Working with "blondwood" plywood

[unknown poster]

Hey folks. I'm not much of a cabinet maker, I've done lots of rough carpentry but very little fine work. I lurked at this forum for a long time when I was considering getting into carpentry and I know there are lots of folks on this site who can probably help with my current situation.

My local Lowes has some plywood they call "blondwood" that I'm considering using to build some shelves for a TV stand I'm building out of steel. I'm planning to wrap the edges with the iron on banding Lowes sells and then stain the shelves to look similar to maple.

Is this material acceptable for that sort of application or is this really more of a rough carpentry type material? Am I going to be able to stain the iron on banding?

[pierhogunn]

I built a train table for my daughter out of it, not the greatest, but it is cheap, you will have voids to fill, and it smells funny when you cut it...

worked just fine, routed just fine, and didn't take to much effort to smoothly cut with the jigsaw

[mschrank]

Is this material acceptable for that sort of application or is this really more of a rough carpentry type material? Am I going to be able to stain the iron on banding?

I'm not familiar with Blondwood, but regarding the iron on edging: It's real wood so you can stain it just fine. You might try testing on a scrap first...sometimes it doesn't take the stain the same as the plywood (darker or lighter).

If you need to lighten it up, you can apply a coat of "natural" color stain first. If you need to darken it, you can either let the stain sit on it a bit longer before wiping off the excess, or try applying a second coat.

[unknown poster]

Thanks folks.

By voids I'm assuming you mean a gap where one of the plys is missing. What would I use to fill this?

[LCHIEN]

Thanks folks.

By voids I'm assuming you mean a gap where one of the plys is missing. What would I use to fill this?

usually a hole an inch or so in size, in one of the layers. Not really a problem except if the hole intersects one of your cut edges then it looks like heck, if the cut edge is exposed. The more voids the more likely it is to happen.

[steve-norrell]

I was told some time ago that the surface layer on "blondwood" is poplar but I have not done any research to verify that. I also have used it, with the same comments and considerations mentioned in this forum. For my money and time, birch ply is a much better option.

Good luck, Steve

[JimD]

I have used a few sheets of this. I think the wood is foreign. It is soft and somewhat prone to fuzzing up when you put on a clear finish. On the other hand, I did not find the tendency to voids to be bad and I think it is pretty strong. I like it better to paint than to clear finish but you can clear finish it. I would wet it and sand off the fuzz (even though I rarely do this with most wood) to reduce that tendency. To fill voids I usually wait until the first coat of finish and then put a blob of finish on the void, push in some wood dust, and then another blob of finish. You can still easily see where the void was but it is less objectionable to me than a hole.

Jim

[crokett]

I've used blondewood for a few projects. It cuts well and there weren;t a lot of voids in what I've used but for stain grade you will want to select carefully. Some of it has visible fill on the surface.