Contact paper on plywood?

[Bluebirdnick]

Hi all.

I am building a closet with hardwood ply. I had intended to sand and finish the ply with osmo oil and leave it at that because it's quite attractive stuff, but my wife has overruled me and wants an oak-like finish, using contact paper. Seems sensible enough, but any advice on whether it will adhere to plywood properly? And is there anything I can do to improve my chances? I did a test on the unfinished plywood before I sanded and i struggled to get a good finish in particular at the edges, and every little imperfection in the surface shows up.

I put filler across the exposed edges and then sanded all surfaces to 180 grit and knocked off the sharp corners, but I've put no finish on the surface yet. I could still put the osmo on but it's expensive stuff so don't want to waste it if it's not necessary or a cheaper option would work. Stuff I've got in the shed which might work includes:

Osmo door oil
Decorator's varnish
SBR primer
Mapei primer G (likely well past its use by date)
PVA
Dulux water-based primer/undercoat

Any thoughts would be welcome. The other alternative is to line the whole thing again with hardboard, shiny-side out, but I'd rather avoid that if possible.

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Solid oak lipping, glued in place (but needs to be clamped), the planed to align with the plywood with a very sharp, finely set block plane is one way to cure your exposed plywood edge issues. Alternatively, you might consider applying an iron on oak veneer edging tape - cheaper, thinner and much easier to trim. You can also get an iron on white, paintable edging tape, designed for use on MDF, which can be painted any way you like

To get the required oak colour stain the plywood with an appropriate oak stain, e.g. golden oak, etc. Use a water based stain as these can be diluted and depth of colour built up over multiple applications to the required tone

Personally think that sticky back plastic or vinyl (is that what you mean by "contact paper"?) looks cheap and shoddy even when applied with a round edged plastic spatula (to get the air bubbles out - a trick I picked up from a sign writer). It doesn't wear well either, and in any environment where there is heat or water it can start to detach itself within a few years

 

[conny]

Sticky back plastic is only useful if you want a 70's kitsch looking kitchen.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Or if you are after that elusive "Blue Peter here's one we made earlier look"?

 

[Bluebirdnick]

Solid oak lipping, glued in place (but needs to be clamped), the planed to align with the plywood with a very sharp, finely set block plane is one way to cure your exposed plywood edge issues. Alternatively, you might consider applying an iron on oak veneer edging tape - cheaper, thinner and much easier to trim. You can also get an iron on white, paintable edging tape, designed for use on MDF, which can be painted any way you like

To get the required oak colour stain the plywood with an appropriate oak stain, e.g. golden oak, etc. Use a water based stain as these can be diluted and depth of colour built up over multiple applications to the required tone

Personally think that sticky back plastic or vinyl (is that what you mean by "contact paper"?) looks cheap and shoddy even when applied with a round edged plastic spatula (to get the air bubbles out - a trick I picked up from a sign writer). It doesn't wear well either, and in any environment where there is heat or water it can start to detach itself within a few years

Thanks for the detailed response. I agree on the lipping and staining as a better option: we've done this a few times before and every time I've done it with oak/walnut veneered mdf with solid lipping, and that has been fine (read: wife was happy). This time I've 5 sheets of good quality plywood which were getting in the way and I thought would look great once sanded and finished. And I think it does. But I did a sample with about 5 different finishes and stains and my wife wasn't happy with any of them, so we are back to vinyl. It is something I've used before when I had to mask some pine in a walnut closet and honestly - you'd be hard-pushed to tell the difference between the walnut veneered mdf and the vinyl, so I can see why my wife says "just do that again".

So let's assume it's a battle I've lost. I did point out we could have achieved the same result for less money and a lot less effort by buying some "oak" IKEA wardrobes and using the panels to build this thing, but never mind. This is, after all, a hallway closet about 2m wide so I'm not going to die in a ditch over avoiding vinyl, I just want to do the best job I can now that I've been told that it is the way we are doing it. The ply is now sanded to a reasonably smooth finish so I suspect it would work fine without anything else, but I am probably going to put an acrylic primer on first anyway. And then curse myself for not insisting on the ply finish which would have looked a lot better and a lot more modern.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The worst thing is that you can buy oak veneered MDF and oak veneered plywood. You can also buy sheets of iron on oak veneer, but it isn't cheap. Also, take it from me, it's not easy to apply to an already built structure. One problem with vinyl is that it will be all but impossible to lip the edges after you've applied vinyl - not a problem of lipping, but the process of trimming the lipping flush is almost certainly going to result in damage to the vinyl

Good luck!