As a Scotsman living in Scotland, hearing oor Adam pronounce "shite" in the best possible way brings me much joy on this very wet and gloomy Tuesday morning.
The actual playfields, and the mechanical parts on (and under) them aren't substantially different than a game from the 50s/60s. The circuitry, of course, is vastly different, but the heart of the beast is pretty much the same electro-mechanics, whether it's a 60s game, a 90s game, or a brand new Guns 'n' Roses
You can get high quality Baltic Birch Ply pre-cut from Rockler and it's really close to the same price as you'd get from the lumberyard. They sell it online too, so you can have it delivered. 👍
The 24" x 30" sheets from Rockler are 35% more expensive per square inch than 60" x 60" sheets from my local place. With shipping, it's almost twice the price. Edit to add: This is comparing Rockler's BB/BB grade to the better B/BB I buy locally.
I'm sorry to tell you this Michael, I think your lumberyard might be expensive ;) I was just curious after reading cwell's comment so I did the math and rockler is about 2.57x the cost of what I usually pay at my yard. And to anyone else reading this, it's still not horribly expensive. If you don't have a good lumber yard near you or you don't have the ability to buy full sheets of plywood, rockler is a great resource. Definitely defer to michael's knowledge. He buys a lot more baltic than I do.
My favorite chapter in Every Tool’s A Hammer was the one about adhesives. Something about the way Adam talks about materials and tools makes it really fun to listen to.
It's also called Baltic Birch (sometimes Russian Birch or Finnish Birch) down here in the US. We have a local supplier (Dunn Lumber for anyone in Western WA) who stocks it for a pretty reasonable price, especially compared to the garbage plywood available at the big box stores.
I love how excited he gets over things that others would find boring. He has so much passion and excitement for the world and it's always fun to watch!
Its funny how me in Finland this situation is reversed and it makes me happy. I have almost never seen that kind of crappy plywood. For me plywood is this beautiful and strong material.
What he is referring to as "finish ply" is just plywood that has finished faces, not plywood from Finland. It is most commonly called "cabinet grade" and is indeed usually crap.
@@EliasArcher yeah I know finish ply is not Finnish ply. Finnish ply is what he is referring as arctic ply. We use "arctic ply" in grade school crafts, which I teach.
A bit of a tangent and partially in Adam's defense (though not addressing plywood), arctic birch is a thing. It comes up in firearms collecting, ex. arctic birch stocks for Finnish Mosin-Nagant rifle
I use Baltic birch for making longboards, and have been for about 11 years now. Awesome stuff. I usually see it in 5'X5' sheets, but I can also find it pre-finished, which I can't use for making boards but is awesome for many other applications
Good video. It hit on some memories for me. I've built glow powered RC airplanes for many years and used plywood very sparingly, but If had to use plywood it was always aircraft birch plywood. My father worked in a cedar shake mill for 35 years and says he can't stand the smell of cedar, but I love it.
Thanks Adam for the awesome content. Not sure if it is the same but you can get baltic birch at most Rockler and Woodcraft stores. Not sure if you have one near you but it may be a bit cheaper and they sell 30" X 48" panels in 1/4", 1/2" and 3/4" thick. You can also order it online at their websites. Hope this helps.
Baltic Birch is also made in 3/8" and 5/8" thicknesses (9mm and 15mm actual). Super useful for those cases where the next size down is a little too thin and the next size up is too thick. I like to keep a couple sheets of all the sizes in stock. B/BB is the most common grade and yes, the B side is very nice. Even the BB side is nice if you're okay with an occasional football plug.
One of the good things about living in canada, that plywood is available the the big box stores for a reasonable price and they have a track saw, dollar a cut.
If you ask/look for "marine ply" it's a much better grade, better actual timber in terms of having far fewer voids or knots. Plus a stronger and water resistant glue. Whenever I build anything I want to last, I use marine ply.
Absolutely fantastic material. Also called Baltic Birch. Maybe connecting with custom cabinet shop in the area. They’re likely to have a track saw until the shop is upgraded.
Whenever I'm building something for outdoors, I will frequently use cedar fence planks. They're dirt cheap and resist weather and rot really well. I've even been known to run planks thru my thickness planer to get rid of the rough-sawn exterior and make nice-looking lumber. The only thing you have to worry about is they're sold really really saturated with water so they have to be dried for several weeks to let them shrink to their final dimension before working with them.
This info is 100% spot on. I buy sheet after sheet of 1/4" at the local big-box lumber store in NE Wisconsin. Besides the laser it also cuts like butter in the CNC.
Plus one for beautiful birch ply, i built high quality loudspeaker enclosures and its the only stuff to use. The 19 and 24mm stuff i used was heavy and expensive but absolutely worth it in every way.
I found a local cabinet shop and order a few sheet through them every so often and they cut it for me. Nice materials, in a wider variety of finishes than what's offered retail. It's Worth the effort to find.
I use a lot of 5ply C/D it works well. I like 11 ply 3/4 A/B for finish project. And I will take and glue full sheet of C/D and A/B to gather for work tops. A Lot of Gorilla Glue and a couple pallets of seed corn to to press them together. I REALLY Love plywood
I made a pretty cool guitar stand out of birch plywood. The tall bit that supports the neck is like 3" wide, but I cut most of it out to put a gothic arch design in it, so it's actually only two long bits of 1/2"x1/2", still super sturdy. It's great stuff. Sadly I have not had much access to it since I left cabinetmaking school.
