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.