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Hi Dadoo;

Kind of intentionally misleading how they have Samling USA, LLC.

This is just the name of the Limited Liability Corporation.

Sorry to hear about your wasted time, and cabinets that warped on you.

Lee
 
I've been spoiled having a great hardwood/plywood place close in Reno. I have heard the main problem with the Chinese plywood is moisture content. They are in such a hurry to make a shipment they don't dry out the layers uniformly. They also use inferior glues. Wallets say it in volumns.
 
I agree with Bob#2, that the money talks. Problem is in a lot of areas you may not have other alternatives. Then what do you do?

Luckily here we have a hardwood company that carries plywood as well. Their stuff is good, and what I usually buy. And, of all things, their shop grade Oak plywood is actually cheaper than HD or Lowe's.
 
My local yard has surprised me recently with high grade 2Ă—4's from Germany and 1x pine from Sweden! It's truely quality stuff but I know we have at least three local mills that are producing the same thing everyday. The plywood I purchased recently from them was Birch faced, (I gave up looking for maple faced ply) but it cut and glued and remains square at this time.

Another thing that bothered me about this Chinese firewood is that the outside veneer is very thin. I'm talking maybe less than 1/32" thick! So one of the first things I thought of was how to build and limit sanding. All in all though…it's just not worth the hassle!
 
I agree with Dadoo. With such a thin veneer there is no way that you can give that plywood a good sanding through the grits. some of the ply that i get though says its sanded but its so rough that they must have only sanded it to 80 grit. and the veneer's so thin that if i try to sand the 120 and 180 I'll probably go right through the veneer.
 
Dadoo, Don't feel too bad. I have been very busy with my "day job" and forgot to run to my Hardwood supplier last week. I am trying really hard to get the shop in order and need to build some wall cabinets. So I ran to the local "orange" big box and picked up two sheets of the top of the line oak ply. I only took two because that's all thet they had that weren't already bowed. My though at the time was the cabinets weren't going to be that big and any bow should be minimal…boy was I wrong. When I got them cut down to size, 12×32…they bowed up at least 3/4 of an inch So I thought that I would dado the back and see if I could hold them in place with the back panel…nope, just pulled it out of square over night. I wasn't going to do a face frame but now I will, just to hide the crapy plywood. I've learned my lesson…I will never, ever by ply from "Orange" again. I'm so embarrased I won't even take pictures of the mess. I knew better in the first place.
 
we also have to remember that it is often our North American companies who are getting their products built elsewhere and the companies are responsible for the quality and the materials… some still want a good reputation and others just want the bucks.
 
I have a cold room in the basement and decided to turn the 10' x 10' room into a wine cellar, with shelving for preserves, cheese etc. I used chinese plywood to make my wine racks (the kind that resembles baltic birch) and gave it all a few coats of lacquer.

That was three years ago and it looks the same today as it did from the start. No failure of joints, no delamination and very little twisting and bowing. Perfect for its purpose.

At the same time I used the scraps to make bluebird houses. Every one of them have fallen apart and delaminated despite paint and tin roofs.

I am not a fan of china nor do I dispise it but the day is coming when just about anything and everything is made "off shore". The fact of the matter is, we fill the parking lots of big box stores with our SUVs to buy that which they sell and over 90% of it is made in China. We tax our industries to death, we want paved roads, garbage collection and health services, universities, and the list goes on. we live a lifestlye that the world cannot afford, where 50% of everything we buy whinds up in a landfill site yet we complain of the price of gas and want the "$$$DEAL$$$"...........simply, there is no such thing as a deal, or free. somebody, somewhere lost where we won.

I bought a Dodge truck and a GM van made in the USA and Canada. My Tablesaw was made in Germany and my shaper made in Italy but the rest of my toys were all made here in North America and for the most part, all the wood products I buy are mfg right here and certainly grown here.

The day will come when plywood made over there, will be as good as ours, maybe even better and the price will, in all likelyhood, cause the closing of many wood mills, not any different then the tire companies, the automotive parts companies etc.,

yet we fill the parking lots of the big box stores looking for the "deal". Sadly, I have been guilty of this too.
 
I have never bought plywood from any of the big box stores. I have never seen any that looks like material I would want to use in a project. I have a hardwood supplier right around the corner from me that stocks the usual ply suspects ( oak, maple, birch, Baltic birch) and will order anything I want. Sure, it's more expensive than the ply from the big box, but it's quality material and whenever I had him custom order me something he makes sure its really nice stuff.
 
DEB: You're right (again) about it being the company (like Craftsman) who allows cheap supplies to wear their name and it is us that buy these items which keeps them in business. I remember when "Made in Japan" was a bad thing. Some of the best stuff around comes from Japan today! And remember when "Made in Taiwan" made you shudder? I just bought a Jet Air Filtration system. It's a great unit and shows of quality construction. Guess where Jet's from? Taiwan! So some day the Chinese will catch up…but then what? Will we find our cheap sockets coming from Afganistan? Somalia?

Roman: Wine and cheese cellar huh? I'm getting jealous! But listen here bro, "You said it!" We are all guilty of buying the cheap stuff…anything to save a buck. And soon we find ourselves buying that stuff again, to replace the previous stuff that is now worn or broken. But fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! Next time I'm buying plywood, I'll be more careful…I'll know you will too.
 
i think its a hit or miss sort of thing. its like those bargain stores and tv adds. you could have a good person trying to sell you a decent product from a manufacturer who cares about what they are doing. or you could have some products that are just horrible. harbor freight is an example of that. i know people who have bought tools from there and had no problems for years and other who turned it on the first time and it died. its just sort of a hit or miss kind of operation.
 
If anyone truely wants good quality plywood….Baltic Birch is really the way to go. It's cabinet grade, has no voids on the interior, works well and looks good too. It comes in many thicknesses from 1/16 to 3/4. Almost any decent hardwood dealer will have it and it comes in 5X5 sheets. Yes, that is correct 5 ft by 5ft sheets. So, if anyone really wants quality and doesn't want to hope for the best while really wanting to part with as little money as possible, then baltic birch is for you.
 
i'm chinese, from chinese plywood industry. there are many cabinet grade plywood exported to USA market,but i think you cann't buy it from market,because most of them are directly sent to furniture factories. most plywood sell on market is not cabinet grade, we called it "industry grade or commercial grade".normally we chinese don't use this grade in furniture,because the quality of this grade is not very good.
i think maybe you had bought a industry garde plywood.

to distinguish if a chinese plywood is cabinet grade is not difficult.

1,moisture content: the mc of cabinet grade plywood is not more than 14%,most of them not more than 12%
2,voids: cabinet grade have less voids
3,smell it: you can't smell formaldehyde from a cabinet grade plywood
4,face/back: most of okoume/maranti face/back plywoods is industry grade. if a chinese plywood have a B or C grade birch or poplar face or oak face,maybe it's cabinet grade plywood
 
dadoo, the factory must not dry core veneers before glue and hot press these maple plywood. though they name these plywood as "cabinet grade", i also think these maple plywood are garbage.
6 years ago, a client of USA had complained about the twisting problem to us and then we'd tried many method to solve this problem and then this problem was solved. nowadays,too many mills who don't have enough experience and technique to produce "cabinet grade" plywood are selected to manufacture "cabinet grade" plywood to export to USA and other country, just because their price is cheap. they abandon some working procedures to reduce the cost. it's our sorriness
 
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