Design Flooring Engineered Hardwood 5″- 6″- 7″- 7 1/2″

Design Flooring engineered flooring has an thirteen layer, Baltic Birch plywood core, specially designed, with the layers alternating direction for added stability. Baltic Birch is the preferred plywood because it consists of crossbanded layers, which makes it balanced. Some engineered flooring is manufactured with a plywood core consisting of as little as three layers. Ours, at 13-layers, is one of the thickest plywood cores available made from the best material in the industry.

All of our Design Flooring engineered wood products use the best raw materials from around the world. Our real wood surface layer uses White Oak from the United States, and our multi-layer Birch plywood are sourced from Russia. The cross-grained and multi layered plywood construction with open slots are designed and manufactured to increase the durability of our products while making the installation process easier and faster. Furthermore, we have recently become strategic business partners with Bona of Sweden, using their world famous coating on some of our best selling products. The beautiful finish of the Bona paint combined with our quality wood materials make American Oak Flooring products truly unique in the market place and deserve the utmost consideration in your purchase decision.

• Baltic birch plywood is unique because of it’s all-birch veneer core that’s cross-banded and laminated with exterior grade glue, making for a superior stable sheet. It also has a thicker face veneer than traditional cabinet grade plywood.
  7 Reasons Why Baltic Birch Is a Preferable Plywood
  1. Superior Screw Holding

  Because the core layers of Baltic birch are actually veneers of birch (rather than a softer, secondary wood) and form a void-free core, screws bite and hold with 100% of their threads. Conversely, traditional veneer core plywood has voids and is also made up of softer materials so screws don’t get a chance to clench the best they can. You also might find sheet goods made with MDF (medium-density fiberboard) core, and though it’s 100% solid, MDF is soft and just doesn’t have the screw-holding power of Baltic birch.

  2. Cleaner Joinery

  Tipping the hat once again to the uniform birch veneer layers of the core, you’ll get clean dadoes, rabbets, dovetails, miters, and fingers for strong and, when appropriate, great looking joints. Because the core is free of voids, your joinery also won’t suffer from glue starvation—they’ll get 100% glue coverage. Anything you build out of Baltic birch should last a good, long time.

  3. Improved Strength and Stability

  All plywood runs the risk of warping, and the most common type of warp in plywood is bowing. Baltic birch is not immune, it’s still a wood product. However, Baltic birch has the odds stacked in its favor much better than other plywood, chiefly in 1/2″ and 3/4″ thickness. The cross-banded layers of 1.5 mm thick birch veneer makes the sheets balanced, which promises a flatter product. However the thinner sheets, like 1/8″ and 1/4″, simply will not remain flat in large pieces—and this is no surprise. That’s usually not a problem though because these are usually used in applications like drawer bottoms and cabinet backs where they’re cut down to smaller sizes or captured in dadoes and rabbets. It should be obvious that the thicker sheets are more stable because they have more plies. 3/4″ Baltic birch in particular won’t change much in width or length, that’s why it’s great for jigs and fixtures that need to maintain accuracy over the years.

  4. Attractive Appearance

  One of the fortunate benefits to Baltic birch, too, is that you can leave the edges exposed if you like the look. Because the core is free of voids and all birch, the exposed edges sometimes have an appearance that works for the project, and this saves you time and material—no need to spend time and effort on applying edge tape or solid edge banding unless you want to. Simply sand and finish the edges as they are. The face and back can be stained when you need a different color. Like solid birch lumber, for it to stain evenly with an oil based pigment stain you’ll need to apply a stain controller or a wash coat of de-waxed shellac. Otherwise use dye for even color. To keep the uniform, light color instead, simply finish Baltic birch with a basic clear top coat of lacquer or polyurethane.

  5. Thicker Face Veneer with Reasonable Quality

  With close inspection of Baltic birch, you should notice that the face and back veneers are remarkably thicker than the veneers you’ll see on traditional cabinet-grade plywood. Sadly, it’s well-known that cabinet grade plywood veneer faces are dismally thin, which makes them easy to damage and easy to sand through. But not so with Baltic birch. Outer veneers are nice and thick.  As for the appearance, there are several grades of Baltic birch available, but we most often carry the second highest grade which is BB/BB.  BB/BB means both the face and the back veneers are single piece veneers with no splices. Both face and back veneers can have up to 6 small color-matched patches (egg sized footballs or another shape), some light mineral streaks or tight pin knots.

  6. Accepts Paper Back Veneer for More Decorative Projects

  If you like everything about Baltic birch except its outer birch appearance (or occasional “football” patches), no problem. You can face this plywood with any kind of beautiful wood veneer. Be sure to veneer both sides to maintain its stability.

  7. It’s Just the Thing for Laser Cutting and Engraving

  It’s one of the few types of wood that can come in large enough sheets and yet be consistently dense through its thickness to be cut with a laser. Anything from parts for architectural models to artwork to schmaltzy engraved knick-knacks.

  The downside is that 1/8″ and 1/4″ thick Baltic birch can’t stay perfectly flat. It does cup or warp. It’s not because it’s bad plywood but just an effect of the size. It’s thin and wide. Not a good combo for getting wood to lay flat.