Baltic Birch plywood is uniquely manufactured with multiple plies of Birch veneer used uniformly, throughout the panel. Each layer of birch veneer is peeled at 1.3mm or 1.5mm thickness giving the panel a multi-ply edge that is both aesthetically attractive, and offers unmatched strength and stability.

Baltic Birch is available in a wide range of standard thickness variations from 3mm to 25mm, and sheet sizes of 5’x5’, 4’x8’ and 10’x5’. Special thickness and tolerances are available for laminating face veneers on cross grain platforms and for flat die board applications. Baltic Birch plywood offers a virtually void-free construction to help reduce reject rates and offers great machinability and tremendous screw holding strength.

Baltic Birch Drawer Sides

Nicholson and Cates offers a custom drawer side program constructed from 12mm BB/BB Baltic Birch plywood with UV finish both sides.  The 5’ length drawer side blanks can be produced with a bullnose or square top edge and a choice of wood grain or clear edge banding.  Stock drawer heights include 3.25”, 4.25”, 6” and 10” with a standard .185” dado groove, .56” from the bottom.  Both the drawer height and dado groove can be made to your specification; minimum order quantities may apply.

Baltic Birch Platforms

Nicholson and Cates offers a true platform panel from Baltic regions that is manufactured with the face and back veneer orientation running the width of the panel. Customers can re-veneer the panel with wood veneer or high-pressure laminate, keeping the long grain face veneer at a right angle to the core veneer. The panel is produced slightly oversized in a 98”x49” format to allow the customer to trim the panel back to the standard 48”x96” format after lamination. The thickness of our Baltic Birch platforms is manufactured slightly under standard finished thickness (such as 11.1mm and 17.5mm) to allow for the panel to be built up to finished thickness once a core and balancing back veneer is applied. Baltic Birch platforms are manufactured with no added urea formaldehyde glue and are available FSC® certified

Baltic Birch Flat Die Boards

The Baltic Birch Flat die boards are widely used in the manufacturing of steel rule dies for the die cutting industry. The die is constructed out of a BB/BB grade Baltic Birch substrate that is high-grade plywood and free from voids or other imperfections. The standard thickness available includes 7.9mm, 9.5mm, 12.7mm and 15.9mm, and the thickness tolerance is +/- .3mm.  Nicholson and Cates has inventory of the 15.9mm BB/BB in a 5×5 panel size, please inquire about other thickness and panel sizes.

Baltic Birch Face Grade Description

Grade “B”: Single piece veneer of light and uniform colour. A few small pin knots and some brown streaks are allowed. Veneer of this grade is intended for natural finishes. Patches are not allowed. The majority of Grade B veneers are the equivalent of the American “white birch” faces.

Grade “BB”: Single piece face has light and uniform colour. A few sound tight knots and pin holes are permitted. Open knots and defects are replaced with small oval or round veneer patches before gluing. The patches are selected to closely match the background colour.

Grade “CP”: Single piece face is very close to Grade BB in quality. Thin splits are allowed. The oval or round patch may have a different colour from the background.

Grade “C”: Open defects such as open knots and veneer splits are allowed. Sanding is not required. Recommended for the building of containers and dust panels; can be used for crating and in manufacturing, where construction and strength are more important than the appearance.