Using Baltic Birch With Jigs, Fixtures, Piles and 3/4 Hardwood Plywood Grades

Making Baltic Birch Plywood to hold jigs and fixtures that make woodworking projects easier, faster, and more accurate.

Constructing a jig or fixture that I know I'll be utilizing over and over, it's important that it be powerful, stable, and most importantly, accurate each and every time I use it. The best material for working and building with these kinds of jigs and fixtures is Baltic birch plywood. Baltic Birch is a premium, hardwood plywood that's powerful and stable.

Baltic Birch plywood gets it's name from the birch trees that develop in the Baltic region in Europe around the Baltic Sea. What makes Baltic birch plywood an excellent choice for use on home hardware and woodworking projects is the number of plies that make up each sheet. The 3/4" plywood we commonly use consists of 13 plies. Typical 3/4" hardwood plywood produced inside the U.S. has seven plies. These extra plies give Baltic birch several advantages.

 Baltic Birch Plywood is stronger and extra stable. Due to the fact that Baltic Birch Plywood doesn't alter considerably in length or width, it's perfect for jigs and fixtures where you need to sustain accuracy over the long haul. The added plies also make for clean, solid joinery, whether or not you're cutting grooves, dadoes, rabbets, or even dovetails. Finally, the plies of Baltic Birch Plywood hold screws superior than a typical sheet of plywood, whether you're close to an edge, or screwing into finish grain.

The Baltic birch you'll usually find at a lumber store is graded B-BB. So the face veneer is going to be a single piece without having any patches. The back face (BB) and inner plies might be tightly patched. These patches on the inner plies make it very unlikely that you simply'll run across a void or seam, one thing that's pretty prevalent with other plywood. And considering that your cuts are going to be 'clean,' the finished edge will look great as it stands.





In the video below there is a 12" dia 1/4" wide dado blade on the Martin T60 using a 1/4 inch cutting depth on 12 millimeter Baltic Birch. The model of the Martin Bench has a sliding table with two clamps/ jigs for holding down the wood on a critical cut. The opposite side has the blade giving the equipment ability to let the flexible plywood ride up and give an consistent dado depth. The blade runs at 5,000 rpm. The cut should remain between .002-.003 of an inch. 

Baltic Birch : Detailed Definitions

Baltic Birch Plywood

Baltic birch plywood made from quality plywood products that is known for having multiple plies that are free of voids and imperfections.

More on Plywood Flooring:

Baltic Birch PWood is a plywood that is made up of multiple sheets of thin baltic birch plywood  boarding that have been glued and compressed together to make a board or plywood material. 

Baltic Birch plywood can't be beat, when it comes to quality although depending on the material of flooring you are working with it may not last for the long haul. 

You have to determine the type of job you are doing and how long you expect it to last, and how much you want to invest not only in the current job, but any future jobs down the line which may involve removing the flooring at a later date. 

Baltic Birch plywood is produced from Birch trees from the Baltic region of Europe around the Baltic Sea and the surrounding countries. Those countries include, Russia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Sweden.

The surface of the birch plywood is nearly free of gaps and other defects which gives it impact resistance, smooth surface, great screw holding power and can therefore be used for building, construction, vehicle industry and other industries where special strength of a material is required. Because it doesn't have any defects birch plywood has an attractive side profile, which makes it highly decorative and can therefore be used to build furniture. Grain may run in either direction on the face of the sheet.

Baltic Birch Fields of Application and Definition

Field of application

 Baltic Birch is a high-quality wood plywood product with very few if any defects. Therefore baltic birch plywood is an excellent material for furniture, and other related jobs.

 Furniture builders even design their projects so that birch plywood’s beautiful layers would be seen as a decorative feature of natural wood.

Birch plywood is also used in construction industry.


 Other areas in which Baltic Birch Plywood  can be applied are for building cabinets, as well as bookshelves, table, drawer-sides and bottoms, skateboards, bed desks, toys, packaging, floors for sport arenas etc.

Baltic Birch Advantages And Experts Point of View

Baltic Birch is an excellent choice for your home improvement projects. Baltic Birch comes in metric thickness and in sizes about 5 feet by 5 feet. The plywood is excellent and has the quality which is required to do a good job for your home projects as well as to keep you from repairing mistakes.


 What about using  Baltic Birch for jigs and tooling aides: 

First things first, Baltic Birch is very stable and flat. Very important in making something like a cross cut sled or miter jig, etc. Second, the lamination are consistent, which have also been glued together well. What this does is allow one to edge detail Baltic Birch Plywood which you really can't do with most other ply products. This includes using box joints or dovetails on Baltic Birch drawer sides or, as in my case, cutting full bore lock miters along the edge. Also, MDF plywood cannot hold a screw or jigs if its life depended on it.

That is my politically correct way of saying this. When making jigs such as shaper jigs, you need to hold the blank into the jig. This is esp true when your freehand shaping parts on an industrial shaper with a massive 4 knife cutter head and guide bearing..


To Keep things in place, use the standard clamp which is the DeStaco clamp and these are held to the jig with wood screws. The effort of making the part is partly layout and partly finish work. By making a neat jig, you do the layout once and your parts are now faster to make and massively more consistent. Certain jigs are used over and over and over again. These often get a special hook on the wall. They are also made to be permanent with varnish finish, waxed table guides and destaco clamps.

