Looking for Advice on Kitchen Cabinet/Closet Plywood

[Josh Baldwin]

So I'm building the kitchen cabinets for our new house as well as a custom closet, bookcases, etc. I'm having a hard time understanding and choosing the right plywood.

Everything will be painted white, EVERYTHING! Haha

So would a C-2 Birch (The Cheap Option) be fine since everything will be painted other than the insides of the kitchen cabinets? Only a few of the cabinets will have doors (visible inside carcass) and almost all of them will be drawer based, so not very visible interiors.

or should I upgrade to something else? The people over at Wurth Wood Group are recommending a domestic Maple, but it's still C-2 and almost double the price. I don't think I want to go the MDF route due to the weight and concerns of holding up over time, but maybe someone here can change my mind! Ha

Also, all of the drawers are built from poplar and the drawer faces/doors are maple, but still painted white of course.

I am kind of thinking of going with MDF for the custom closet, but wasn't sure about all of that weight and how it would hold up over time.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Julie Moriarty]

I'm in the process of building cabinets for a neighbor. The carcases are made out of 3/4" maple veneer bought from Home Depot, about $50/sheet. It's paintable. The drawers will be made from 1/2" plywood, what Home Depot calls Sandeply. They sell it as paintable plywood. It's pretty plain in the grain category and should do well taking paint.

[John TenEyck]

I recommend you look at PlumaPly - HDF. It has a plywood core and couple of mm's of HDF on both sides. It paints great, even better than MDF because it's denser. And because the core is plywood you can use it for structural application like your pantry. It's not cheap, but it's really nice stuff. I bought it through my full service lumber yard.

https://www.atlanticplywood.com/wp-c...d-with-HDF.pdf

JOhn

[Tom M King]

A few weeks ago, I built some plywood cabinet doors, to replace scratched up ones in the dogroom. I used that Maple ply from Home Depot. It looks like painted plywood, as there are enough imperfections in the surface grain to look a lot like construction sheathing plywood. It was good enough for a dog room, but I wouldn't use it in a kitchen.

Trying to save a few bucks on materials always comes back to bite me, although others seem to get by.

[Josh Baldwin]

A few weeks ago, I built some plywood cabinet doors, to replace scratched up ones in the dogroom. I used that Maple ply from Home Depot. It looks like painted plywood, as there are enough imperfections in the surface grain to look a lot like construction sheathing plywood. It was good enough for a dog room, but I wouldn't use it in a kitchen.

Trying to save a few bucks on materials always comes back to bite me, although others seem to get by.

Yea Tom I haven't had good luck with HD or Lowes plywood myself. Not terrible, but not great either. I think the C2 Birch that my local place sells is similar, but maybe a bit better.

[roger wiegand]

Be very wary of the borg birch plywood. Last time I bought some it had paper thin veneer over voids that rippled and bubbled when painted-- and broke through if you looked at them crosseyed I had to find them, sand through, and fill prior to re-painting. A serious pain. I now spend a few extra bucks to get better material from a real plywood supplier and save hours of time recovering from bad material. Maple or birch will make no difference in your application, but what's under it might.

[Josh Baldwin]

Be very wary of the borg birch plywood. Last time I bought some it had paper thin veneer over voids that rippled and bubbled when painted-- and broke through if you looked at them crosseyed I had to find them, sand through, and fill prior to re-painting. A serious pain. I now spend a few extra bucks to get better material from a real plywood supplier and save hours of time recovering from bad material. Maple or birch will make no difference in your application, but what's under it might.

What exactly is borg? My local suppliers all just list it as C2 Imported Birch. Any time I ask them questions about quality, etc, they just say "yea it's fine". None of them are very helpful. Just not sure exactly what questions to ask sometimes. Thanks for the help.

[Jim Becker]

What exactly is borg?

The 'borg is a term that a "yuge" number of use have referred to the big box home centers...Home Depot, Lowes, etc. The backward reference is to an alien hive mind that dates back to the original Star Trek series. You have to be really careful with sheet goods from the home centers relative to quality, etc, for cabinetry work, etc. Better quality product is available from real sheet goods suppliers and higher end, independent lumber yards.

[Jared Sankovich]

The 'borg is a term that a "yuge" number of use have referred to the big box home centers...Home Depot, Lowes, etc. The backward reference is to an alien hive mind that dates back to the original Star Trek series. You have to be really careful with sheet goods from the home centers relative to quality, etc, for cabinetry work, etc. Better quality product is available from real sheet goods suppliers and higher end, independent lumber yards.

The HD version of Columbia purebond can be decent (for the price) you still would have to pick through the pile and pull decent sheets.

It stays flat though.

[Brian Backner]

The 'borg is a term that a "yuge" number of use have referred to the big box home centers...Home Depot, Lowes, etc. The backward reference is to an alien hive mind that dates back to the original Star Trek series. You have to be really careful with sheet goods from the home centers relative to quality, etc, for cabinetry work, etc. Better quality product is available from real sheet goods suppliers and higher end, independent lumber yards.

The BORG were not from the original Star Trek series (William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy) of the late 1960s but from one of the sequels: Star Trek: The Next Generation (Patrick Stewart)

[Bill Dufour]

Location, I assume Texas? My local HD has a selection of weird plywoods of unknown species coming from central America and China. It looks like a hardwood veneer of some sort. A light color wood with little grain pattern. I think the supplier and species change with every load. Good luck sourcing more if you need to match it.
They used to have some nice Monterey pine plywood from China. Now it is fewer and much thicker plys and not as good a surface look. It just looks cheap compared to the original.
Bil lD

[Ron Selzer]

Talk to a real sheet goods supplier about Baltic Birch comes in 60"x60", price by skid, bunk whatever term is uses locally should be 2x sheets in 3/4". comes in 1/2" and 1/4" (all nominal size) Should cut at least 25% off of per sheet price. You are talking quite a few sheets for told
Ron

[Josh Baldwin]

Location, I assume Texas? My local HD has a selection of weird plywoods of unknown species coming from central America and China. It looks like a hardwood veneer of some sort. A light color wood with little grain pattern. I think the supplier and species change with every load. Good luck sourcing more if you need to match it.
They used to have some nice Monterey pine plywood from China. Now it is fewer and much thicker plys and not as good a surface look. It just looks cheap compared to the original.
Bil lD

Hey Bill I'm actually in Richmond VA

[Jim Becker]

The BORG were not from the original Star Trek series (William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy) of the late 1960s but from one of the sequels: Star Trek: The Next Generation (Patrick Stewart)

I stand corrected and you are right...my bad!

[roger wiegand]

The BORG were not from the original Star Trek series (William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy) of the late 1960s but from one of the sequels: Star Trek: The Next Generation (Patrick Stewart)

The other part of the derivation, aside from the resemblance of the large cuboid space ships of the Borg Collective, is their tagline "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated". When this usage originated back on rec.woodworking in the Usenet era of the interweb small independent hardware stores were still predominant. They were, to a very great extent, assimilated by the Borg.