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Pine,
Phenolic rod generally has all significant fiber along the rod length with
some light mat around it for surface control. It is pultruded, When you cut
it into disks it has substantially less strength in the plane of the disk
than a disk of cast plain epoxy. Normal to the disk it is somewhat
stronger, though in thin disks the fibers just buckle under compression
loading, blowing the disk apart. Your disk made from laminate has laminate
strength in-plane and resin strength normal to the fibers. It is therefore
useful as a reinforcement where high loads are parallel to the skin. (This
is normally the case, since composite skins, even sandwich panels, can not
take "high" loads perpendicular to the skins.)

Guy Buchanan Buchanan & Newcomer