Birch Plywood Thin 0.4mm, 0.8mm and 1.5mm

Material properties

A high strength laminated sheet material made from Birch timber PEFC certified. Both faces are grade BR BR: – Boil Resistant. Commonly used wood material for laser cutting and engraving. The plywood is bonded with phenol glue line.

Typical applications

Art & sculpture, Jewellery, signage, model making, light construction work, furniture and cabinet making, retail display.

Appearance and grainline

As a natural material, please be aware the tone and grain line can vary from sheet to sheet. Thinner sheets can also be prone to warping. All sheets are laser cut and engraved with a horizontal grain line (left to right.)

Laser cutting

As a natural material burn marks are caused during the cutting process that are minimised using the following standardised cutting methods.

Top Surface

Compressed air (usually 4 bar of pressure is used to prevent flaming, scorching and charring on the top surface. In some cases a subtle discolouration can occur around the surrounding area of the cut line. This is barely noticeable on thin plywood but can be easily sanded off with a fine grit wet and dry paper if an issue.

Laser tails

Very small flares can occur on the surface where the laser fires at the beginning of the path of a vector line / shape. These marks can be easily sanded off with a fine grit wet and dry paper.

Bottom surface

As standard, the bottom surface is masked with protective tape to minimise burn marks causes when the laser meets the laser bed.

Cut widths & Kerf

The average cutting kerf (how much the laser takes away) is + / – 0.1mm

As a benchmark, we recommend that minimum cut widths be no smaller than the corresponding thickness of the material. See more on min cut widths and kerf of the laser.

Cut Edge

Birch plywood laser cuts with brown / black edge which is darker the thicker the plywood being cut. The edge can get dirty and in some cases mark if in contact with the material surface.

Wood knots

As a natural material, wood knots and other imperfection are sometimes occurrent within the plywood. They are slightly harder than the plywood layers which can have an effect on the clarity of laser cutting. When the laser meets these knots, it can cause the laser to flair up slightly.

Raster and vector engraving

We have established optimised engraving settings for all our own supply materials. For birch plywood the marking is a shallow light surface scratching. 0.4mm and 0.8mm plywood engraves with an excellent clarity in a black / brown tone.

Grain direction

As a standard with all wood materials we engrave with the grain line horizontal (left to right) to ensure the best clarity. If you would prefer to engrave against the grain, you’ll need to specify this in your job request.

Variation in engraved finish

Please be aware that as a natural material, a slight variation in the tone of the engraved finish can occur from sheet to sheet from the same standard engrave settings. Tone of wood, grain line and density and moisture content all have an impact on the engraving tone. Variation in tone can also effected by power distribution if you have lots of pieces of artwork to engrave that vary in size.

Deeper engraving

If you would like your engraving to be deeper than our standard settings, you will need to specify this in your job request. Be aware that the the higher laser power and slower processing speeds required can cause more black dusty marks to be released that can mark the surface. The laser machine extraction can also pulls these dusty marks over the top surface creating a scorched edge appearance to the engraving that is stronger the deeper it is. Some people like this effect but be aware if you want to keep a clean result, it’s best to stick with our optimised settings.