Plywood for Beach Garage Cabinets?

dlos

Dave
User
I've read so many conflicting, or at best confusing, bits of information on the best type of plywood to use for cabinets that will be mounted in a garage at the coast. The garage has HVAC but it is NOT always on. At times the doors are open and the area is exposed to extreme heat and humidity. That said, the majority of the time the space will be climate controlled.

With the above in mind, what would the best choice be here? Can I get away with"box store" plywood? There is also occasionally something referred to as "marine plywood", from what I can tell it is not pressure treated but is somehow more resistant to moisture? Problem is that it usually only 1/2". Is "radiata pine plywood" any better than say Columbia Forest stuff from HD?

My apologies if this subject is beaten to death, I have read so much I am back to square 1, lol!

Thanks
 

Skymaster

New User
Jack
HD plywood is garbage. GOOD exterior grade plywood will do fine aslong as you either poly or paint it. A good grade of birch or paint grade maple ply. Exterior is referenced to the glue making up the ply. Marine grade ply does come in 3/4. Buy material from a cabinet supplier or a real lumber yard. A NOT cheap but fantastic material is Starboard, a polyurethane type sheet good. used in marine for decking, exposed cabinets etc.
 

Jeff

New User
Jeff
Where is your garage at the coast?

Marine grade plywood (3/4") is available at many places around the coast but it's overkill for your application.

These are cabinets in your garage and "box store" exterior plywood is fine even if you don't paint them. Don't over engineer it.
 

Joe Scharle

New User
Joe
I live on the water too. I have cabinets made from exterior sheathing and Melamine, The trick is to seal the edges. Exterior paint or epoxy. They were fine in the garage, until the flood.
 

dlos

Dave
User
Where is your garage at the coast?

Marine grade plywood (3/4") is available at many places around the coast but it's overkill for your application.

These are cabinets in your garage and "box store" exterior plywood is fine even if you don't paint them. Don't over engineer it.

We've got sound front place on Topsail Island. Not having any issues with regular old box store plywood I used for shelving so I'm guessing regular plywood would be fine if either painted or sealed. I'd prefer to not use marine plywood - heavy and as you said, overkill.
 

bob vaughan

Bob Vaughan
Senior User
Back in my younger days I asked a plywood salesman about "marine" plywood. I remember him telling me that to qualify as "marine" grade, the plies had to meet certain criteria about voids and patches. Essentially, the plywood was meant for boat construction that would be subject to the pounding of the water. The grade had little to do with resistance to the elements since wood is wood. I also remember him telling me that the glue used in marine grade plywood was pretty much the same that's used on house sheathing plywood. Both are waterproof. I started that conversation with him because a friend wanted to put plywood on his deck and he wanted maintenance free plywood. Turns out, there's no such thing.

Pressure treated plywood is treated with rot resistant chemicals. Rot is an organic enemy, not a mechanical one. A mechanical enemy of wood is water that gets in the wood, freezes, thaws, and generally decomposes the edges of wood.

I'll agree that big box plywood is the bottom of the barrel, but as long as the surfaces are painted well, it should do fine. You'll know if its prone to delaminating during the building process.

There have been great strides made in paints over the years. The better acrylic latex paints available these days have an incredible expected life span.
 

Canuck

Wayne
Corporate Member
If you shop for plywood at the Orange big box, insist on Columbia Forest Products ply. Costs more but have never had an issue with it. Almost no voids and generally straight and flat. I have used oak and birch for many, many cabinet and furniture projects and never had an issue! (Never seen it at Lowe’s.)

Just my own personal experience.
 

dlos

Dave
User
Back in my younger days I asked a plywood salesman about "marine" plywood. I remember him telling me that to qualify as "marine" grade, the plies had to meet certain criteria about voids and patches. Essentially, the plywood was meant for boat construction that would be subject to the pounding of the water. The grade had little to do with resistance to the elements since wood is wood. I also remember him telling me that the glue used in marine grade plywood was pretty much the same that's used on house sheathing plywood. Both are waterproof. I started that conversation with him because a friend wanted to put plywood on his deck and he wanted maintenance free plywood. Turns out, there's no such thing.

Pressure treated plywood is treated with rot resistant chemicals. Rot is an organic enemy, not a mechanical one. A mechanical enemy of wood is water that gets in the wood, freezes, thaws, and generally decomposes the edges of wood.

I'll agree that big box plywood is the bottom of the barrel, but as long as the surfaces are painted well, it should do fine. You'll know if its prone to delaminating during the building process.

There have been great strides made in paints over the years. The better acrylic latex paints available these days have an incredible expected life span.

