Formwork plywood for cabinetry.

Instead of going with a cabinetry service we have decided to save some money by building it ourselves and entirely out of a good quality material. What we decided to use is the pre-finished waterproof birch plywood made in Finnish technology and typically used in construction to build forms for casting structural concrete. It has a standard brown finish fenolic semi-translucent film that is strong and waterproof. Depending on the film thickness it can be cherry brown to almost black.

 

There are numerous factories in Poland that produce good birch plywood with this kind of finnish. We have tested many samples but eventually decided to go with the Finnish company Koskisen Oy for several reasons. PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) certified and offered a considerably superior quality to everything else we had seen.
Here is their story in pictures:

It says it all, doesn't it?

They also offered a slightly better per-unit price for larger 3m x 1.5m formats than the common 2.5m x 1.25m. It was a good deal for us as our ceiling height is 2.9m. so that way we were able to make full-height panels. The last good reason was that the company had a large format CNC milling service located in Poland. At that point we were designing the main feature of our design which was the suspended ceiling above the kitchen which is integrated with the living space and a dining space. (That area can be further expanded by connecting one of the bedrooms.)

For all of the cabintery (all closets, kitchen cabinets, wall panels, operable wall partition panels) we have ordered approx 50 sheets weighing more than 3 tons. The apartment is on the third floor and the elevator was not big enough to fit such big sheets. Carrying a 60kg board up the stairs 50 times would have taken at least 2 strong men at least an entire day and would most likely end up causing a lot of damage to the walls of the staircase and to the wood itself.

So we have hired a power line service crane to hoist the boards and hand them over the balcony and through the windows. There was only one person operating the crane so one of us had to sit in the basket and hold the boards. We were able to take only 2 boards at a time plus one person to fit in the 200kg-limit. The whole operation took 3 hours and the cost was quite reasonable.

The wood was stored in one corner of the apartment and hence the rest of the space has become a wood shop for the next few months.