# Japanese plywood



## chrispuzzle (16 Nov 2006)

I was looking for puzzle-quality woods and found a supplier of 5mm Japanese plywood in small puzzle-size pieces. But there seems to be very little information out there on the Web about Japanese plywood generally. What woods are usually used, what sort of quality should one expect? The site in question was an art supplier, raving about how superior this stuff was to anything in Europe for the purpose of pyrogravure. I don't proposed to set fire to it, but I was wondering if anybody knew anything more about the stuff.


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## StevieB (16 Nov 2006)

Sorry, dont know anything about Japanese ply, but I can say that the Japanese puzzle box I have seems to be made of a material more like Balsa than ply, then covered in Kosegi - the fancy marquetry stuff they do so well.

Re-reading your post do you mean puzzle as in puzzle box or puzzle as in Jigsaw puzzle? For Jigsaws I use 6mm baltic birch ply from my local timber yard. I get it as an 8' by 4' sheet as I need it and I have to say apart from the odd patch (easily avioided) the quality has been very good (no voids etc). If you want lots try Richard Russel, for just a few small pieces it becomes alot more difficult. Model suppliers do it but its expensive. They do do very thin pieces though, I have some 1.5mm stuff from a model supplier I couldn't get anywhere else.

If you find out anymore please let us know as I for one would be very interested.

Steve.


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## chrispuzzle (16 Nov 2006)

Hi Steve, 

Thanks for this. I did mean jigsaw puzzles. The link in question is http://www.greatart.co.uk/JAPANESE%20PLYWOOD%202.htm and they are touting it as being very dense, with sharp well-defined cuts, and great for making woodcut prints. That *sounds* to me as if it ought to be good for making jigsaw puzzles too but I'm just a beginner.

Finding baltic birch in smallish amounts and particularly sizes - I'd rather not deal with anything larger than 4' x 2' since I haven't got a ground floor workshop - does seem difficult! I don't really want to get into large quantities now but thanks for pointing me at Richard Russell. Do you happen to know their minimum order?

Also I don't drive, so I'd be grateful to hear of model suppliers who deliver to London as the Web doesn't seem to throw up many results. Spending two or three quid on a puzzle blank is not a big issue, compared to finding the materials in the first place!

Chris


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## StevieB (16 Nov 2006)

Hmm, that does seem expensive! I cannot vouch for the quality of the thicker stuff, but the 1.5mm stuff I got was from http://www.alwayshobbies.com/products.asp?sid=146

I used it for a curved top on a box and needed something flexible and thin. 

If you want stuff for jigsaw puzzles then perhaps a scrolling forum might be able to point you in the right direction?

Afraid I dont know what Richard Russels minimum requirement is, but I suspect it is large.

HTH,

Steve.


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