Woodworking Projects – Cheap Lumber May Be Expensive
- on 02.01.09
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No, I haven’t lost my mind, nor have I became a politician. I just returned from a trip to the local DIY store. My purpose was to get some ¼” plywood for the back of some cabinets. Although I prefer to use real hardwood for the sides, face frames and doors on my cabinets, I like to use ¼” plywood for the backs.
So here is the issue, there were two stacks of ¼” Plywood, one priced for about $10 per sheet and the other with an oak face, for $23.00 per sheet. Now I really don’t need the oak plywood in the back of the cabinets, No one other then me or my wife will ever see it and that is only when we are finishing it. So the logical choice would be the $10 per sheet stuff, correct? Wrong and here is where the cheap becomes expensive.
The ¼” Lauan plywood, had a very foul order to it, which I think it may come from the glue used to manufacture it. From previous experience with this plywood, I can tell you the smell doesn’t get better; In fact it gets worse after the wood is moved into a heated area. If I could have gotten past the smell, and believe me that would have been hard to do, the quality of the wood was really sub par. The pieces that I looked at were full of voids and checks. Several pieces also had places where what appears to be a filler were applied.
I figure that I can get backs for 4-6 cabinets from the 4’x 8’ piece, using simple math the best cost per cabinet with the cheap plywood is $1.666 per Vs. $3.88 using the more expensive plywood. So for a difference of about $2.15 per cabinet, I have a real hard time even considering the use of the cheaper wood.
Some of the other woodworkers that I have talked to claim that the smell is from the use of formaldehyde glue. Recently there has been a lot of discussion about the safety of the off gases caused by formaldehyde glues. Since the jury is still out on whether this is a safe product or not, and the cost differential is not that large, this is a case where cheap can become very expensive. I bought the $23.00 sheet of plywood and feel good about it.
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