Plywood question

[Howard Rosenberg]

3/4" 4x8 Baltic Birch plywood is $160 CDN. It's also rarely available.

Regular birch (also 3/4" 4x8) is now $100 - up from $60 a few months ago.

I have a chance to buy for $60 CDN -
- Vietnamese-made
- 3/4" 4x8
- birch exterior veneers
- eucalyptus interior plies

I want to build a Paul Sellars-style bench - the plies are face up. Does anyone here know how well eucalyptus might hold up to the demands of a shop bench? Is Vietnamese production any cause for concern?

I'm asking because ALL the interior plies are extremely wavy and inconsistent - I wouldn't want to have to go through all of this again.

[Mark Salomon]

I have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to build a woodworking bench out of plywood so perhaps you could explain your reasoning?

[Rich Engelhardt]

In North East Ohio - we have been getting what the big box stores refer to as "cabinet grade" Birch Plywood for the last 20 years that I know of - that resemble what you describe - wavey inner plies of mystery wood.
There have been reports of all sorts of things people have found inside. My two favorites are - a basketball and a utility knife. The basketball because it's so bizarre and the utility knife because that would certainly liven up the day when you cut into it. The stuff also tends to get all wavey and potato chip like & there can be big giant patches on one face.

Anyhow - one thing you didn't list is the thin veneer - or maybe you haven't had the experience with it yet. Consider that sort of plywood as unsandable. You might get by with extremely light sanding with 180 or 220 grit - but - don't count on it.
The other thing is gaps in it. It's considered acceptable for it to have huge gaps between the plies that you only discover when you cut it.

Have I used it?
Yes - I've used it for a lot of kitchen cabinets in rental house, cabinets and carts for the shop and some jigs and fixtures.
I've also used the same type of material with a Red Oak veneer.

I used it because - the Birch was $39 for a 4X8 and the Oak was the same. That was a good number of years ago

[Patrick Varley]

I have a hard time understanding why anyone would want to build a woodworking bench out of plywood so perhaps you could explain your reasoning?

I think Sellers' reasoning is that it is dimensionally stable and can be made with a smaller set of tools, making it a good choice for a "first" bench. At some point I suspect it was also cheaper than making one out of hardwood. But with quality plywood prices where they're at now, I have to wonder about how much it would actually cost.

[Mel Fulks]

Benches used by guys of old were often made of beech. I took that to mean ,”That’s what I gotta get”. Well, beech was often used because
there was a lot of it, and it was cheap. More guys would have good benches if the instructions said , “make your bench from whatever is
available and cheap”.

[Howard Rosenberg]

Yes to Patrick and Mel! Thanks guys.

[Steve Demuth]

More guys would have good benches if the instructions said , “make your bench from whatever is
available and cheap”.

Amen. I recently made a nice benchtop for my son entirely from a pile of leftover strips of ash and oak that I had collected over the years - mostly strips ripped off the sides of boards that went a bit "sproing" due to reaction when cut off the main billet. Jointed and thicknesses in one dimension to 1 3/4", then thicknessed in the orthogonal dimension. Glued up (with lots of clamping pressure, because lots of minor bowing to press out) into a very solid, heavy top. Total cost for the top was whatever a bit over a quart of Titebond iII ran me, and maybe 6 hours of shop time. Made the legs from 4 X 4 softwood. About $100 for a vice screw. Drilled the top for dog holes, and turned him a bunch of dogs from leftover hard maple. Finished the whole thing with boiled linseed oil. So all in, less than $200 for a bench that has a solid, flat top, good work holding, lots of mass. There isn't any project for his small shop that would be limited by the bench. It's not a work of art, but is perfectly capable of playing its role in the making of very nice works of art in wood.

[Warren Lake]

I used a solid core oak veneer door a customer gave me for years, two record vises and metal legs, okay but not great. I wouldn't want to look at a plywood bench cores up.

In time got old Ulmias from European shops in Toronto. Beech and likely Maple as well. Waited too long for those, not perfect few design flaws but still nicer to work with.

[Dennis Jarchow]

When I built my bench a few years back, I bought a premade 30x84x 2.25" industrial maple table top from theworkbench.com (http://theworkbench.com) and built the rest of the bench myself. At the time with shipping, it cost just about double buying maple from the sawmill. I didn't have a planer or a jointer so this just made good sense.

[Jim Becker]

The biggest challenge with some of these alternatives is the thickness of the face veneers. That can be material to any project that will take some abuse for sure. We've been discussing these alternatives in this thread as of late: https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?301075-Our-new-quot-replacement-quot-for-baltic-birch

[Patrick Varley]

Indeed. If I were going to try this with available options for non-insanely priced equivalents (e.g. that "cabinet grade" Big Orange ply), I'd be tempted to laminate a piece of tempered hardboard to the wear surface.

[Jim Dwight]

Is making the bench out of construction lumber out of the question? It isn't really dry enough normally but sometimes in the winter it is drier. Might be more expensive than hardwood if you can joint and plane the hardwood. But I really do not like working with plywood like the OP describes. I've been buying softwood plywood make in Chile for shop furniture. The face veneer is much thicker than hardwood plywood and there are few interior voids. I would use it for a bench (and have) but I don't like plywood with wavy interior plys with lots of voids. Tends to be unstable which is the last thing you want in a bench.

[Bob Cooper]

“the plies are face up” so all the plywood strips will be on edge is I understand what you’re saying. If so it really may not matter how thin the veneers are but I think I’d put a removable hardwood top on top.