Reference specs, per-sheet math, and laser settings for 3mm (1/8″) Baltic birch — the standard stock for boxes, enclosures, and finger-jointed builds. Punch in your sheet price below for an instant per-part quote.
Baltic birch earns its reputation on laser tables because the void-free core cuts clean through every ply — no burnt gaps at the edge, no delamination on tight finger joints. It's the default choice for anything that needs to look good from the cut edge: boxes, living-hinge enclosures, jigs, and nested batch parts.
Where it differs from cabinet-grade birch plywood: Baltic birch is graded for consistency through the whole stack, not just the face veneer, so kerf and burn behavior stay predictable sheet to sheet — the reason it's the material most CO² laser settings charts are built around.
The same math the calculator above runs — worked out longhand, so you can sanity-check it against your own numbers.
The scrap allowance is the part most quoting spreadsheets get wrong — it's not padding, it's the real cost of the grain gaps, kerf loss, and unused corners every nested layout leaves behind. 12–15% is typical for Baltic birch; tighter nests on a good bin-packer can bring it closer to 8–10%.
This is the material line only. A full shop quote adds machine time, labor, and finishing — KraftyQuote's cost engine rolls all of it into one number automatically.
Ballpark settings for a through-cut in one pass — always run a test strip first, since tube age and lens condition shift these by ±15% easily.
Kerf grows with focus drift and dirty optics before anything else — check lens cleanliness and re-focus before dropping power. A doubled pass at lower power usually narrows the kerf back down versus one hot pass.
Not always — "laser plywood" is a marketing term some suppliers use for any void-free ply. True Baltic birch is graded to a specific standard (B/BB face veneer, all-birch core); cheaper void-free alternatives can substitute poplar or other species in the inner plies, which changes both density and burn color.
12–15% is a safe planning number for hand-arranged layouts. If you're nesting with software that rotates and interlocks parts, 8–10% is realistic — KraftyNest (KraftyQuote's nesting tool) shows your actual sheet utilization before you cut, so you can quote the real number instead of a guess.
KraftyQuote's full cost engine handles materials, machine time, labor, and margin in one quote — free to build, no card required.