I haven't heard it talked about much either, it seems to be folk knowledge. Awhile back I bought a batch of the wrong kind of plywood and was having a terrible time cutting and thought it was something wrong with the machine. Eventually I stumbled on an online discussion thread about phenolic resin glues, and the plywood I bought had those thin black lines between the plys.

I found an old scrap of the plywood I had been using before and without those thin black lines and it cut fine. So, that's what I've been using ever since.

This is precisely the sort of thing that I'm aiming for with this article, a collection of all those little bits of lore in one spot. It's so incredibly diffused that you spend days just reading to get started. I want to reduce that friction to a minimum to get people up and running safely.

Most plywood is glued with phenolic glues whereas melamine glues will behave better with a laser: https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/blog/?p=6042

I've found that plywood that comes in 4'x8' sheets usually uses phenolic glue, whereas the stuff that comes in 5'x5' squares usually doesn't. "Exterior grade" or "marine grade" anything is also a strong predictor that it uses phenolic.