Plywood Finishes for Dummies

Staining plywood siding

A lot of people learned to test spaghetti by pulling a strand from the boiling water and throwing it against the ceiling. Supposedly if it sticks, the pasta is "done." That's probably why the kitchen ceiling in a lot of "student rentals" is spotted with weird stains. The concept of "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks" isn't unique to cooking, though: some content-farm writers employed it for any topic they didn't understand. Take, for instance, eHow.com's Marissa Wilson, who used the technique to cobble together "Construction: How to Finish Plywood" at HomeSteady.com.¹

Wilson, a high-school graduate, cited exactly one reference; a blog post about "popular ways to finish plywood edges." No kidding. Beyond that, who knows where Marissa got the rest of her "information," which she threw at the wall (to see if it would stick) in paragraphs like,

"You can use a variety of finishes for plywood, including rough finishes and sanded finishes. Sanded plywood will usually have repairs made to it with different synthetic putties. If you use a wood stain or clear coat finish on sanded plywood, you will want to use the smoothest type of plywood with the fewest repairs. Southern pine plywood will have fewer repaired patches than the Douglas fir plywood. Rough plywood is not suitable for stains or clear coat finishes. You should paint this type of plywood. Veneer is the smooth side of plywood and will not have issues with putty repairs. You can use a variety of paints, finishes and stains on veneer."

We aren't real sure what constitutes "rough finishes and sanded finishes," to be honest. We think Wilson somehow conflated the plywood grade (a word she didn't use) with the type of finish. She also somehow decided that not all plywood has a veneer surface, which might explain why the image associated with her content is of OSB, not plywood.

Besides having only a vague idea what plywood is, Marissa also botched most of what she said. Take, for instance these instructions:

"...if the use of the plywood is exterior, only one method to finish the plywood is recommended... For exterior uses, you should use only an opaque stain or a primer and top coat of paint..."

We're pretty sure she contradicted herself. But no matter, anyone who has even the vaguest idea what plywood is wouldn't read past the second paragraph of this rubbish. It's written by someone who very likely has never tried to finish plywood, has no idea how plywood is graded, and may well have no idea that hardwood plywood even exists. In other words, Marissa's a perfect candidate for Dumbass of the Day.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_7626893_construction-finish-plywood.html

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DDIY - FINISHING