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Swapped prefinished ply for post-form and never looking back
Did a kitchen in Nashville last month. Tried prefinished plywood on the insides of the upper cabs. Looked okay but the edges chipped like crazy during assembly. Switched to post-form laminate on the next job. Cleaner finish, no chip out, and saved me 2 hours of sanding touch ups. Anyone else ditch prefinished for this reason?
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martin.felix20d ago
Work backwards from any decision and you'll see how most people pick cheap or fast over good. I notice it at the hardware store too. Guys grab the cheapest paint brushes and then complain about streaks. Or they buy the thin vinyl flooring and wonder why it buckles after six months. The prefinished plywood trap is the same deal. It looks fine in the store but the real test is when you actually use it. Post-form just saves that headache from the start.
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hernandez.blake20d ago
Yeah but then the same guys will drop $80 on a name brand t-shirt without blinking. I don't get the logic. Like, sure, buy the dollar store trash bags for all I care, but maybe don't skimp on the stuff you're gonna be looking at every single day. The cheap plywood thing is real though. I saw a guy try to return a half sheet of that prefinished stuff once because the edge chipped while he was cutting it. Buddy, that's not a defect, that's just what happens when you buy the low grade. Post-form at least pretends to have some standards.
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Wait, aren't you the guy who gets mad when your saw blade costs more than the wood you're cutting? Because that's exactly the logic here. You're right that people will cheap out on the stuff that actually matters and then brag about saving two bucks on a sheet that fights you the whole way. The thing is, post-form isn't even that much more expensive if you factor in all the time you waste fixing chipped edges and sanding. But most guys just see the price tag and grab the cheaper one, then wonder why their job looks half-assed. It's like they're treating it as a race to the bottom instead of just paying a little more for something that actually works.
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