Is PG Maple Hardwood supposed to have a finish on it? The pieces I have are clearly rough and unfinished, so when I combine it with the PG Thick Maple Plywood, the difference is really obvious - whereas PG Walnut Hardwood and PG Thick Walnut Plywood are much more similar.
I’ve also noticed that the Maple Hardwood masking comes off very easily due to the lack of finish.
Can anyone verify whether the Maples should have a similar finish?
it should have a similar sheen to the finish.
i’ve had some inconsistency with different batches of PG wood. the original two orders (both the PG pack GF sends and my first order with credits) had a smooth finish. the large order i made (~40 sheets for a project) came with less than smooth finish. they would have replaced it all, but i was on deadline and had no choice but to use it. they did give me a credit for some and said they would replace anything i didn’t use.
I’ve been waiting about a week and a half or more to hear from support about this…
This has happened to me probably 4x, but this is only the 2nd time I’ve reported it.
I just heard back from support (I guess they saw my comment here!) and they are not giving me a credit for the seemingly finish-less maple hardwood boards. I don’t really feel comfortable using it to send to customers considering how much nicer the other hardwoods seem (please don’t kill the finish on the others, 
!) but I guess I’ll have to use it anyways.
this is a little disappointing.
if they’re going to provide materials, it’s not a positive sign that they can’t provide a reasonably consistent finish. i may forego buying the PG plywood more often than i expected if i’ll need to finish it myself to know what i’m getting.
That is very disappointing. The quality is quite different on the pieces I received also. Without the finish, it’s noticing different from the ply with the finish. Not good.
My experience has been:
Hardwood: Consistently great finish… Until recently when they said they are trying to “improve” the finish. Maple finish seems gone, others seem fine still.
Plywood: Thick plywood has a smooth, glossy finish, medium plywood finish is a bit rougher/less glossy. Medium walnut plywood can sometimes have very ugly finish on at least one side (ugly/bumpy/gross… there are posts about it here)
I’m confident in the plywood. Have you had plywood issues?
Thick plywood seems to have a smooth glossy finish, while the medium plywood is less glossy/smooth. But it has been consistent, aside from some ugly finish on medium walnut sometimes (I am unsure if they have solved this issue). The closest thing to a problem with plywood finish besides that walnut thing is that I had a piece of medium maple plywood that had less than a centimeter along the bottom that wasn’t finished. So you do have to check them, but they’ve been good.
i had a serious issue with a big batch of cherry ply.
i realize the color will shift (although i wasn’t expecting as much as it did). but the finish was pretty rough. it had a heavy texture to it. all the original cherry ply (the PG that came w/my machine and the batch that i bought with my credits) i had was much smoother.
now, they did give me credit for some of it and offered to exchange any leftovers i had from my job, so i appreciate that.
Ugh. I’m only buying a handful of each at a time, I guess I have a much better chance of them being consistent!
If they are finished in a lacquer I would just give it a real light sand with some 180 or 220 and hit it with a light coat of Deft satin. After your cuts of course.
Haven’t really had that issue as I haven’t really used PG but if those materials are becoming less reliable you might check out. What PG maple hardwood I have used was buttery smooth while the ply was decent but more orange peel than smooth.
And even more like PG material as far as masking
I’m really surprised at this. Consistently is the fundamental reason for our faith in “proofgrade”, but the company has always stood behind the product and credited for problems with it.
Very disappointed.
I believe it is because they’re currently working on changing the proofgrade stuff, and they’ve said that we should expect it to vary for now (I forget what post I saw them say that).
That is fair… except for when it seems like there’s no finish at all.
They said they would pass my comments along, so I asked them to include my comments about how I felt like I didn’t get what I paid for. I also asked if I could send back some boards to just order more and try again, but that was mostly so they knew I was serious about the other comment. I don’t expect to hear back about it again.
i would hope the exchange could happen. it’s one thing to credit you w/o a return, but exchanging makes sense.
Good point. We’ll see what happens! Hopefully they are able to “consistify” it soon and resolve the issues so that 
-land is the magical place they are shooting for.
Thank you for letting us know about this!
@thejambi and @BigBlueMark - we’ve followed up with both of you in email and we’re working on them there, so I’m going to close this topic.