How Can Plywood Exporters Tell You To Identify The Quality of Plywood?

Unconsciously, exporting plywood has been going on for many years. We need to strictly control the quality in our business, and we have also encountered some netizens asking about the quality of plywood. So I plan to write a blog post on identifying the quality of plywood for the readers of this blog.

Before selecting plywood, it is important to first clarify its intended use! The purpose is important because different uses have different requirements for quality. Suitable for all purposes, requiring high appearance grade, the best flatness, low formaldehyde emissions (environmentally friendly), and minimal stacking and separation of cores; The plywood formwork used on construction sites requires good flatness, better waterproofing, and frequent use; At the same time, some packaging plywood has very low requirements for appearance grade. So you need to determine what quality you need based on your purpose, and then choose plywood according to your quality requirements.

Several important quality indicators of plywood:

1、 Significant defects that can be identified

The important defects of plywood include debonding, missing edges, bubbling, bulging, sinking, empty edges, damaged surface paper, and core separation. The glue opening defect is fatal, and it is absolutely not allowed for any grade or purpose of plywood.

A missing edge refers to a piece of edge that falls off during production or transportation, and this defect has a certain impact on use. This defect is not allowed.

Bubbling is also a serious defect, which is caused by the high moisture content of the inner core board, resulting in the generation of water vapor that breaks through the surface paper and rapidly discharges outward during the production process, causing damage to the surface paper and the opening of several layers below the damaged area. This defect is not allowed.

Protrusions and depressions refer to defects that appear on the surface of plywood, which affect its use. This defect is not allowed.

Empty edge refers to the middle layer or layers of the edge being empty and without a core board. This defect is not allowed.

Paper damage refers to the breakage of the surface paper on the board. This defect is not allowed.

Stacked core refers to the overlapping or separation of plywood core boards. Excessive stacking of cores indicates poor quality of the core board or limited layout level in the factory. For high-end plywood, it is generally not allowed to have obvious core separation.

2、 Quality requirements for common plywood (in addition to the requirements mentioned above)

Furniture board: It belongs to high-end plywood and requires no color difference on the board surface, especially good flatness. The environmental protection level should reach E1 or even E0 level. For plywood with cladding, the minimum level should also reach E2 level, and the core separation should be slight or even almost non-existent.

Veneer board: It belongs to high-end plywood. In addition to the requirements for furniture boards, veneer boards have higher requirements for appearance grade and are not allowed to have appearance defects.

Ordinary plywood: The defects mentioned in the first part are not allowed. However, the emphasis of quality requirements varies depending on the purpose. For example, the plywood used for laying under the floor does not have high requirements for the bottom paper grade of the plywood surface, but requires good strength and moisture resistance of the plywood; For example, in ordinary home decoration, the appearance grade should be good, and the environmental protection grade should be high, preferably with a certain degree of moisture resistance.

Laminated plywood: also known as cement formwork, requires waterproof glue or even weather resistant glue, good flatness, almost no defects on the surface, and preferably achieves a mirror effect.

Packaging board: Generally, the appearance grade requirements are not strict, but the board is required to have a certain degree of nail holding force.

3、 The intrinsic quality of plywood

1. Strength of plywood

The bonding strength of ordinary plywood can be tested through several simple methods:

a. If it is plywood with a thickness of over 12mm, empty the plywood and place it flat. Stand on the plywood to see if it will break. The layers of plywood with good strength are strictly glued together, forming a seamless whole, so the strength is very good and people usually do not break when standing on it.

b. If it is plywood with a thickness of less than 12mm, lift one end of the plywood with both hands and shake the entire plywood vigorously. If the plywood is poor, it may break during this process.

2. Internal strength

Lift the plywood and gently tap each part of the plywood with a small wooden stick. If the sound is crisp, it indicates that the internal materials are solid, the workmanship is in place, and the quality is good. If the sound is "muffled", it indicates that there may be glue cracking inside, the material used may be poor, there may be many hollows, and the quality may be poor.

3. Environmental friendliness

The environmental friendliness of plywood can only be determined through professional testing equipment.