Description

What is phenolic Baltic birch plywood? Also known as film-faced plywood and HDO plywood (high-density overlay), phenolic refers to the resin coating on both sides of the plywood. This film coating provides a wear resistant and waterproof surface that is smooth and glossy.

What is Baltic Birch Plywood? Baltic Birch Plywood is high-quality plywood made from multiple layers of hardwood birch veneers. The layered birch veneers yields a mostly void-free core providing a plywood with more stability, durability and strength. The most distinctive feature of Baltic birch is that the edges are attractive, uniform stripes of hardwood veneer, usually alternating light and dark bands.

Baltic Birch Plywood is prized by woodworkers for it's uniformity, workability, thick face veneers and excellent screw holding ability.

Applications

What makes phenolic so great? It's one of the most stable, durable and hard surfaces available to work with. The phenolic overlay helps resist cracking, abrasions, and splitting. This is useful when using this plywood for furniture and cabinetry. You can attach fasteners, screws and other mounting hardware without the normal worries of splitting the surface.

Phenolic plywood is made with exterior (i.e., waterproof) glue. So, it is suitable for exterior applications. In fact, many boat builders and renovators use phenolic plywood for boat decking (usually covered by marine carpet) instead of marine plywood, as it has excellent water resistant properties.

It can also withstand heavy loads and pressure and is commonly used in applications requiring high-strength materials, such as building and concrete formwork, scaffolding, and building support systems, as well as trailer walls and doors.