Plywood Matching

[Michael Paul]

I'm building a cabinet where the PO put a mini refrigerator. Has anyone had success with matching plywood and a finish to our old veneer? I've bought mahogany ply and tried multiple finishes.

Lower ply motor cover with Cetol (PO choice of finish for a spruce up), middle - new mahogany ply with same cetol finish, and top varnish.

I'm wondering if maybe there's a trick to stopping the newer ply from taking up so much finish

 

[Mark F]

Hi Michael,
Are you sure the previous owner used Cetol? Also what kind of mahogany ply is the new? I would try clear polyurethane on the new stuff to see if that gets you closer to the old ply color.

 

[bigd14]

Has anyone had success with matching plywood and a finish to our old veneer?

I struggled with this during a galley redesign on both my E27 and E30+ and eventually gave up and accepted that there would be different tones. For the 30+ there are already several different tones of teak and I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for teak lumber and plywood so I used several varieties of wood that came close to matching the existing teak. I originally planned on using teak veneer on the cabinet doors, but I didn't trust the sticky backing to hold for too long so I just used what plywood I could find that was close. The varnish evened things out quite a bit. I know the mahogany in the older Ericsons like my old 1972 E27 was pretty light, whereas the mahogany found at the wood store seems darker. I wonder if trying varnish instead of Cetol on the old veneer would help.

 

[Christian Williams]

You might consider sticky-back teak veneer from Rockler. It turns plywood into teak, and can be successfully varnished for (in my case) a pretty good match.

 

[Nick J]

I've done it a few time with various results. The biggest lesson I've learned is when you take a step back and look at the whole interior you'll find a lot of different colors, so matching a specific finish isn't as important as you think. Here's a few projects I've done:'

35-3 Nav Desk cabinet. Frame is African mahogany and the panel is sapele. both are finsihed with internluxe goldspar satin varnish


Replaced engine cover- frame is sapele and the panel is the original teak panel. the top is the original teak trim. All finished in internluxe goldspar satin


Ericson 25+ cabin sides - teak plywood finished in teak oil. This one was the closest match