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Tips and tricks for birch


gmoxley1

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Alright guys. Bout to start building a box and I'm using birch for the first time. And was wondering what to look for when going to buy the sheets. Obviously to look for voids on the two faces and along the edges but other than that what is the difference in 5  or 11 or 13 ply?

Another question is there any difference in working with these as far as routing the edges go? Has anyone had the layers separate during routing such as when using a round over or chamfer? I just want to make a great box and want to try and prevent issues if possible! Thanks! 

1998 chevy blazer 4 door

stock alt 105a

Battery: Autocraft Gold 75-3

Big Three in Sky High Car Audio 4ga

subs: rockford p2 12's (soon to be sundown SA 12's)

Sundown SAZ-1200d on the subs

Mids and Highs: Infinity kappa 6.5 mid in front doors and tweets in Dash 

sae 50.4 for mids and highs

SMD OM-1 on the subs

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More plys are generally better.  True 18mm (3/4") baltic birch has 13 plies.  Ideally the plywood will be as void free as possible and have equal thickness plys.  The stuff with the paper thin surface plys is less desirable IMHO.

 

As far as working with the stuff goes, you can run into issues with tear out, particularly when doing round overs with a router.  The trick is to orient your router so that you run the bearing against the edge of the plywood (or the panel below the edge), not the face.  This will greatly reduce tear out.  If you can't do that for whatever reason you can do a climb cut, but you must be VERY careful and take light passes so the router doesn't grab and run away on you.   

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Thanks man! I think I understand about the orientation of the router. You want the bit to be cutting along the plys, and not across them, so the bit isnt pulling the plys apart as its cutting.

1998 chevy blazer 4 door

stock alt 105a

Battery: Autocraft Gold 75-3

Big Three in Sky High Car Audio 4ga

subs: rockford p2 12's (soon to be sundown SA 12's)

Sundown SAZ-1200d on the subs

Mids and Highs: Infinity kappa 6.5 mid in front doors and tweets in Dash 

sae 50.4 for mids and highs

SMD OM-1 on the subs

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Share on other sites

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