Jack asks, “I am building some cabinets for my kitchen and I am looking for a place to purchase some pre-finished plywood. Thank you.”

I have seen Norm Abrams use prefinished plywood on some of the projects that he built. I think specifically in the dream kitchen series that aired in the spring of 2008. Checking with the New Yankee Workshop on where they got their prefinished plywood from, they purchased it from Atlantic Plywood Corporation in Woburn, MA.

If you don’t live in Massachusetts area, then call your local hardwood lumber yard, they should carry it. Another source for prefinished plywood is to talk to local cabinet makers shop and ask them where they buy their lumber and materials from.

I have not seen cabinet grade prefinished plywood in the local big box home improvement stores. You might want to talk to the guys working at the contractor’s desk, they might be able to recommend a hardwood lumber yard in your city that sells cabinet grade prefinished plywood.

How about making your own prefinished plywood? It is not as difficult as it might seem.

You will need a large open work space, such as the garage. Sweep up all of the dirt and dust from the area that you will be working in. Lay down large plastic drop cloth sheets. Lay down 2×4 or other scrap material so that the plywood is elevated above the floor of the garage. Lay the sheets of plywood over the scrape spacer wood.

1) Using a roller or a low pressure high volume (LPHV) sprayer apply the varnish to the plywood.

2) After the varnish has dried, sand the sheets smooth using 220 or 240 grit sand paper. For large surfaces, I like to use a palm random orbital sander. Don’t over sand as you don’t want to remove all of the varnish.

3) Sweep or vacuum all of the sanding dust off of the plywood. I like to use a vacuum cleaner as it will suck up more of the dust and it won’t be around the finishing area to accidently get kicked up back on to the plywood surface to get stuck on it again.

4) Apply another coat of varnish on the plywood.

I like apply three coats of varnish to the plywood. Between each coat I sand the plywood smooth. It gives me a nice smooth, hard finish.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 7:09 am and is filed under Lumber, staining / wood finishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.