sliding dovetail joint in plywood?

[James Baker SD]

Years ago I made a bookcase out of solid red oak. It has fixed shelves that have sliding dovetail joints on the outside edges that help lock the vertical uprights in place and reduce the outward bowing of the verticals.

Now I want to make another bookcase, slightly deeper and slightly taller (basically full height of a bedroom wall), but I would like to use a "nicer" wood that would likely be prohibitively expensive if made of solid wood.

Question: Can I make the bookcase out of baltic birch plywood, veneered with my "nice" wood in the same technique? That is, I want to route or shape sliding dovetails onto the edges of the plywood and the corresponding dovetail in the vertical uprights (also baltic birch). Shelves would be slid into the uprights from the back, the dovetails would stop before cutting through the front edges.

Thanks,
James

[bradley strong]

Baltic Birch is the best plywood to use for veneering, and the core is should be good for the joints you're talking about. Rabbets and dadoes are good in plywood. Sliding dovetails are just angled dadoes. You might want to taper the joints to make them easier to assemble.

[Russ Filtz]

Should work, but I would worry about delamination on the relatively thin layers of the "tail" portion of the dovetail.