Baltic Birch & "footballs"

[Capt Weasel]

Found a local hardwood supplier who also has some BB. It's a 5x5 sheet and he said it has some footballs in it which I take it are patches. Are footballs in a 5x5 sheet normal? He wants $17.50 a sheet for 1/4" and $12.00 for 1/8" ( I think ) and they pretty nice and smooth. I guess I could work around them but was just wondering if all BB sheets that size are gonna have the footballs.

[CanadianScroller]

The 5x5 is a standard size in the rest of the world, 4x8 didn't catch on everywhere
As for the footballs, I have seen them in BB Ply before.
There are several grades, just like other plies.
The prices aren't bad, depending where you live.
You can cut an awful lot of CHristmas ornaments from a 5x5 sheet

[harrisg]

For Baltic Birch, the grade BB can have these football patches. Grade B/BB is good one side and football patchess on the other side.

[lucky788scroller]

im not positive,but i think b/bb grade is the best it comes,and yes,footballs in one face on that is normal,but not in abundance

[N. Russell Davis]

latest in world trade

the russians (baltic) are exporting birch to china for veneer applications on chinese poplar cores, ie. chinese birch, the baltic logs only suppliment the chinese version of birch, so you can't actually tell what you're getting.
the plywood mills in china use several variations of cores, from 2 peice construction per layer (the best offered), to laying up literally hundreds of little scraps of veneer with lots of glue per layer, void city
an advantage they have is a calibrated core (sanded before final veneer applied) for a consistant thickness
chinese products have a problem with warping and twisting you will not find with the 5x5 baltic birch (Baltic Sea, Russia), they don't kiln dry the cores before they ship it, I guess, conjecture now, they expect it to DRY travelling 1000's of miles over the largest body of water on earth in watertight containers, where o where will the moisture go if it's trapped inside?
just a little air movement on one side of the sheet and you'll see what I mean, there's more movement than on the san andreas fault.
I know I got off subject but maybe this will help, grades for russian and chinese birch. from best to worst. the face is the first letter(s), back last
b/bb, bb/bb, bb/bb shop, bb/cp, cp/cp
chinese face grades can be any face/back combination of a,b,bb,c,1,cc,d,2,3,4
so you can see the chinese plywood has 30 or so grades, the most predominant one is bb on the face and cc on the back with interior glue, ie. dbb/cc (the d in this grade inplies interior grade glue was used)

[CanadianScroller]

Thanks for the post that is really useful info.
It helps to decipher the cryptic codes.

[PeteB]

B/BB can be hard to find locally, depending on where you live. I live near a good-sized city (Cleveland, OH) and bought mail order because of no local retailers. Mail order is not the best due to shipping costs.

I found later that there are a couple of local wholesale distributors I can buy from. You can also try local woodworking shops to see if they will sell you some of their stock.

Good luck!

Pete

[millwab]

What size are the Chinese panels (just so we can know the difference in case the retailer doesn't know or doesn't want us to know)? Are they also 5x5?

Bruce

[Minnesota scroller]

B/BB can be hard to find locally, depending on where you live. Mail order is not the best due to shipping costs.

Pete

Actually, ordering 1 X 2 sheets from Sloan's Woodshed isn't a bad way to go. One side is always good and I can order 10 sheets and only pay about $5 for shipping.

[Rolf]

$12 dollars for 5,5 is a fair price. I get it for $10 at a local plywood dsitributor and that is with a Woodworking club discount. An occasional "football" on one side is not uncommon.

[N. Russell Davis]

chinese sizes

I'm looking for a truckload of 5x8 import this morning for a local table mfg. Chinese only comes in 4x8's.

Apparently Radiatta Pine from Chile is mfgd as 5' panels also, but pine's a far cry from birch. The core is big thick layers with exterior glue, easy to tell the difference. Interesting, the main importer of Radiatte Pine is a company named TUL, and the abbreviation for inc in Chile is SA. Painted on the sides of each unit is "TULSA", kinda deceptive huh.

[CJoZ]

I also buy from Sloan's, and have found their service and products to be exceptional. It is a lot easier to store smaller pieces.