I worked in a visual production shop for a few years and any time we got to work with Arctic birch, or “euro ply” as we called it, we were thrilled. It’s an awesome plywood to work with and much better than anything from the big box stores.
just built a bookcase with a friends HS freshman son and used A-B 3/4 ply 4'x8' for the body and 1/8 A-C for the back panel. the A side was sanded. I'm not a cabinet maker just a hobbyist but do love making things and helping my friend's son learn some things his shop teacher will have to un-learn him in a year or two if school ever goes back in session was fun.
Yep, found baltic birch at a local woodworking store and gave it a try. It’s definitely a superior product to the average stuff sold at Home Depot and Lowes. One thing not specifically noted is that it’s heavier, as well. That can be good or bad depending upon your situation. Mostly good, for me. It’s also a bit harder to cut due to the number of layers and density, which makes sense, of course.
Another thing worth mentioning about Arctic/Baltic birch sheet goods is that sometimes it’s good to pay attention to the glue seams between the layers… darker glue is usually outdoor grade (water resistant), light colored glue is not
I generally use 3/4" ACX, but I also don't do engineered types of things as Adam does. It has some voids, but generally minimally. I use them for tool holders and shop infrastructure, and it works great.
This is also the only readily availble material (NW US) in a 5' x 10' sheet size, besides something like MDF. This stuff is almost always flat as well, love it.
Home Depot has a 3/4” plywood they call Radiata Pine that has a full thickness pine veneer for ~$31, but they keep it at the back of the store away from the pricier veneered sheet goods so it doesn’t compete with them. It’s 6 ply for 3/4” and has very few voids. It’s my “go to” for cabinet work.
I get such a lovely vibe all the time from this content, making me want to make so many things. If I only had the time and effort to make 10% of the things I imagine. One day I'll finish a project
You need to get yourself a track Saw! My favourite tool in the van as a carpenter, the fastest, safest, convenient and most accurate way of dealing with sheet goods. Your situation might be different as the primary work location is in your shop, but I can’t stress enough how convenient a cordless one is for dealing with large sheets for easy transportation from the timber yard. Not to mention all of the other daily uses I find for it. Also your comment about working with high grade ply being a dream to work with which I agree completely albeit the glue used frustratingly blunts blades prematurely...especially hand saws. Ash and oak are definitely the favourites for ease of working and agree cedar is nice to work with but for me is strictly used for decorative uses as it is too soft and splinters to be used in any practical frequently used items.
Depending on your region, the same product had different names. I've gota friend in New Zealand and there he buys "Russian Birch". Baltic/Russian/Arctic birch product names define a specific manufacturing process and type of plywood, not necessarily the specific country, region, or content of the plywood. Generally speaking, it comes from the Baltic states, thus the moniker.
For anyone in Canada looking for Baltic Birch plywood, check out Windsor Plywood. They also sell it different sizes: 4'x8', 5'x5', and some stores will have even smaller pieces - 2'x4'. It's definitely nice stuff to work with as far as plywood goes.
I don't like living in Houston much, but one of the nice things is Clarks lumber, who stocks ALL SORTS of hardwood, and various thicknesses of all sorts of plywood, including baltic birch.
No voids is also a feature of marine grade plywood but it still is only three to five ply's. I like clear pine for solid wood in cabinets for the shop.
Hey Adam, I'm from Brazil and I love woodworking... And plywood aside, the only wood I worked with and never attacked my allergies is a Brazilian wood called Garapeira. I don't really know if they sell it there. It's really weird. I worked with some pine a while ago and got really bad because of the allergies. Go figure. 😬
Just last night I was pondering about plywood (seriously). I'm going to make a ton of cabinets for my workshop and utility room that's a lot of sheets of ply and I was debating saving good chunk of money by skipping Baltic ply (the only ply I've used). I saw a lot of RUclipsrs use 'store' ply (which our UK stock is awful) but you've convinced me to stick with Baltic.
My dad is cabinet maker and he uses Baltic Birch plywood which is very similar, but comes in metric sheets, that are 1.5m. square which might be a more useful size if 4x8' is unwieldy
In Germany, that thin-layered plywood is usually sold as "Multiplex". What hardware stores sell as "plywood" is the thick-layered stuff - and there I've had ones with holes big enough to slide a match through them.
@@rolfs2165 After some Google searching, it looks like what's called "plywood" here isn't even plywood. It's "oriented strand board" or OSB. It seems that OSB more or less displaced plywood on the market here and people just called it by the name they were used to. They do seem to still label it properly on their website, so it's probably just local verbal usage rather than stores calling it by the wrong term. I've honestly only bought either "scrap wood" (small pieces left over from cuttings or warped pieces that they sell at a discount) or specific use wood like dowel rods, poplar boards, or 4x4 fenceposts. I've never had a use I would trust to OSB "plywood".
Cabinet makers buy a lot of pre-finished plywood, mostly maple veneer with a sprayed lacquer finish for casework. that may be what Adam is talking about. Some of that is lumber core or MDF core. Good for its intended purpose.
@@Merennulli OSB aka "waferboard" in the USA is used mostly for exterior wall sheathing in new house construction, good for that use and cheaper than plywood. Wrap it up in Tyvek and it works for that use.
Baltic Birch comes in 5’x5’ sheets. Also there is europly, and Apple ply which are nicer grades of material. I sense a revision in the next video. Great video none the less! 👍
After building my first few PA speaker cabinets many many years ago. I realized that compared to the amount of work I put into building the cabinets, the cost differential between cheap plywood and arctic birch was more than offset by the quality of the finished project.