That's great info, and makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing!
 

dlos

Dave
User
If you shop for plywood at the Orange big box, insist on Columbia Forest Products ply. Costs more but have never had an issue with it. Almost no voids and generally straight and flat. I have used oak and birch for many, many cabinet and furniture projects and never had an issue! (Never seen it at Lowe’s.)

Just my own personal experience.

I think the Columbia Forest stuff is what I am going to go with for this project. It's a garage, don't want to spend more than I need to on this one. Thanks!
 

JimD

Jim
Senior User
Living on a lake is not exactly like living on the coast but my garage is less than 100 ft from a 50 mile long lake - a significant source of humidity. My garages are not heated or cooled and I have waferboard sides on my base cabinets in the shop and some plywood. My walls are waferboard and painted but not on the back side. My garages also took on a couple inches of water, flooded, a couple years ago when they were building houses across the street. My shop walls were up at that time but the bottom foot or so of both garages is brick. The wallboard in my car garage and the waferboard in my shop garage were fine. All my sheet goods recently have come from big box stores. I think HD has some good plywood and while I don't like going there Lowes does too.

I would just use a decent grade of plywood with exterior glue. I agree with Joe that it is best to seal all end grain and I would seriously think about priming the whole cabinets. Particularly if you spray it wouldn't take much time and seems like good insurance. For the money, I think the pine plywood HD sells that is made in Chile is pretty good. I would not hessitate to use it in my garage and may do so soon. My outfeed/assembly table is built of it and is holding up well.
 

charlessenf

(;harles
Senior User
"...cabinets that will be mounted in a garage ..."

Relax. One easy lesson would be to find some new construction in a similar area and look at teh constructuin materials used to build the houses.

Then, just go on down to a Big, Medium or Small Box and buy the thickness you need.

If you are setting them (directly) onto concrete, you might want to make the toe kick area out of PT.

Years ago, working on a campaign in Florida, I was half of a two-man team that went 'round taking down the candidate's signage. As I used a small pocket knife to release the gripper on a Zip Tie so I could remove it and re-use it, my fellow traveler (a nice fellow who was driving a humongous new crew cab 4WD pickup truck) asked what I was doing. When I explained, he responded "I didn't know you could do that."

I replied, simply, "That's 'cause you have too much money."

The cabinets will only last a few years if the weather gets really bad, and the insurance company won't give you a dime more to replace the cabinets if you build the out of redwood.

"Form," it has long been suggested (should) "follow function."

KISS KISS
 

ste6168

New User
Mike
My shop is my garage, and several pieces of my shop furniture is built out of ply, imported birch ply mostly (because it is what I get the cheapest for reasonable quality). Been holding up without any issue. I am not ON the water, but pretty close.
 

smallboat

smallboat
Corporate Member
I built a dinghy for a sailboat in the mid 80's using AC exterior fir ply. not marine ply. Nothing fancy, painted inside and out with marine paint - what I would consider "workboat finish". It has been garage kept (unconditioned) between uses and looks as good now as in '87. I don't live on the coast but this goes IN the water and gets hosed out. It experiences a good range of temps and humidity in between. I have to believe cabinets on a wall would fair just as well.
 

JimD

Jim
Senior User
Charles made a good point I forgot to mention. I build cabinets that sit on concrete with pressure treated wood bases. In my shop the base is of 2x4s. I am confident the plywood or waferboard would have delaminated when the garages flooded if they had been in the water. But the 2x4 base kept them up above direct immersion in the water that came in.

I prefer to build cabinets with separate bases anyway and for concrete contact I think PT wood is the only way to go. It will shrink some as it dries and if it worries you you can leave the attachment screws for the cabinets a little loose but it hasn't caused me any issues. The separate base also allows me to shim the base level so I can just screw the cabinet down to it.
 

UncleJoe

Joe
Senior User
My last shop had an issue with water sneaking in after a hard rain or Hurricane. I would find large puddles on the floor and cuss. I went to a cabinet system where I made a 4 inch riser platform to set the cabinets on. I made this "Toe Kick" platform out of 3/4 treated lumber. I would level it then place the cabinet boxes on top of that. I had great success with Lowes Blondewood and HD melamine. I had no de-lamination issues but I painted the blondewood and covered the edges of the melamine.

For regular shop cabinets it is hard to beat Melamine. It is cheap, you save a lot of time and money on paint and if it is build properly and is a stationary cabinet it should last forever.
 

Rwe2156

DrBob
Senior User
While I agree HD ply isn't exactly furniture grade, I wouldn't say its "junk".

I've built virtually all my shop cabs out of the Radiata pine and had no issues other than you have to take care of your lungs.

Personally I see no reason to use $80/sheet plywood for garage cabs, but then again I'm a cheapskate ;) You're certainly welcome to do what you want.

Final note: for something like this you might give a look at buying stock cabinets. Unless you're like me and have that "gotta build a cabinet" disease.
 

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