I’ve promised myself this a couple of times, but now I mean it.
I have a paint grade cabinet to build, and rather than pick up some Baltic birch, I picked up a couple of 4×8 sheets of “whitewood” plywood at Lowes. It’s generally pretty good. More plies than most of the less expensive stuff, very nice faces for painting.
But the last couple of times I’ve used it my head fills up and my nose starts running like you turned on a faucet. Really bad. Sneezing like crazy. And this is with the dust collector on.
I’ve worked with countless types of sheetgoods, domestic and exotic hardwoods. This is the only stuff I’ve had a reaction to. I don’t have any known allergies, hay fever, nothing. But that Lowes plywood is a killer.
It happened last time I tried it, and said never again. This time I mean it.
Replies
Urea formaldehyde.
Hasn't that been illegal?
No, although they lowered the amount allowed. But, remember how few imported products are checked at all, let alone tested. Here are the most recent rules: Hardwood plywood: Formaldehyde < 0.05 ppm
Medium-density fiberboard: : Formaldehyde < 0.11 ppm
Thin medium-density fiberboard: Formaldehyde < 0.13 ppm
Particleboard: Formaldehyde < 0.09 ppm
John C2, how practical would it be to use your Laguna 14" bandsaw, some red maple, aspen, and yellow glue to make your own plywood?
For something like this, it's just a lot more time and work than it's worth. I should have just gone with Baltic birch.
I do make some homemade ply, but just with fancier woods for small box tops and bottoms.
It is more likely to be one or more of the specific wood species than the glue, especially if other brands of plywood don't do this.
Some people are sensitive and some woods are very sensitising. Here in NZ our beautiful native Rimu (softwood) is a notorious PITA with even small quantities of dust irritating almost everyone. Macrocarpa is not quite so bad, but Oak is fine.
I suspect that the inner plies are probably made from something that gets up your nose.
An n95 respirator is ample protection if you are working with irritant woods.
Agree with Rob above. Formaldehyde is unlikely to be the issue, as imports are monitored quite closely after the Chinese drywall problems.
Note the source of the plywood. Home depot had some a couple of years ago sourced from Equador (my memory). It was nice looking plywood but had a terrible odor upon cutting, that was somewhat irritating.
I am always amazed that they can import woods and ply from halfway around the world cheaper than domestically produced materials. Shipping costs must be horrendous, therefore the material price must be nil, so we get what we get. One exception is the white pine from New Zealand, which is prime stuff.
It may not be formaldehyde, but to say "imports are monitored quite closely" is wishful thinking. TheEPA is allowing the Third Party Certifiers to inspect plywood remotely, using the manufacturers' own employees. This from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
3. Remote Inspections
During the COVID-19 global pandemic, some TPCs (Third Party Certifiers) have been unable to travel to a composite wood product manufacturing panel producing facility to conduct the required on-site inspections and sample collections in-person. In response, EPA provided its regulatory interpretation that TPCs and panel producers can conduct these activities remotely These remote inspections are designed to allow inspectors flexibility to comply with TSCA Title VI regulations and regional emergency declarations, without jeopardizing the inspector's health and wellbeing. The standard practice for a TPC providing certification services for composite wood panel producers remains that a TPC conducts in-person on-site inspections, which should resume as soon as possible when the unsafe conditions end.
EPA is proposing to amend 40 CFR 770.7 and 770.15(c) by adding an alternative to in-person, on-site inspections and sample collection for quarterly testing that would allow TPCs to perform these activities remotely via video teleconference when it is otherwise temporarily impossible to do so on-site and in person because of unsafe conditions caused by natural disasters, health crises, or political unrest. In addition to carrying out initial and quarterly inspections remotely via video teleconference, the proposed rule would allow TPCs to work with the panel producer's quality control manager at the time of the remote inspection to select, package, sign, and ship the TPC panels/samples for the quarterly test according to 40 CFR 770.20(c).
Before retirement, I worked for a very large flooring manufacturer. While most of our wood products were made here, there were a few imports. Most materials like this carry some sort of 3rd party "green" certification; today, its just something that must be done in order to deal with the marketplace. In our case, the 3rd party tested samples and my labs also monitored incoming materials, and we backed that up with periodic testing at an independent lab.
While we were/are at the top of the pile in terms of quality and compliance, some of the small guys struggled to maintain certifications.
We did/do business with HD, Lowes and Menards and constantly had to produce compliance documentation. In addition, HD and Lowes also conducted testing (at the same independent lab we used - I was not supposed to know that) to check on their vendors.
So, you are correct in that EPA does allow 'remote' testing but my experience was that it was rather rigorous. CA has some really rigorous requirements. don't know how COVID has affected all that.
But you still have to find a way to keep the promise to yourself. Maybe you can find some kind of app for your phone that will send you a notification reminding you not to buy plywood when your GPS location shows you are in a Lowe's store:)
Nice.
I found an allergy to Brazilian hardwoods. 3 woods native to South America so far. Others from the area are fine. Simple pine makes my nose run but nothing else from North America.
No telling what the Chinese are putting into that crap.
Almost all ply products do that to me John, even Baltic. They all produce really fine dust when worked and all the glues used are evil.
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