Hey Adam, I'd suggest you invest in a track saw. You'd wish you'd done so before. I bought myself the exquisit Mafell mt55cc. The same one as my father who uses it's professionally for almost a decade now. It never failed him, and he uses it to cut two sheets of 18 mm baltic plywood by the dozen. (he makes coffins). Get a blade with not too many teeth. My dad also owned the smaller version of this saw, the KSS 40. It's not a drop-in saw, and doesn't have the same size and power as the mt55cc, but still crazy good. Unfortunately my dad manages to burn it's motor out cutting way to thick a counter top on a dull saw. I have held other track saws like the Festool and the makita. Allthough pretty good, the Mafell trumps them. If not on the saw, then on their superior guides. Get one of 1 and one of 2 meters (or somewhere about that), and one of those crazy expensive connectors. And a "crosscut" thing. I own a mitre saw and a table saw, but I rarely use them. 90% of my wood cutting action is done by this Mafell piece. Just my 2 cents, but if you need more convincing be in touch ;-)
Adam if you have a Woodworker's Source in the area, they have Baltic Birch plywood readily available in a number of thicknesses and cut to various sizes. They also ship.
Any time I go into a shop that sells lumber I always lust over the nice birch plywood. I don't even need to have a project that needs it at the time, it's just the best!
I'm so happy that I can get birch ply everywhere. Each hardware store with a wood section has this stuff in germany. Only the thin 3 and 4 mm stuff for lasercutting is not to get there.
I use that stuff (called Russian birch ply in my area) for guitar fixtures, jig, and templates. Even the shite stuff have uses. I used the cheap spruce stuff and OSB for making shipping crates for local artists. The regular HD stuff is usually overpriced but easy to find. Birch is $$$ and there is one store about 45 minutes from me that stocks it in the 30"x60". My shop is small so I drive there once a month. Once you use it, you never want to go back but the cost is high. It is a dream to work with.
You can get the same exact plywood directly from woodcraft. They always charge much more when they sell through Amazon. I'm pretty sure they ship all over the USA.
Lucky enough to have woodcraft and rockler stores. You can get 4x8 of baltic birch. They have 4x4 and 2x4, but I've not seen full sheets. There are also some hardwood suppliers locally who will sell you 4x8. I actually bought some phenolic coated 3/4 inch baltic birch as well for some table tops (router table)
I was always curious what you used for engineering/construction purposes. I run a cabinet shop (we mostly do cabinets, but we do take on other work for other oddities). I used Birch when i built some of the cabinets in our shop because of the extra durability it has. We make Euro-style cabinets in our shop (edgebanding face, not a face frame), so we generally use 5 or 7 ply maple for that, and 9 or 11 ply for anything that needs to be tough (generally for appliance towers in the kitchen, or when we do custom closet setups). That smooth/shiny surface is a pre-finish coat (mostly used for cabinets), really sucks to clue to, but there are a few products that can adhere to it.
I live in Vestal NY. I am fortunate to have local lumber yard that carries Baltic birch plywood in 1/8" all the way up to 1" and they have free delivery.
Cutting 4x8 sheets; get hold of a pair of Toughbuilt C700 sawhorses (you only need one, but a pair of anything is better). It has lugs on one side that you can support a sheet of 4x8 on while you run a skilsaw up to cut it.
You might want to contact Harbor Sales (in Sudlersville, MD)... They custom cut some beautiful birch, mahogany, and teak plywood. When I lived in the Baltimore area they were my go-to for plywood, and they delivered to my door! I called them to make sure they also ship, and they do ship pre-cut pieces (not full sheets). You might also try contacting some local cabinet-making shops to see if they can custom cut your project pieces.
I completely relate to his love of that plywood! It is nice to know I am not alone in having a favorite. I avoid veneer whenever can. It often rips and frays when being cut and bubbles upon contact with glue or paint. I can't stand it.
AC is a common Burch plywood, A-Grade on one side and C-Grade on the other. C can have filler used and showing. An X after the face grades represents an exterior rated glue; exterior doesn’t mean submerged in water that falls to Marine grade adhesive. Some home centers carry predominantly BC. Birch plywood is great in woodworking due to the number and consistency in plys; mist hone centers use veneer plywood’s even on their top plywoods. Know what you’re buying and what to expect. Hickory is a great solid wood that seems quite undervalued; I love it as it is Hard and Strong and holds up to the toughest locations and people.
My probblem with Baltic Birch ply is that it mainly comes in 5'X5' sheets and my van can only carry 4' widths. Otherwise it's perfect. I use mainly Baltic Birch and New Zealand grown pine. Very clear and zero knots. Great combination.
That good plywood looks like the kind used in the dieboard industry. It is very dimensionally stable. Lasers are used to cut the slots in the plywood board. Then hand-formed knives are pressed into the slots. Some cushy material is then placed in between to help eject the cardboard sheets after the dieboard assembly cuts the tabs, slots and flaps of what would become boxes and packaging.
Enjoyed the video! I also love using poplar for certain projects because it's easy to work with and can have some awesome colors running with the grain. Makes especially nice dice trays.
Haven't heard of Artic Birch plywood. I have used Baltic Birch, it comes in 5' x 5' size and a lot of it is from Europe. Have you ever heard of Die Board plywood? I am familiar with it from a place I worked at that made vacuum forming and trimming dies. We would laser cut the 1" die board which is a 15 ply hard Maple plywood. Cutting the shape, holes and slots to install die blades in. These were used to trim the plastic blister packaging.
That was very useful. Aside from veneers being of different woods I had not really understood why some plywood was more expensive than other types of the same dimensions.
In Switzerland we call it "Flugzeugsperrholz" Airplane-plywood out of birch and with 0.5mm layers, maybe you find spmething when you search aviation suppliers
Home Depot used to have a rather nice 3/4" "poplar" plywood-- sanded on one side for cabinets. I found it very soft but it did okay. Not sure if it's still out there. It was also 2/3--3/5 the cost of similar one-smooth-face ply.
