What do you all pay for baltic birch?

[Corey Pelton]

Here in SoCal, 4x8 sheets of Baltic birch are $54 at my local hardwood dealer. Excellent quality too. $8 a sheet cheaper than shop grade, which blows my mind, hah.

[johnny means]

I think George is onto it a bit in that if you hear much of 4x8 sheets you should be cautious. The only time we ever have 4x8 baltic birch in the shop is as a core mateiral on an odd laminate panel that cant be laid up in any other core. Beyond that your going to be in 5x5. To me I guess the question is why does it have to be "baltic birch". If you have to have that material then cost is really not an issue, you just have to pay. We have literally never had an application that would demand the cost of baltic birch. There are many other materials that do the same job and are very high quality. If there was some sort of visible edge desirability I could see it.

I would say that BB ends up being the material of choice when cost is a big issue. Anything cheaper is sheer garbage.

[Leo Graywacz]

The question is.. is it B/BB or BB/BB.

Footballs on one side is B/BB and the other has footballs on both sides. I use it for drawer boxes. I only use B/BB and for the most part I cut around the knots. If I'm forced I'll use a football if I can use it as the front of the drawer box and then it gets covered with the drawer front. The inside of the box is football free.

So you need to state the grade along with the price.

[John Adank]

Hopefully my photo uploaded of the 2 cross section samples of Baltic birch. The lumberyard BB is on the left and Menards is on the right. It almost looks like the Menards BB has fir or poplar plys sandwiched in between the BB plys. Just a guess but it definitely looks different.

[Mark Bolton]

The term "Baltic Birch" is pretty much meaningless anymore. Its shifted and shuttled back and forth endlessly and there will likely soon be the day that the old super nice BB will be no different than the faucets and light fixtures of old that the home centers have persevered to get out of the consumers recollection so they can then feed them whatever it is they can profit best from.

Even many of our wholesale suppliers no longer have easy access to what many here would consider true Baltic Birch.

[johnny means]

[QUOTE=John Adank;2973619]Hopefully my photo uploaded of the 2 cross section samples of Baltic birch. The lumberyard BB is on the left and Menards is on the right. It almost looks like the Menards BB has fir or poplar plys sandwiched in between the BB plys. Just a guess but it definitely looks different.[

the glue lines must make up 10% of the thickness on the Menards product.

[Tony Shea]

In Bar Harbor, Maine area there is absolutely no suppliers of Baltic Birch that I can find anywhere. Regular Birch plywood around here is $60 to $80 for a 4x8 sheet and is typically of very poor quality. I don't mind using it now and then for cabinet work but it takes some serious sorting through the stacks to find passable quality stuff that doesn't have a terrible warp with large voids. I am just so sick of the plywood situation here in Downeast Maine and rarely use plywood at this point. Anytime I do need to use plywood I dread having to source the material. Someone needs to set up shop here in Downeast Maine to sell some high quality plywood at reasonable rates. I don't even mind the $80 price tag if the material was worth it. If I could pay $80 for a sheet of 4x8 BB plywood i would be in absolute heaven.