Why would try to use MDF for such an item? Baltic birch is a multi layer birch plywood with many very thin, high quality laminations. Lately, the ex chech countries and the former USSR are getting into the market and they are selling a product called Russian Birch.

What makes it a bit different is that you can get it in 4 by 8 sheets. I recently bought several sheets of it and noticed that the birch was a bit stained. For substate use, this is fine. But if you using the birch as is and just finishing it with say varnish, this staining would not be very good. Overall, its good stuff but not as fine as the true baltic birch.

 There is a US version of baltic birch plywood as well which and it is called ApplePly. This is a trademarked name and has nothing to do with using actual apple wood. Its called ApplePly because its made in the United States and its as american as apply pie. This too is often available only in 4 by 8 sheets.

 Right now the stanard 5x5 baltic birch from is available from the supplier. The quality is high and the service great and it affects my price structure for everything. It would be nice to work with the 4x8 sheets as they are a bit nicer to work with in terms of maximizing the cut lists, but the other factors work this out in the end.

If the russian ply can improve its quality control a bit more, this would be a good substitute for baltic birch. So would ApplePly but its not carried by enough end dealers to make this a viable threat.

Different Grades of Baltic Birch Plywood

Baltic Birch Plywood is usually graded with a face and back graded designation system. Here is a listing of face/back veneer grades which you can use to judge the quality of plywood for your home projects : ------

 B/BB: Single piece face and back veneer. Face veneers are usually considered clear and free of defects with a light-uniformed in color scheme. The Back veneer allows 3-6 color matched patches, which usually are oval shaped and egg shaped and sized. The inner cores made with solid birch single veneers. -

 BB/BB: Single sided and faced and backed. Both face and back of the plywood veneers will allow for 3-6 small color-matched patches on average and some lighter mineral streaks. Tight pin knots may be present. Inner cores are solid single piece veneers. -

 BB/CP: Single piece face and back. The “CP” back veneers are downgraded from “BB” grade veneers, which allow for unlimited patches and sound knots, but does not allow for open defects. Inner cores are solid birch single piece veneers.

CP/CP: Single piece face and back. Face and back grade veneers allow unlimited sound knots and repaired splits and unlimited patches. The panel is sound both sides and designed for laminating. -

C/C: Patches, open knots, and small veneer splits allowed. Veneer lap and small core voids permitted. This panel is not sanded and would be used for structural purposes. -

 Shop Grades: Shop panels are offered in the full 60” X 60” format in all of the grades listed above. Panels allow for 1-3 splits on the face veneer along one edge of the panel in lengths no longer than 10” and no wider than ¼”.--

 Shop grades are usually offered at a substantial discount to the “on grade” prices.

Baltic Birch Stability and Strength Relative to MDF Plywood And Use for Jigs

Stability and strength relative to other types of plywood is the short answer. Many cheaper sheets of plywood are constructed with seven or fewer plys; baltic birch typically has 11 plys - sometimes more - which helps create a more stable sheet of plywood. Also, cheaper plies contain voids whereas baltic birch is generally void free. I've seen inexpensive chinese core poplar ply that begins to curl almost as soon as it is cut.

From what I remember, there is a nice article in one of the current woodworking magazines that goes over the various qualities and features of plywood. MDF Plywood is heavier, and it also creates a fine dust that is more dangerous than plywood dust (not that you should spend time breathing fine dust particles of any variety, is not as strong as plywood in certain applications, and doesn't hold screws as well, to name the disadvantages relative to ply that immediately come to my mind.

That said, many woodworkers use MDF Plywood for jigs because it is very stable and easy to machine; I suspect more jigs are made out of MDF Plywood than regular grade plywood but that's just a feeling I get based on nothing more than layman observation.

Is Baltic Birch Plywood Similar to Aircraft Plywood

Using baltic birch as a prototype was probably made up of two other thicknesses. However it could have been done by the manufacturer as a special order. This is not usual of all plywood building products. The baltic birch plywood will often have thinner veneers boards and denser fibers than marine based plywoods making it more suitable for a small part as you've described but you will need to be very finicky about sealing the grain otherwise black staining and eventually rot will destroy the part.

 Using Epoxy products will be your best bet but you will need to ensure that you select one with a hardener that is formulated with UV inhibitors. My choice would be West System 105/207. The sealing process is referred to as "encapsulation" and usually requires three applications of epoxy plus using a UV resistant finish such as varnish or polyurethane. Marine grade plywoods will withstand the weather much better and if non-corosive fasteners are used such as stainless steel or bronze is much less likely to suffer from staining or rot but diligent sealing will still be required for longevity. While BS1088 plywood would be best, lower grades could still suffice for this application.

Another choices may be limited in 1" thicknesses. I can't comment on using aircraft ply but the same comments for baltic birch plywood would probably apply.  The finishes will deteriorate over time and clear finishes are the most susceptible. Detailed initial application will ensure the greatest life for the product but timely maintenance is equally important.

Chances are Re-coating has to happen before the existing finish breaks down. Only once you see any cracking, peeling or clouding, you are too late and stripping down to bare wood is required. Lastly, most problems with parts such as this occur in the places that moisture can get to but cannot easily get out of such as where the part is mated to another surface. In marine construction we deal with this by using bedding compounds in these faying surfaces. These are usually non-curing oil based products similar to window glazing putty or rubberized caulking products. It is especially important that the fastener holding the part on is coated as it enters the part. Household products will suffice for this application.