• American Birch Plywood is availble in different finishes.construction ,measuring image by Greg Pickens from Fotolia.com
  
  American Birch plywood, like other forms of plywood, is sold in four-foot by eight-foot sheets. It can be classified by grade,quality or finish and thickness. The most common grades and thicknesses are available at almost any home supply store or lumber yard but the more uncommon varieties are only available at specialty retailers.
  
  

Grade

• American Birch, like all plywood, are graded for particular uses. These grades begin with construction grades, which have no finished surfaces and may have voids within the sheet. They are used in structural applications where the plywood isn't visible, such as underlayment. Other grades, such as finished grades, have clean, blemish-free surfaces or perhaps just one surface. Finished grades are used for products in which the wood is visible and is intended to be stained or painted.
  
  

Finish

• Plywoods have different finishes depending on the intended use of the product. American Birch is a moderately expensive wood that has applications in the furniture building trades or cabinetry. It comes in solid, sound and burl finishes. Burl is a wavy or curly grain in the wood. Sound and solid surfaces determine how thick the birch face is.
  
  

Thickness

• The standard dimension of plywood is 4 x 8-foot sheets. All plywood comes in these lengths and widths but the thickness varies. A sheet of American Birch plywood can be between 1/8-inch and 3/4-inch sheets. Cost increases dramatically the thicker the sheet is. Because plywood is laminated, the thicker sheets are very rigid.