Shoutout to the cabinet shop in Tacoma that said I was wasting money on prefinished ply
Every guy at my supply house kept pushing prefinished birch ply at $78 a sheet and I was buying it for years without asking questions. Then an old timer in Tacoma let me run a batch of face frames on raw 3/4 and shoot them myself, and the finish came out cleaner with less chipping on my table saw. Am I nuts for thinking raw plus a good conversion varnish beats the prefinished stuff for painted boxes?
Did your friend try sealing the edges too? A buddy of mine switched back to raw for paint grade after his prefinished sheets kept chipping at the cut line no matter what blade he ran.