Woodcraft hardwood and Baltic birch sizes: boards, plywood panels and a bookshelf cut list

Woodcraft is a store for woodworkers, so the wood aisle is hardwood boards and cabinet-grade plywood rather than framing lumber. The boards come surfaced to set sizes you can build with straight off the shelf, and the plywood is sold in tidy project panels instead of full sheets. The tables below list the real board dimensions and panel sizes with prices from woodcraft.com. At the end, a worked cut list builds a red oak desktop bookshelf from just two boards for around $18.58, and shows why buying a board per part costs twice as much.

Hardwood dimensional lumber (surfaced boards)

Woodcraft's shop boards are surfaced on four sides and cut to set thicknesses, widths and lengths, so the size on the label is the finished size. Red oak is the everyday choice for shelves and small furniture, stocked in 3 in and 6 in widths and 24 in and 36 in lengths, in thicknesses from 1/8 in up to 3/4 in. Other species, including cherry, maple, walnut and poplar, are stocked in the same style of set sizes.

Source: woodcraft.com red oak dimensional lumber page, accessed August 2026. Thinner and narrower cuts cost less because there is less wood in them. Boards this size suit shelves, boxes and small case work; for a wide top you edge-glue several together. Prices are before sales tax, vary by species and cut, and change; confirm before buying.

Baltic birch plywood (project panels)

For drawers, boxes, jigs and small case parts, Woodcraft stocks Baltic birch plywood in project panels rather than full sheets. Baltic birch is made entirely of birch plies with no softwood or filler core, so it is stiff, strong and clean on the edge, which is why it is a favorite for drawer boxes. The panels come in 12 in and 30 in widths and lengths, in thicknesses from 1/8 in to 3/4 in.

Source: woodcraft.com Baltic birch plywood page (B-BB grade), accessed August 2026. Panel sizes are nominal, plus or minus 1/8 in of the size listed. Price climbs with both size and thickness, so a 30 in by 30 in 3/4 in panel is the top of the range and a 12 in by 12 in 1/8 in panel ($14.99) is the bottom. Prices are before sales tax and change; confirm before buying.

Does Woodcraft cut wood to size?

Woodcraft is built around helping people cut their own wood well, so the boards and panels already come in sizes you can handle, rather than a cut-to-size counter. Staff may help trim a panel to fit your car, but the store is not a milling service.

Because this is furniture and box stock, the parts have to be square and matched, so plan to make the final cuts yourself with a table saw, a miter saw, or a track saw. Buying a board or panel close to the size you need keeps the offcuts small and the setups simple.

Worked example: red oak desktop bookshelf, 21 × 11 × 6 in

A small desktop bookshelf: 21 in wide, 11 in tall, 6 in deep, in 3/4 in red oak. Two sides run the full 11 in height, and a top and bottom fit between them. With 3/4 in sides, the top and bottom span 21 minus 2 × 3/4 in, which is 19-1/2 in. Every part is 6 in deep, which is exactly the width of a 6 in board, so no ripping is needed. A 1/8 in kerf is assumed on each cut.

Parts list

Cutting plan: two 3/4 × 6 × 36 boards

Two red oak boards, each 3/4 in by 6 in by 36 in, at $9.29 each = $18.58 total. Each board is 36 in long and 6 in wide, so it needs only crosscuts. The trick is to pair a side with a top or bottom on each board.

Each board carries 11 + 19.5 = 30.5 in of parts plus one 1/8 in kerf, for 30.625 in used and 5.375 in left over. Two boards give all four parts, with two short offcuts handy for a small divider or a set of feet.

Why not buy a board for each part? The obvious way to shop is one 36 in board per part: four parts, four boards at $9.29, which is $37.16. But an 11 in side alone leaves 25 in of a 36 in board unused, and a 19-1/2 in shelf alone leaves 16-1/2 in. Pairing a side with a shelf on the same board fills it far better and drops the buy to two boards at $18.58, which saves $18.58, exactly half, because two parts that share a board waste much less than one part sitting on its own.

Plan your own Woodcraft cut list

Once you know Woodcraft's board sizes and panel dimensions, the real question is how your parts nest onto those boards and panels with the least waste and cost. That is exactly what SawReady works out. Enter your parts, set the board lengths and panel sizes to match what Woodcraft carries, and it finds the most efficient way to cut and buy.

Plan my Woodcraft cuts