Baltic vs. regular birch plywood?

[MikeRocker]

Hello, I'm trying to figure out what kind of wood to use for a baffle in a 1x12" extension cab. Is it really essential to use Baltic birch, or will regular birch work ok? I've been to Lowe's and Home Depot, and they have birch ply, but it didn't say Baltic on the sign, and seemed to have less plys than Baltic (based on internet descriptions). Is regular birch ok to use? If so, how thick? If not, where do you find Baltic birch (I'm in the Los Angeles area). And if Baltic is better, how thick?

Thank you for any help!

[Steve Conner]

It probably doesn't make any difference. Fender made their cabinets out of pine boards and plenty of people like them.

Baltic birch plywood is made out of the enormous birch forests of Russia and Finland, which is a long way from LA. It has more, thinner plies because that's how the Russians make it, and that probably makes it somewhat stronger.

http://alliedveneer.com/what-is-baltic-birch.html

[Tonestack]

Any cabinet/woodworking supply house should carry the real deal. Real Baltic birch usually comes in 5' x 5' sheets. I also comes in several grades. I would stick with grades CP and BB. Grade C has too many defects, and grade B is overkill for Tolex covered cabinets.


This place should carry it (or know where to get it):

United Wood Products
5914 Mettler Avenue,
Los Angeles, CA 90003-1318
(323) 233-9101
(877) 233-3387
(323) 233-9161

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

The main differences between std birch plywood and Baltic birch is the number of veneers and the fact that there is more resin glue in high grade Baltic birch ply, so they are more dense and harder.
That gets you into the subtle "tone" aspects of cabinet making.

When using the different plywoods in constructing a baffle board, it really depends on a few things such as, how you plan to mount the baffle to the cabinet carcass, how thick is the baffle board and how heavy are the speaker(s), how do you mount the actual speaker to the baffle board... etc.

A light weight, 10" AlNiCo speaker can be mounted to 5/16" - 3/8" Doug fir plywood with no problem and use #10 wood screws.
12" AlNiCo speakers probably can be mounted to 3/8" Doug fir too... most assuredly 12-13mm Baltic birch.... 12" ceramic magnet speakers might need a minimum of 1/2" Doug fir plywood baffle but if you use speakers with 8 holes, it should be OK.

12-13mm Baltic birch is much stiffer then 1/2" Doug fir and with proper T nuts,

http://www.cadaudio.dk/9505t.jpg

you can mount just about any medium weight ceramic speakers to 12-13mm Baltic birch baffle boards easily.
Heavy weight speakers will probably need 3/4" ply and or 18-19mm Baltic birch ply.

Furniture grade Baltic birch ply is very tough stuff and a joy to work with as far as cutting and routing, but because of the stiffness, can make a cabinet sound a little bit harder in the midrange frequencies.
If you mount the baffle solidly to the cabinet carcass and not float them like the old Fender amp combos... the sound is awesome with a big hard hitting amp.
If you want a looser vintage sound, don't over mount the baffle board, let it breathe a little.
Softer Douglas fir plywood will sound a little different and give the added cabinet tone a very slight low freq reedy tone that is very cool with tweed Fendery type amps and vintage amp tone freaks, especially if you do it as a floating baffle board.

When I use run our family woodworking shop, and built and covered all my own cabinets, I was using a nice material call MDO plywood for my baffle boards. MDO = medium density overlay

http://www.boulterplywood.com/photog...0names/mdo.jpg

It is a sign painter's grade Doug fir veneer plywood with tempered hard board (masonite kind of stuff) veneers out the outsides. Great stuff too and it took flat black paint superbly.