Folks may have noticed we haven’t had birch plywood case options available for quite some time. Current events of the world have made that a difficult proposition as a significant majority of birch plywood comes from Russia. Our main mission is to help lower the barrier to entry to get into Eurorack so we can all enjoy making music, peacefully and together. The Eurorack community is, by in large, a wonderful open and inviting group. To that end, while I know the economics of the situation are complicated, I just would not feel right buying products from Russia at this time.
That means there has not been an affordable alternative to MDF and to this point I have only had the premium wood offerings. A few months back I contacted my wood supplier about this issue. Sure enough, finding birch plywood for other places has proven difficult and expensive. They were, however, working on an alternative and I finally got around to testing it. I present, a possible alternative option – basswood plywood cases!
Folks expecting a perfect replacement to birch should set your compass. The wood is lighter and more springy, but it’s also flexible. It takes quite a lot to break. After assembling the above Skiffy 42, I find the case ends up rather rigid. Not as rigid as MDF, many of the hardwoods, or birch; but still respectable. I’m less certain about the larger cases (such as my new Skiffy 642) but for folks wanting an option in between MDF and the hardwood cases, I think this may work well!
I still have a limited amount of test wood available so will be adding the basswood option only to the Skiffy 42 for now and with low inventory. If there’s enough interest, I’ll go ahead and stock more assuming my supplier continues to offer it. If you want to give it a go you will find it available here on my direct store as well as Etsy soon!