@@tested In the Bay Area I’ve had luck with MacBeath in Berkeley. They carry Baltic Birch and have always been happy to make a few cuts. Not sure about delivery though...
Track saws are great to have. I got the Makita, which uses the same size track as the Festool, but at a far better price point for what also amounts to an excellent result.
Home Depot stores (at least the ones here in the midwest) have a panel saw and will do 2 cuts for free on any 4'x8' sheet you buy. There's actually a Menards much closer but I buy most sheet goods from Home Depot since I can haul it home in my car. If I need full 4'x8' sheets, I borrow a vehicle that can carry them.
It's amazing I live in a large metroplex and as far as I've been able to tell there is only ONE lumber yard here that sells baltic birch it's crazy. Definitely hard stuff to get your hands on.
As an owner of a Festool Track Saw, you will not regret buying one, regardless of which brand you chose. Plus if you get a cordless one, you can cut a 4x8 sheet into more manageable sizes in the lumberyard parking lot.
Personally, i like that you can go on an 8 minute diatribe. I love your passion in all things maker, even down to plywood which i think most people barely give a second thought to
Here in Brazil this kind of Plywood is known as "Naval Plywood" (Compensado Naval), and by the pictures, I guess it's the same thing. Here it's super easy to get, literaly every store Woodworker Store will have it, and they will cut at any size, even if you just buy like, half of it.
2 key points to add to selection of plywood: a) is the glue waterproof (& to a lesser extent, heat-resistant); b) how many ply layers are used in the makeup (even layers of same thickness are structurally better but more expensive ofc. The former indicates how weatherproof the ply may be (hence cheap 'shuttering ply' used for eg concrete/cement formers & general outdoor enclosures such as bird boxes, dog houses, temp hording of broken shop windows or construction sites etc); the latter indicates its internal strength & rigidity (as well as usually being of a nicer raw finish). NOT ALL MULTI-LAYER PLY USES WATERPROOF BONDING, so despite being nice to look at when first built, an outdoor structure may quickly delaminate over time due to weather effects if no attn is paid to its construction material's bonding details :(
Couldn't agree with you more. I'm up in Canada and near me there is a hardwoods shop that also happens to sell 4x8 sheets of Birch plywood like what you displayed and it has what I think is a maple veneer. A 4x8 sheet is $50. The first time I saw this I bought 6 sheets and then bough 4 more 2 weeks later.
Houston (where I live) only has one supplier of 9-ply birch sheets. Thankfully they'll gladly cut it in house to whatever sizes you require, so I don't need a trailer to haul it.
love the edit in the end. Nothing like poplar. One of my favorite houses I plumbed doesn't have a lick of drywall on the walls. All horizontal and vertical poplar shiplap.
My in-laws 150yo farmhouse in W. Virginia is all black walnut. 8” shiplap. Almost none of it painted, just natural finish. And not a lick of insulation either. :)
I like high-ply for anything fancy, but considering how cheap the basic 3-ply is, I use it for a TONNE of crap. But that Baltic Birch does look super nice
As a Scotsman living in Scotland, hearing oor Adam pronounce "shite" in the best possible way brings me much joy on this very wet and gloomy Tuesday morning.
9-ply birch is used for pinball machine playfields.
That's how strong, flat, and smooth it is.
thats real cool
probably not anymore. pinball machines today seem like they are designed to wear out within a year.
Modern pin ball machines are designed so I can't stand in front of them.
The actual playfields, and the mechanical parts on (and under) them aren't substantially different than a game from the 50s/60s.
The circuitry, of course, is vastly different, but the heart of the beast is pretty much the same electro-mechanics, whether it's a 60s game, a 90s game, or a brand new Guns 'n' Roses
That’s really cool thank you so much
Can't begin to explain how much watching this videos have help me to become a creator myself
You can get high quality Baltic Birch Ply pre-cut from Rockler and it's really close to the same price as you'd get from the lumberyard. They sell it online too, so you can have it delivered. 👍
The 24" x 30" sheets from Rockler are 35% more expensive per square inch than 60" x 60" sheets from my local place. With shipping, it's almost twice the price.
Edit to add: This is comparing Rockler's BB/BB grade to the better B/BB I buy locally.
I'm sorry to tell you this Michael, I think your lumberyard might be expensive ;) I was just curious after reading cwell's comment so I did the math and rockler is about 2.57x the cost of what I usually pay at my yard. And to anyone else reading this, it's still not horribly expensive. If you don't have a good lumber yard near you or you don't have the ability to buy full sheets of plywood, rockler is a great resource. Definitely defer to michael's knowledge. He buys a lot more baltic than I do.
Baltic birch at my lumber yard is $20 for half inch 60x60”
instablaster
My favorite chapter in Every Tool’s A Hammer was the one about adhesives. Something about the way Adam talks about materials and tools makes it really fun to listen to.
Great sentences of our time "aid your laser cutter in catching on fire."
Usually called Baltic Birch in Canada and comes in 5' x 5' sheets
It's also called Baltic Birch (sometimes Russian Birch or Finnish Birch) down here in the US. We have a local supplier (Dunn Lumber for anyone in Western WA) who stocks it for a pretty reasonable price, especially compared to the garbage plywood available at the big box stores.
It’s called Baltic birch in the US as well
@@justinherx Im in Vancouver Wa and my local supplier calls it Russian birch. Good stuff.
1.5 meter x 1.5 meter
@@justinherx and they deliver! Love Dunn! They also carry A grade walnut ply (among other hardwood species), that place is amazing.
I love how excited he gets over things that others would find boring. He has so much passion and excitement for the world and it's always fun to watch!
Where I live, 1/2" good birch ply is like $45 for a 4x8 sheet. I'm about to butt up a bunch of old pallet wood planks to make tool storage shelves.
