ChristopherM wrote:belmont wrote:I am going to make my cabinets from 3/4" marine grade plywood. Any suggestions on the matter?
Try and find "voidless" Baltic Birch...at least 11 (or more) ply. Sometimes hard to find, but well worth it.
Agreed. The stuff is usually of very high quality and takes shaping pretty well (i.e. rounding over the edges to avoid tons of chipping). It also comes in the bizarre but handy 5' x 5' size which must make sense in whatever Eastern European country makes the shit we get here in Seattle. It's not exactly 3/4" thick (almost no plywood is and this stuff is usually sized in millimeters) so adjust your calculations accordingly (and forget trying to dado it with a 3/4" router bit.
Our Baltic birch cabinets are holding up quite well to touring punishment. A good patina has built up of scuffs, chips, footprints (from kicking them into place in the van) and blood (from me slicing my fingers open on the sharp steel mesh grills). I also highly recommend painting them in flat black like a high school auditorium stage. Someone on the Jaco list told me this creates a warmer, punchier low end. We, of course, also added some pre-arranged cigarette burns on ours for that "relic"-ed look.
Dan