True Baltic Birch comes in 5' x 5', 4' x 8' (rarely) and 5' x 10' sheets, the most common size is 5' x 5' (metric, 1525 mm x 1525 mm)
Domestic Birch plywood on the other other hand comes in 4' x 8' and 4' x 10' (rarely) sheets and is generally available in most lumber yards and some big box stores.
Nice job BTW, I have thought about the Festool package, but it's just too rich for me.
I've never found true Baltic Birch plywood anywhere but a plywood or dedicated sheets good distributor. Big Box and local stores typically don't understand what it is. That being said, domestic Birch plywood is fine for many applications, actually better than many other hardwood plywoods.. One way to tell what you are using is to count the ply's:
Baltic Birch is:
1525 mm x 1525 mm
3 mm ≈ 1/8″ (3 plies)
6 mm ≈ 1/4″ (5 plies)
9 mm ≈ 3/8″ (7 plies)
12 mm ≈ 1/2″ (9 plies)
18 mm ≈ 3/4″ (13 plies)
Appleply is possibly my most favorite plywood, very tough, dimensionally stable and beautiful when given a clear finish. Both Baltic Birch and appleply are great for jig's and fixture's.
Yeah, we have a couple of pretty decent lumber yards here in Austin. However, real baltic birch has been really hard to get in the past few months. No idea why... But when they do have it in stock, they are charging a premium for it.
I only get 4x8 as 5x5 is hard to handle and often times I need the length.
In any case, I use it simply because I like the exposed edge look... and baltic ***** has a great ply profile.
Good job. I like the recessed doors.
Seeing the Festool stuff in action really gets me wanting. The dust collection appears to be amazing. But, as a friend of mine used to say about things... "That ain't no cheap date". If I was starting my collection from scratch....
Track Saw would probably be the best bang for the buck for me.
That Unisaw is a beauty too.
I think just about everything Festool sells is grossly over-priced. And once you get a few foundation pieces like the track saw, the dust collector, and maybe a sander, you feel locked into their eco-system.
Festool likes to stick the knife in you and twist it.
All that being said, I'd still buy most everything I have again simply because dust control is so important to me. Looking back at this project, the only step that put any dust in my shop at all was trimming the laminate with my little bosch router. Otherwise, this would have been an absolutely dust free project.
In my opinion, the only reason anyone should ever consider Festool stuff is dust control. If that's not a top priority for you, there's much better value with other brands. For instance, I really like the Bosch stuff that I have... It's made every bit as well as Festool and performs like it should at prolly half the cost of Festool... it just doesn't have the same level of dust control.
So, priorities I guess...