Haha, it's a lot more where I am! Rural Western Australia is a pisser for getting good, cheap gear!
Definitely get a track saw, I wish I had got one earlier. Been a life changer and makes dealing with sheets so much easier
Couple 2ft x 8ft rigid foam insulation underneath your ply with a tracksaw to cut and you can break down any sheet good all day long.
Its funny how me in Finland this situation is reversed and it makes me happy. I have almost never seen that kind of crappy plywood. For me plywood is this beautiful and strong material.
What he is referring to as "finish ply" is just plywood that has finished faces, not plywood from Finland. It is most commonly called "cabinet grade" and is indeed usually crap.
@@EliasArcher Baltic birch plywood is really accessible in Finland and really common, because it is being made here in large quantities.
Its awful here due to the big box hardware stores.
@@EliasArcher yeah I know finish ply is not Finnish ply. Finnish ply is what he is referring as arctic ply. We use "arctic ply" in grade school crafts, which I teach.
@@TuomioK Yeah, my brain wasn't working right. It was like 2 a.m.
Poor Grogu sitting in the background wondering why he's so cold and why Old Man Luke Skywalker took his coat from him. :(
And gee, that saw looks awful sharp...
Is called "Baltic" not "Arctic" everywhere I've seen on the East Coast.
I was wondering if they were different, but the link in the description was for "baltic" not "arctic", so maybe Adam just had a brain fart?
Yep. Never heard it called “Arctic”.
A bit of a tangent and partially in Adam's defense (though not addressing plywood), arctic birch is a thing.
It comes up in firearms collecting, ex. arctic birch stocks for Finnish Mosin-Nagant rifle
europe marine grade plywood
It's sometimes refered to as "russian birch plywood" around here.
The man loves his plywood.
Arctic burch plywood.
A man who doesn't love his wood is no man.
I just finished the inside of my new tiny house in 7-ply 1/2" birch ply. Lovely stuff. I'm now a fan.
I use Baltic birch for making longboards, and have been for about 11 years now. Awesome stuff.
I usually see it in 5'X5' sheets, but I can also find it pre-finished, which I can't use for making boards but is awesome for many other applications
Good video. It hit on some memories for me. I've built glow powered RC airplanes for many years and used plywood very sparingly, but If had to use plywood it was always aircraft birch plywood. My father worked in a cedar shake mill for 35 years and says he can't stand the smell of cedar, but I love it.
Thanks Adam for the awesome content. Not sure if it is the same but you can get baltic birch at most Rockler and Woodcraft stores. Not sure if you have one near you but it may be a bit cheaper and they sell 30" X 48" panels in 1/4", 1/2" and 3/4" thick. You can also order it online at their websites. Hope this helps.
Baltic Birch is also made in 3/8" and 5/8" thicknesses (9mm and 15mm actual). Super useful for those cases where the next size down is a little too thin and the next size up is too thick. I like to keep a couple sheets of all the sizes in stock.
B/BB is the most common grade and yes, the B side is very nice. Even the BB side is nice if you're okay with an occasional football plug.
One of the good things about living in canada, that plywood is available the the big box stores for a reasonable price and they have a track saw, dollar a cut.
I’m a residential framer we use OSB which is incredibly strong fastened correctly, I need to get my hands on some of that birch!
It is awesome! Go get some.
If you ask/look for "marine ply" it's a much better grade, better actual timber in terms of having far fewer voids or knots. Plus a stronger and water resistant glue.
Whenever I build anything I want to last, I use marine ply.
Absolutely fantastic material. Also called Baltic Birch. Maybe connecting with custom cabinet shop in the area. They’re likely to have a track saw until the shop is upgraded.
He was so excited about the question he got wood and showed us.
I am quite ashamed that I laughed at the juvenile and crude comment. :)
Whenever I'm building something for outdoors, I will frequently use cedar fence planks. They're dirt cheap and resist weather and rot really well. I've even been known to run planks thru my thickness planer to get rid of the rough-sawn exterior and make nice-looking lumber. The only thing you have to worry about is they're sold really really saturated with water so they have to be dried for several weeks to let them shrink to their final dimension before working with them.
There is no joy that compares to watching a maker geek out about the properties of their materials.
Geek on Adam!
This info is 100% spot on. I buy sheet after sheet of 1/4" at the local big-box lumber store in NE Wisconsin. Besides the laser it also cuts like butter in the CNC.
Plus one for beautiful birch ply, i built high quality loudspeaker enclosures and its the only stuff to use. The 19 and 24mm stuff i used was heavy and expensive but absolutely worth it in every way.
I found a local cabinet shop and order a few sheet through them every so often and they cut it for me. Nice materials, in a wider variety of finishes than what's offered retail. It's Worth the effort to find.
I use a lot of 5ply C/D it works well.
I like 11 ply 3/4 A/B for finish project.
And I will take and glue full sheet of C/D and A/B to gather for work tops. A Lot of Gorilla Glue and a couple pallets of seed corn to to press them together.
I REALLY Love plywood
I made a pretty cool guitar stand out of birch plywood. The tall bit that supports the neck is like 3" wide, but I cut most of it out to put a gothic arch design in it, so it's actually only two long bits of 1/2"x1/2", still super sturdy. It's great stuff. Sadly I have not had much access to it since I left cabinetmaking school.
I worked in a visual production shop for a few years and any time we got to work with Arctic birch, or “euro ply” as we called it, we were thrilled. It’s an awesome plywood to work with and much better than anything from the big box stores.
