So, I sometimes need to make a cabinet or a dresser or some other box-like-thing, and I always think, “What is actually the best thing to make this out of?”

In spite of the fact that I do often use MDF, I truly hate the stuff. I detest the dust from it, I don’t like the way it feels, I can’t stand how terribly the edge takes paint, and I always feel like burning it when it bangs against something and flakes apart. That is something it really likes to do before it’s painted. I would normally prefer to make something out of stale slices of bread. Yet, I end up using it often.

Anyway, MDF is not a contender. Nothing should actually be made from MDF, except maybe a lousy fire.

I think back to those times when I installed cabinets professionally, by the dozens. Room after room of cabinets. The one thing that really makes that a horrible task is when the sides of the cabinets are not completely flat. And that only happens with plywood.

Now, to be fair, these cabinets of which I speak are actually as cheap as they can possible be and still be made from plywood. But the plywood itself is somewhat suspect. I think it comes in a roll, actually, fed through something which shears it off, like tin foil from a box. At any rate, the stuff is not flat. That stuff they sell as “subfloor” is flatter. You know, the stuff covered in X’s to show where to drive the nails or screws or thumb tacks.

The best cabinets to install are made from particle board. Normally, the particle board is coated in some kind of pattern, whether plastic laminate or melamine or patterned paper, like cheap flat-pack desks and bookshelves. But it’s not quite true that the flat pack furniture is “cheap”. It used to be but I think they realized people will buy it for twice the price.

Back to what I was talking about.

I once made a bizarre monstrosity of a dressing-room bench for a large walk-in closet. It was made out of particle board but needed to be veneered. So, I slathered on the contact cement and adhered a square meter or so of veneer. I could see through it. It was transparent veneer. Why would someone sell something like that?

Once again, I wasn’t talking about that.

The real competition should be between cabinet-grade plywood and real wood, glued up. Watching New Yankee glue up all those boards and make all those chests and whatnot from solid wood was truly inspiring, but I can’t begin to imagine I would waste my time doing it. I certainly wouldn’t do it for someone else unless they specifically asked for it. Imagine they have their beautiful chest of drawers with all the proper adornment and three weeks later a giant split forms down one side. Back it would come to me, and I would then have to either redo the whole thing or give back the money (which would probably no longer exist). Ah, but that’s a fiction, anyway – almost no one is willing to pay to get something made. Certainly not when they can knock it together themselves following the easy-to-understand directions in the flat pack.

What was I talking about then? I actually just wanted to talk about the fact that I can’t find real cabinet grade plywood anywhere. They sell sheathing plywood and paint-grade and so-called “good” plywood. It all looks mostly the same. If you find some older furniture made from half-inch cabinet plywood, you know that in that plywood, each layer is one-sixteenth of an inch thick. There are also no or almost no voids.

They don’t make flat pack furniture from that stuff, therefore no one needs it, anymore.