Home Depot's Chinese made plywood

Anyone have any good experiences with the new Chinese made so called

3/4" (11/16")oak plywood? Bought two sheets of what seemed to be flat plywood but after cutting them to size I noticed the pieces began to warp and twist very badly also after cutting the pieces and exposing the inner cores there were a lot of unglued plies, man this stuff is junk. Plan on taking this up with HD's management.
Reply to
Seeker
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Not here -- but I've had some *bad* experiences with Asian-import plywood, including a bad allergic reaction to the dust. Now, when buying ply, I look for "Made in USA" or "Made in Canada" on the edge. If I don't see that, I don't buy.

Reply to
Doug Miller

Nope ... AAMOF, I've gradually come to the conclusion that HD are nothing but thieves in disguise (whose masks are quickly slipping off) who cleverly market a ton of crappy merchandise to folks who either don't know better, or don't give a shit ... and guess who's building your houses these days.

Save yourself some time and just go piss in the wind ... it'll actually make you feel better, with the same results.

Besides, there is no "management" at HD store level. Manager's by definition, can make exception to policy. You won't find anyone at store level who can do that.

That said, not all Chinese plywood is as bad as what is sold at HD, who apparently buys what no one else in the industry will take and sells it to the aforementioned.

I buy a good deal of 3/4" Chinese birch for built-ins in new homes from a local milling operation that supplies trim to the construction industry in these parts. Good stuff, way above what the crap HD sells, and it's less expensive to boot.

Reply to
Swingman

Hey, HD plywood is great for crating machines to export! And it's good for shop cabinets. Not much more. If you want quality stuff, try elsewhere. High quality North American Oak ply is around $75 a sheet here. --dave

Reply to
Dave Jackson

Hey, you mean we still make machines here to export? Who, where to, which ones?

Yabbut, only if you like voids and the smell of fish glue.

Thanks, but it's the OP who hadn't figured that out yet. ;)

Reply to
Swingman

Like Swingman has indicated, not all Chinese plywood is the same. A local and busy old fashioned lumber yard in SW Houston area has a big sign advertising that they are now selling Chinese Plywood.

And you mentioned so called 3/4" (11/16") oak plywood. I have not seen actual 3/4" plywood in years. Has what you have been buying lately actually

3/4" thick?
Reply to
Leon

About 10 years ago, HD plywood used to be usable. It started slowly declining. Now it's pure crap. The last time I bought there (about a year ago), I bought 4 sheets of oak plywood. There were huge voids under the veneer (I remember one being 5 inches long by about 3/4 inch wide). And of course, some of these voids didn't appear until after the bookcase was glued up.. I ended up filling the voids and just using the bookcase as shelving in the basement. In short, it was impossible to make a decent project out of it.

Haven't bought anything that I wouldn't use only as utility grade since. It's sad, because back when they charged about $50 sheet for B grade Oak, it was decent stuff. Now they charge about $40/sheet, but it's crap. I wouldn't mind if there was a few defects that I could cut around (I can live with some waste), but when they have voids all over the place under the veneer, the stuff is not usable.

Reply to
bf

I've still got some scrap pieces of that in the shop from a project about 6 or 7 years ago ... notable for its difference in thickness and weight with the stuff next to it. AAMOF, I built a couple of kitchen replacement cabinets with that stuff and it was very useable @ $45 sheet.

No mas!

Reply to
Swingman

I'm in the middle of a cabinet project now using HD 3/4 Poplar plywood (made in China). NEVER AGAIN!!!

Chose this because cabinet exterior will be painted, doors will be poplar raised panel and interior will be finished with shellac. At $33 per sheet compared with $43 for shop grade birch it seemed like a no brainer.

I should have inspected more carefully at the store. Got the stuff into the shop and noticed that the edges were a little wavy. Look closer and the plys are inconsistent thickness and overlap. Face plys are basically transparent, touch sand and your through. Next day sheets are starting to curl. When I started dicing it up I found a couple of voids. WHAT CRAP!!

Kept going because it's good enough for what I'm doing, I can make it work, and it's for myself. But would not have used for customer or if it were to be used regularly by someone other than myself.

In the end you get what you pay for. I know better and have always said that I would never buy lumber at HD and the like because there is a difference. Since this project was for myself I made concessions only to reinforce long held opinions. I've always used Shop Grade Birch from a distributor who specializes in hardwoods and plywood for most of my casework and it is a pleasure to work with.

Work with traditional lumber suppliers. You may pay a little more but your getting a superior product and that makes the work SO much more enjoyable.

Cheap is aggravating.

Reply to
Bob C

OK, I have have bad experiences at HD like most of you. I am not here to defend HD, no way. But... one thing about HD is that they have a rather liberal return policy at least where I live.

If you were to return that material and ask for a full refund they would not blink. They would give you an immediate refund or credit even if a sheet was cut open. I see people returning warped boards, no kidding. Try returning a warped board at your local yard.

