Went to a local lumber yard sale and changed my mind about plywood

I've always been a solid wood snob for cabinets. Wouldn't touch plywood unless I absolutely had to. But last Saturday I stopped by Johnson's Hardwood out in Clifton for their annual clearance event. They had a pallet of Baltic birch plywood that had been sitting in their warehouse for years, so it was fully dried and stable. The guy there showed me how the core layers were all void free compared to the big box store stuff. He even had me take a scrap piece home to cut on my table saw. I ran it through the saw and the edges came out glass smooth with no tear out. Took me about 3 hours of playing with it in my shop before I admitted I was wrong about good plywood. Has anyone else had their mind changed after seeing a specific brand or grade of plywood in person?

2 comments

2 Comments

robin6281mo ago

Baltic birch is a whole different animal from what you get at the home centers. I remember my first time cutting it and being shocked that there wasn't any ugly void or patch in the middle. That smooth edge you described is really the key difference because you can actually build something with exposed plywood edges and it looks intentional. Did you notice any difference in how flat the sheets were compared to the box store stuff? That's the other big advantage I've found with quality plywood, it sits perfectly flat on the assembly table and doesn't have any of that annoying warp.

the_thea1mo ago

The first time I brought home a sheet of baltic birch from a local specialty yard, I laid it on my workbench and it didn't rock at all, not even a little. It sat there like a perfectly flat tabletop, which was almost unsettling compared to the wavy stuff I was used to wrestling with. I ended up spending like ten minutes just staring at it and running my hand over the surface before I even started cutting.