Arctic birch ply. delivered to you door by our team of well trained polar bears
just built a bookcase with a friends HS freshman son and used A-B 3/4 ply 4'x8' for the body and 1/8 A-C for the back panel. the A side was sanded. I'm not a cabinet maker just a hobbyist but do love making things and helping my friend's son learn some things his shop teacher will have to un-learn him in a year or two if school ever goes back in session was fun.
Yep, found baltic birch at a local woodworking store and gave it a try. It’s definitely a superior product to the average stuff sold at Home Depot and Lowes. One thing not specifically noted is that it’s heavier, as well. That can be good or bad depending upon your situation. Mostly good, for me. It’s also a bit harder to cut due to the number of layers and density, which makes sense, of course.
Another thing worth mentioning about Arctic/Baltic birch sheet goods is that sometimes it’s good to pay attention to the glue seams between the layers… darker glue is usually outdoor grade (water resistant), light colored glue is not
I generally use 3/4" ACX, but I also don't do engineered types of things as Adam does. It has some voids, but generally minimally. I use them for tool holders and shop infrastructure, and it works great.
This is also the only readily availble material (NW US) in a 5' x 10' sheet size, besides something like MDF. This stuff is almost always flat as well, love it.
Home Depot has a 3/4” plywood they call Radiata Pine that has a full thickness pine veneer for ~$31, but they keep it at the back of the store away from the pricier veneered sheet goods so it doesn’t compete with them. It’s 6 ply for 3/4” and has very few voids. It’s my “go to” for cabinet work.
I get such a lovely vibe all the time from this content, making me want to make so many things. If I only had the time and effort to make 10% of the things I imagine. One day I'll finish a project
"I can break this stuff with my hands!"... I'm not convinced Adam.
You need to get yourself a track Saw! My favourite tool in the van as a carpenter, the fastest, safest, convenient and most accurate way of dealing with sheet goods. Your situation might be different as the primary work location is in your shop, but I can’t stress enough how convenient a cordless one is for dealing with large sheets for easy transportation from the timber yard. Not to mention all of the other daily uses I find for it. Also your comment about working with high grade ply being a dream to work with which I agree completely albeit the glue used frustratingly blunts blades prematurely...especially hand saws. Ash and oak are definitely the favourites for ease of working and agree cedar is nice to work with but for me is strictly used for decorative uses as it is too soft and splinters to be used in any practical frequently used items.
I googled “Artic birch plywood” but I only saw results for “Baltic birch plywood”.
That’s because he was mis-speaking. He’s definitely talking about Baltic Birch
yeah I had the same problem.
Oh good. Thought there was some new stuff I hadn’t heard of before.
Depending on your region, the same product had different names. I've gota friend in New Zealand and there he buys "Russian Birch". Baltic/Russian/Arctic birch product names define a specific manufacturing process and type of plywood, not necessarily the specific country, region, or content of the plywood. Generally speaking, it comes from the Baltic states, thus the moniker.
For anyone in Canada looking for Baltic Birch plywood, check out Windsor Plywood. They also sell it different sizes: 4'x8', 5'x5', and some stores will have even smaller pieces - 2'x4'. It's definitely nice stuff to work with as far as plywood goes.
I don't like living in Houston much, but one of the nice things is Clarks lumber, who stocks ALL SORTS of hardwood, and various thicknesses of all sorts of plywood, including baltic birch.
No voids is also a feature of marine grade plywood but it still is only three to five ply's.
I like clear pine for solid wood in cabinets for the shop.
Hey Adam, I'm from Brazil and I love woodworking... And plywood aside, the only wood I worked with and never attacked my allergies is a Brazilian wood called Garapeira. I don't really know if they sell it there.
It's really weird. I worked with some pine a while ago and got really bad because of the allergies. Go figure. 😬
Thanks, this saved me the mistake of buying MDF, when I really needed plywood. cheers..
Just last night I was pondering about plywood (seriously). I'm going to make a ton of cabinets for my workshop and utility room that's a lot of sheets of ply and I was debating saving good chunk of money by skipping Baltic ply (the only ply I've used). I saw a lot of RUclipsrs use 'store' ply (which our UK stock is awful) but you've convinced me to stick with Baltic.
My dad is cabinet maker and he uses Baltic Birch plywood which is very similar, but comes in metric sheets, that are 1.5m. square which might be a more useful size if 4x8' is unwieldy
This explains a lot. I have never even seen "finished plywood", let alone what you use. To me, "plywood" has always meant barely usable crap wood.
In Germany, that thin-layered plywood is usually sold as "Multiplex". What hardware stores sell as "plywood" is the thick-layered stuff - and there I've had ones with holes big enough to slide a match through them.
@@rolfs2165 After some Google searching, it looks like what's called "plywood" here isn't even plywood. It's "oriented strand board" or OSB. It seems that OSB more or less displaced plywood on the market here and people just called it by the name they were used to.
They do seem to still label it properly on their website, so it's probably just local verbal usage rather than stores calling it by the wrong term. I've honestly only bought either "scrap wood" (small pieces left over from cuttings or warped pieces that they sell at a discount) or specific use wood like dowel rods, poplar boards, or 4x4 fenceposts. I've never had a use I would trust to OSB "plywood".
Cabinet makers buy a lot of pre-finished plywood, mostly maple veneer with a sprayed lacquer finish for casework. that may be what Adam is talking about. Some of that is lumber core or MDF core. Good for its intended purpose.
@@Merennulli OSB aka "waferboard" in the USA is used mostly for exterior wall sheathing in new house construction, good for that use and cheaper than plywood. Wrap it up in Tyvek and it works for that use.
Baltic Birch comes in 5’x5’ sheets. Also there is europly, and Apple ply which are nicer grades of material. I sense a revision in the next video. Great video none the less! 👍
After building my first few PA speaker cabinets many many years ago. I realized that compared to the amount of work I put into building the cabinets, the cost differential between cheap plywood and arctic birch was more than offset by the quality of the finished project.
