Is this plywood?

SiteSurfer

SiteSurfer

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I'm hoping that someone who's infinitely more capable than me with wood can tell me what this wood is?
Most of the panels and doors in my boat are made with this stuff, I thought it was normal ply - but its really light (its may of course just have dried out over years?).

I want to make a couple of doors and shelves, so though it would be ideal to start with the same wood, then stain it (I assume thats what the boat builder did in the first place) a similar colour.
I also want to make a door thats going to be semi external, so will probably make that from some kind of marine play, however this internal stuff has me bewildered.

I am to wood what Bernard Manning is to hang gliding so please be gentle. I failed CSE woodworking at school and haven't improved since but I'd like to have a go :)

The photos show a typical facade plate, with a bit of naked ply tacked on to make a fixing plate.









 
I should add - its 10mm - which is one of the reasons I am stuck, googling 10mm ply comes up with 3,5,9,12 etc
 
Third pic down appears to have a thin face laminate. Bit like teak faced ply.
I looked around here for 10mm marine ply and found some good stuff, but at a price.. One tends to find 3/8" which is a bit less (9.5mm?)

I bought my last lot from marineplyonline and it is quite good. With the proviso that the middle laminâtes are uneven. The 2nd and 4th are thicker than the others in 5 ply. But Ok for what I am doing..
On your sizes: I have found 4, 6,8 & 10 without too much trouble. My little boat is glued clinker with 6mm Occume of good quality. No voids and durable wood throughout. If it is really just cabinate doors, then I would worry much less, but protect the ply carefully. i.e. époxy. All my stuff has Resoltech Re1010 water based primer, with some decent varnish over to protect from U-V.
 
Its about 35 years old I think, circa 1979. Its probably ok for me to use bog standard marine ply, it's just so light which gave me the wobble.
 
Yes, that is ply, not good quality but perfectly adequate for non structural interior work such as doors. Unlikely to be able to find that in 10mm with veneer the same as you have. Robins Timber do teak faced one side 9mm but it is well over £100 a sheet. They also have Sapele ply which does have a reasonable grain which is a bit cheaper.
 
Cosmetically I'm not that stressed (at least not compared to the dilemma over a fuel tank, rigging, electrics and a hundred and one other decisions), so I'll settle for a standard 9mm ply which I'll try to stain an approximate colour. At least I have some idea what to order now.

Thanks all.
 
The 10mm (actually a bit thinner from marineplyonline was around £25 a sheet. Bought it 5yrs ago(?) they are near Bristol.

The editor of Watercraft is building a glued clinker boat out of birch ply from some Nordic country. Quite cheap and waterproof glue, just not durable wood. OK if you seal it well.
 
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Back in the seventies would it have been 5/16 or 3/8 ply? With the teak laminate added by the boat builders?
Best way to source cheap M P is to go to somewhere like Wicks & to sort through the whole pile & find a bit thats...... Not too shabby........
 
SiteSurfer said:
Teak laminate?

Such a thing exists? I (naively) thought that it had been simply stained and coloured....
Click to expand...

You can get teak veneer from a variety of sources. www.robbins.co.uk is (as already mentioned) a good source of veneered panels. For example you could use 4mm teak veneered panel bonded to 6mm WBP - cheaper than 9mm veneered marine ply. Just doing similar but using sapele veneered domestic door panel material on small job to match veneers in my new boat.
 
I took the advice and used std exterior ply and treated it a lot of times, I finished the job yesterday and given that this was my first ever go at woodwork other than putting a shelf up, am quite pleased.

Nothing to you chaps that rebuild entire boats, but one has to start somewhere.. Getting the colour right was tricky too.







 
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