So, if you don't like their product don't complain. Just get a full refund. Then double your budget and go to a local vendor.

Reply to
lwhaley

I've used chinese birch with good results. One home depot I went into was really discounting a stack of chinese birch. I asked why and the manager said that the stack looked really rough. At the corners some of the veneer was delaminating. It was a good price though and it looked like you could still use most of it. I've heard of people having problems with the chinese birch. I guess it depends on the batch you get.

Havn't heard of chinese oak.

brian

Reply to
brianlanning

"Swingman" wrote

Ex-CEO Nardelli is gone now so things should begin to improve. Ex-Marine Nardelli was only interested in the bottom line at the expense of everything else. When stock prices were going nowhere for HD, investors finally had enough.

*Maybe* there will be some improvement.

Max (with Lowe's stock)

Reply to
Max

SNIP

We have a large hardwood wholesaler here, Austin Hardwoods, that sells oak from China. It looks like red oak in color, has a tighter grain like white oak, and the last shipment I saw them get in they had 3-4 lifts of this stuff in (planed S2S) 1X12X14.

Not a knot, not a rough spot anywhere. Six months ago it was $4.50 a bf.

With the lifts still in the steel bands, it was all clearly marked "Made in China".

I remarked on how clear and straight the wood was, and the manager agreed it was the best supplier they had connected with in years. He wasn't sure of the species of Oak, but knew it came from China, or was maybe just milled in China an logged somewhere else.

Here's the kicker - they sell it as "Appalachian Oak". I never would have thought to ask...

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

It might well be ... seems as if I recall something about shipboard plywood mills, in International waters, that use timber from N America and sell it right back here.

... or maybe I only dreamed it?

Reply to
Swingman

I remember that, but the only place I encountered that story was here. I don't recall any hard proof, but that doesn't mean it wasn't/isn't done. I am thinking of all the environmental characters that would love to grab a headline by exposing a story like that, and I can't imagine them not being all over it. Polluting water, stealing jobs, selling our resources back to us... sounds like 60 minutes fodder at least. Gotta be too much for a cub reporter to resist, and I am sure if we know about it here, everyone else is bound to know.

Think of the logistics of running a full time mill with shipping, receiving, loading, unloading, equipment maintenance, employee transportation and logistics; it doesn't seem viable to me. I think it is still cheaper to chop down the trees, load them on a truck and drive them to the mill.

OTOH, I did run into a lumber guy a couple of years ago that told me that he knew there was some species of oak that was in the east somewhere that resembled our oak that would be coming our way soon. According to him, our best large sized material for the highest end consumer had been used, so now it made sense to charge more and ship it in from wherever they could find it. I remember I laughed at the time as I had never heard of "Chinese oak". He also told me there was an oak type of wood from Chile that would be coming our way. Never saw it.

But did buy some of the Chilean plywood later, and it was some of the best ply I have used in the last few years. It looked like a washed out white oak on one side with absolutely no flaws. Two minor picks it was A/B, and it either turned out to be A/A, or A/B-, with the backside not always being the same material. The other nit was the veneer was super thin - clean as a whistle, but reeeealy thin. It had minor open grain and it sanded and finshed really well. Exceptional for built ins and production work (which was what I used it for) as it had tiny or no voids. I paid something like $38 bucks a sheet for it. But it hasn't been available for over a year now and according to the lumberyard, may not be again. They bid on containers of materials, and he said they have seen nothing in the way of wood from Chile for a while.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Sounds like a classic urban legend to me.

The cost of maintaining a floating manufacturing platform would far out weigh any benefits.

The cost of just generating enough power to operate would make the operation marginal.

Fishing fleets often have processing ships at sea with the fleet, but that is a different game since you are dealing with a perishable product along with waste that is compatible with the sea.

Additionally, when the ship is full, they go back to port.

Just my $0.02.

Lew

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

Don't get me started on the topic of plywoods and veneers!!

These days manufacturers have perfected the process of depositing a one molecule thick layer of wood over a crappy substrate. You cannot even sand it with 600 grit sandpaper.

Go look at some old furniture and the plywood veneers. They used to give you a generous layer of wood. You could see the thickness with the naked eye and it was actually usable.

I don't even think of using plywood veneers anymore since they're total garbage. It's unfortunate because they were a good idea. I could see this with some exotic woods like teak or ebony but common oak or cherry????

Reply to
jamesfrie

I have heard that also.

Reply to
Leon

The two major suppliers of hardwood in North Carolina do a "booming" business in exporting. They been doing it for several years now.

Send out the good hardwood in containers and get a container of cheap furniture in return, which explains the condition of the furniture industry in North Carolina.

We can't buy a single piece of #1 SYP and we live in the tarheel state ??? I asked a manager at a huge plant what they did with all the good stuff... It is all exported.

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote:

Reply to
Pat Barber

Surely you are exaggerating! ;~)

Reply to
Leon

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