Hey Adam, I'd suggest you invest in a track saw. You'd wish you'd done so before. I bought myself the exquisit Mafell mt55cc. The same one as my father who uses it's professionally for almost a decade now. It never failed him, and he uses it to cut two sheets of 18 mm baltic plywood by the dozen. (he makes coffins). Get a blade with not too many teeth. My dad also owned the smaller version of this saw, the KSS 40. It's not a drop-in saw, and doesn't have the same size and power as the mt55cc, but still crazy good. Unfortunately my dad manages to burn it's motor out cutting way to thick a counter top on a dull saw.
I have held other track saws like the Festool and the makita. Allthough pretty good, the Mafell trumps them. If not on the saw, then on their superior guides. Get one of 1 and one of 2 meters (or somewhere about that), and one of those crazy expensive connectors. And a "crosscut" thing. I own a mitre saw and a table saw, but I rarely use them. 90% of my wood cutting action is done by this Mafell piece. Just my 2 cents, but if you need more convincing be in touch ;-)
I have to agree Baltic Birch 9 ply, poplar, cedar , I have to add KD VG Redwood to my favorites
Adam if you have a Woodworker's Source in the area, they have Baltic Birch plywood readily available in a number of thicknesses and cut to various sizes. They also ship.
I just got my first 3D printer!! I'm so thankful to be able to watch the videos you create! I'm glad to be getting into the maker space!
Any time I go into a shop that sells lumber I always lust over the nice birch plywood.
I don't even need to have a project that needs it at the time, it's just the best!
I'm so happy that I can get birch ply everywhere. Each hardware store with a wood section has this stuff in germany. Only the thin 3 and 4 mm stuff for lasercutting is not to get there.
I use that stuff (called Russian birch ply in my area) for guitar fixtures, jig, and templates. Even the shite stuff have uses. I used the cheap spruce stuff and OSB for making shipping crates for local artists. The regular HD stuff is usually overpriced but easy to find. Birch is $$$ and there is one store about 45 minutes from me that stocks it in the 30"x60". My shop is small so I drive there once a month. Once you use it, you never want to go back but the cost is high. It is a dream to work with.
I know all the things he said in the video, but I still watched it from start to finish without feeling bored...
We use baltic birch for drawer boxes in custom cabinets. It comes in 5'x5' sheets
You can get the same exact plywood directly from woodcraft. They always charge much more when they sell through Amazon. I'm pretty sure they ship all over the USA.
Lucky enough to have woodcraft and rockler stores. You can get 4x8 of baltic birch. They have 4x4 and 2x4, but I've not seen full sheets. There are also some hardwood suppliers locally who will sell you 4x8. I actually bought some phenolic coated 3/4 inch baltic birch as well for some table tops (router table)
I was always curious what you used for engineering/construction purposes. I run a cabinet shop (we mostly do cabinets, but we do take on other work for other oddities). I used Birch when i built some of the cabinets in our shop because of the extra durability it has. We make Euro-style cabinets in our shop (edgebanding face, not a face frame), so we generally use 5 or 7 ply maple for that, and 9 or 11 ply for anything that needs to be tough (generally for appliance towers in the kitchen, or when we do custom closet setups). That smooth/shiny surface is a pre-finish coat (mostly used for cabinets), really sucks to clue to, but there are a few products that can adhere to it.
I live in Vestal NY. I am fortunate to have local lumber yard that carries Baltic birch plywood in 1/8" all the way up to 1" and they have free delivery.
Cutting 4x8 sheets; get hold of a pair of Toughbuilt C700 sawhorses (you only need one, but a pair of anything is better). It has lugs on one side that you can support a sheet of 4x8 on while you run a skilsaw up to cut it.
You might want to contact Harbor Sales (in Sudlersville, MD)... They custom cut some beautiful birch, mahogany, and teak plywood. When I lived in the Baltimore area they were my go-to for plywood, and they delivered to my door! I called them to make sure they also ship, and they do ship pre-cut pieces (not full sheets). You might also try contacting some local cabinet-making shops to see if they can custom cut your project pieces.
I completely relate to his love of that plywood! It is nice to know I am not alone in having a favorite.
I avoid veneer whenever can. It often rips and frays when being cut and bubbles upon contact with glue or paint. I can't stand it.
AC is a common Burch plywood, A-Grade on one side and C-Grade on the other. C can have filler used and showing. An X after the face grades represents an exterior rated glue; exterior doesn’t mean submerged in water that falls to Marine grade adhesive. Some home centers carry predominantly BC. Birch plywood is great in woodworking due to the number and consistency in plys; mist hone centers use veneer plywood’s even on their top plywoods. Know what you’re buying and what to expect. Hickory is a great solid wood that seems quite undervalued; I love it as it is Hard and Strong and holds up to the toughest locations and people.
My probblem with Baltic Birch ply is that it mainly comes in 5'X5' sheets and my van can only carry 4' widths. Otherwise it's perfect. I use mainly Baltic Birch and New Zealand grown pine. Very clear and zero knots. Great combination.
Watching the first 3 seconds of this video made me so happy.
That good plywood looks like the kind used in the dieboard industry. It is very dimensionally stable. Lasers are used to cut the slots in the plywood board. Then hand-formed knives are pressed into the slots. Some cushy material is then placed in between to help eject the cardboard sheets after the dieboard assembly cuts the tabs, slots and flaps of what would become boxes and packaging.
It's worth noting that cedar is great for outdoor use as well
Adam so loved his wood he gave his only time on earth to make a video on that single subject today.
