and outfeed tables, and router tables at the time. It was gorgeous. I have replaced almost all of due to warping and cupping and just being generally unstable.
At the time I hated MDF. Now that is the material that has replaced the Chinese made maple ply.
I gotta admit, it was pretty though.
I hate to be the wet blanket here, maybe the quality has changed.

[Todd Franks]

I'll second Mike's comments. I bought some sheets of 11-ply maple plywood from HD a few months ago for a miter saw stand I was building. At the store the sheets appeared to be fairly flat. Two weeks later when I was breaking them down, I noticed a lot of the parts were ending up warped, cupped, and twisted. I was able to salvage some of the parts that could be made flat again by being held captive by another part. The free floating outrigger wings I had to scrap (1/4" cup in 24"). Looking at the plies I noticed they were not consistent. There were lots of voids, the ply thicknesses varied. Some of the veneers that made up a particular ply overlapped, and where just smashed into submission (see picture). The price may be great and it looks nice, but the quality is reflected by the price. The price is not so great when you have to throw some of it away. There may be situations where it can be used, but I won't be buying it anymore.

[Mark Singer]

Mike is correct there is a lot of bad import ply out tere and some of it is great some is bad and unstable. I just bought 3/4" prefinished veneer core import (China) for $45.00 each. The stuff is finished in USA with a laquer ...beautiful...no voids on the edges. My salesman at Weber Plywood has been selling a lot of it and no complaints.. Maybe the finish is the key...It saves a lot of time having it prefinished for making cabinets.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I use it all the time...be careful around the edges as the veneer will pull up on ya. Other than that, the quality is good enough for most paint grade projects. For $35-40 you can get much better 'shop grade' ply at your hardwood dealer.

[John Respass]

Thanks.

I bought a sheet and I plan to let it sit for a month or so to see if it dimensionally stable before I use it.

If it starts to warp, I'll post a follow-up note.

[Gilbert Vega]

Thanks.

I bought a sheet and I plan to let it sit for a month or so to see if it dimensionally stable before I use it.

If it starts to warp, I'll post a follow-up note.

I've used the same plywood to make all my shop cainets, some over 6 years ago and there is absolutely no problem in stability. I grab some when it goes on sale for around $27 a sheet.

[Scott Parks]

I'll second Mike's comments. I bought some sheets of 11-ply maple plywood from HD a few months ago for a miter saw stand I was building. At the store the sheets appeared to be fairly flat. Two weeks later when I was breaking them down, I noticed a lot of the parts were ending up warped, cupped, and twisted. I was able to salvage some of the parts that could be made flat again by being held captive by another part. The free floating outrigger wings I had to scrap (1/4" cup in 24"). Looking at the plies I noticed they were not consistent. There were lots of voids, the ply thicknesses varied. Some of the veneers that made up a particular ply overlapped, and where just smashed into submission (see picture). The price may be great and it looks nice, but the quality is reflected by the price. The price is not so great when you have to throw some of it away. There may be situations where it can be used, but I won't be buying it anymore.

Gee, Tod, we must shop at the same HD, because the last batch I bought was also inconsistant. Mine varied in thickness, and lots of voids. Tears out really bad when crosscutting dadoes. But for cheap shop cabs, I'm not complaing. Wouldn't use it in fine furniture, though....

[Travis Porter]

I agree with the "dissenters". Looked at it this weekend and over half of it had layers seperating. Wanted to buy it, but didn't want to fish through a stack of 30 sheets to find 1 good sheet so I spent more and bought the birch.

[Steven Wilson]

I look for when our HD carries Columbia Forrest Products brand B/C (sometimes better) birch plywood and use that for my shop projects - no warping, cheap and I like the look better than maple or oak.

[John Cavanaugh]

I bought 3 sheets of this stuff about 2 weeks ago. It has been sitting in my garage since then. Last night I was moving some stuff around and noticed that they were starting to warp and get wavy.

Ugh. Im gonna have to return these things. Its too bad, I thought I found a good reasonably priced cabinet grade plywood. I guess like most things in life, if it seems to good to be true it probably is...

--
John C

[Joe Scarfo]

I've built my Norm router table out of the stuff and helped a bud build a few shop cabs too.

They're holding up great....

Thanks
Joe

[Doug Shepard]

Just curious here. What kind of maple trees do they have in China? Or are we just shipping them our trees (and jobs) and getting ply back?