Its very interesting for myself. In the UK getting hold of quality Lumbar/Wood is a royal pain...
Thank you Adam!
In Canada we use a lot of Baltic Birch plywood. It's amazing
Baltic birch is also my favorite. It's so nice to work with that.
Enjoyed the video! I also love using poplar for certain projects because it's easy to work with and can have some awesome colors running with the grain. Makes especially nice dice trays.
Haven't heard of Artic Birch plywood.
I have used Baltic Birch, it comes in 5' x 5' size and a lot of it is from Europe. Have you ever heard of Die Board plywood? I am familiar with it from a place I worked at that made vacuum forming and trimming dies.
We would laser cut the 1" die board which is a 15 ply hard Maple plywood. Cutting the shape, holes and slots to install die blades in.
These were used to trim the plastic blister packaging.
That was very useful. Aside from veneers being of different woods I had not really understood why some plywood was more expensive than other types of the same dimensions.
Under Dunn posted a video about making a track for a circular saw exactly for cut ply down to size. Looked simple to build and high quality.
find you someone who is as passionate about you as Adam is about plywood
What if she tries sawing me in half?
@@snailsaredumb9412 you'll be half the man you used to be.
@@doctortow6244 nice
In Switzerland we call it "Flugzeugsperrholz" Airplane-plywood out of birch and with 0.5mm layers, maybe you find spmething when you search aviation suppliers
Home Depot used to have a rather nice 3/4" "poplar" plywood-- sanded on one side for cabinets. I found it very soft but it did okay. Not sure if it's still out there. It was also 2/3--3/5 the cost of similar one-smooth-face ply.
Baltic* birch ply?
Yes! Link: amzn.to/39PhXx0
I swear I heard “arctic” and thought I was going crazy lol
if you are in the US project-sized panels are much cheaper from rockler or other companies: www.rockler.com/1-2-baltic-birch-plywood
@@tested In the Bay Area I’ve had luck with MacBeath in Berkeley. They carry Baltic Birch and have always been happy to make a few cuts. Not sure about delivery though...
I love to use Icelandic redwood plywood. It's awesome.
Track saws are great to have. I got the Makita, which uses the same size track as the Festool, but at a far better price point for what also amounts to an excellent result.
Home Depot stores (at least the ones here in the midwest) have a panel saw and will do 2 cuts for free on any 4'x8' sheet you buy. There's actually a Menards much closer but I buy most sheet goods from Home Depot since I can haul it home in my car. If I need full 4'x8' sheets, I borrow a vehicle that can carry them.
It's amazing I live in a large metroplex and as far as I've been able to tell there is only ONE lumber yard here that sells baltic birch it's crazy. Definitely hard stuff to get your hands on.
As an owner of a Festool Track Saw, you will not regret buying one, regardless of which brand you chose. Plus if you get a cordless one, you can cut a 4x8 sheet into more manageable sizes in the lumberyard parking lot.
Please build that track saw. My buddy and I want that so bad and would love to see the Savage Do's and Don'ts on the design.
Personally, i like that you can go on an 8 minute diatribe. I love your passion in all things maker, even down to plywood which i think most people barely give a second thought to
Here in Brazil this kind of Plywood is known as "Naval Plywood" (Compensado Naval), and by the pictures, I guess it's the same thing. Here it's super easy to get, literaly every store Woodworker Store will have it, and they will cut at any size, even if you just buy like, half of it.
2 key points to add to selection of plywood: a) is the glue waterproof (& to a lesser extent, heat-resistant); b) how many ply layers are used in the makeup (even layers of same thickness are structurally better but more expensive ofc. The former indicates how weatherproof the ply may be (hence cheap 'shuttering ply' used for eg concrete/cement formers & general outdoor enclosures such as bird boxes, dog houses, temp hording of broken shop windows or construction sites etc); the latter indicates its internal strength & rigidity (as well as usually being of a nicer raw finish). NOT ALL MULTI-LAYER PLY USES WATERPROOF BONDING, so despite being nice to look at when first built, an outdoor structure may quickly delaminate over time due to weather effects if no attn is paid to its construction material's bonding details :(
Couldn't agree with you more. I'm up in Canada and near me there is a hardwoods shop that also happens to sell 4x8 sheets of Birch plywood like what you displayed and it has what I think is a maple veneer. A 4x8 sheet is $50. The first time I saw this I bought 6 sheets and then bough 4 more 2 weeks later.
Just found a piece. 3/4 inch has 11 layers plus a veneer layer on both sides. It really is my new gold standard.
Houston (where I live) only has one supplier of 9-ply birch sheets. Thankfully they'll gladly cut it in house to whatever sizes you require, so I don't need a trailer to haul it.
love the edit in the end. Nothing like poplar. One of my favorite houses I plumbed doesn't have a lick of drywall on the walls. All horizontal and vertical poplar shiplap.
My in-laws 150yo farmhouse in W. Virginia is all black walnut. 8” shiplap. Almost none of it painted, just natural finish. And not a lick of insulation either. :)
We call "Arctic Birch" by a different name here in BC...we call it "Baltic Birch", and it's great stuff, and readily available.
I’m in southern US and I’ve always called it Baltic birch.
Baltic is what he means
I think it's called "Baltic Birch" in most of the US as well. I'd never heard "Arctic" until this video.
@@RogueA.I. I was wondering about that, it sounded like Adam was saying Artic birch, but the subtitles had Baltic birch.
@@DonChartier I honestly never heard arctic birch either.
I like high-ply for anything fancy, but considering how cheap the basic 3-ply is, I use it for a TONNE of crap. But that Baltic Birch does look super nice
Most places carry a 5' x 5' baltic birch which i find less cumbersome to rip down on the table saw.