Name that plywood (boaty)

Q

Quandary

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 Mar 2008
Messages
8,214
Location
Argyll
Visit site
I have a galvanized builders trailer with a plywood deck and side panels. I bought it about 5 or 6 years ago in Ireland from a guy who was importing and assembling trailer kits from Germany or Austria. I bought it because it seemed well made and was about 1/3 the price of a similar Welsh four wheel trailer. The deck and side panel infills are plywood, the deck is a single sheet, about 12mm. of a glossy dark brown ply, the colour goes all the way through. This stuff is amazingly durable and strong, it has never been coated but despite years of weather exposure and abuse from bricks, rubble etc. is still very sound. It is made up like birch plywood with a large number of very thin veneers but the bonding is a dark resin colour. The appearance is like Tufnol except that the layers are wood rather than fabric.
The base ply of the teak and holly floor panels in our Baltic built boat seem to be the same sort of resin bonded birch ply, and the ply offcut on which the boat sat on the delivery cradle was similar stuff. I have tried Googling for it in Finnforest, Finnply etc. but can not identify it by name. Local builders suppliers know nothing about it, but there is not a timber specialist around here. I think it would be an ideal material for use in boats, because it is so strong, water resistant and does not seem to warp, so I am keen to find out the English name and identify a source.
Does anyone in the UK use it, know what it is called or where it can be found?
 
Quandary said:
I think it would be an ideal material for use in boats
Click to expand...

The savings to be made through the plywood used in a building/repair project is fairly incidental in the overall budget. So I would be minded to go for the top quality marine ply. I've been using Robbins Super-Elite. It's not cheap (you need to download their PDF catalog for prices) but it is fantastic stuff, the quality is immediately obvious.

You need to be quite wary of "marine ply" from builders suppliers, there are a huge number of grades and qualities that get the description "marine ply" but few are really suitable.
Chris
 
Last edited:
Ply

Thanks David, I am impressed with the speed of your response complete with links, I now suspect my trailer is Czech which might explain the low cost, the plywood may be'thermoplastic coated' but the colour goes right through.
I am not looking for 'marine plywood' per se. as I have bought plenty when fitting out in the past, though it is now much more difficult to find. I think that there is a fortune to be made selling very high priced stuff to boaties. The critical things are the durability category of the timber combined with the spec. of the glue. Some construction applications are subject to much more demanding standards than anything down below in a boat especially when nearly everything in boats these days is flow coated. There is a popular external timber cladding, used on the continent, unpainted but heat treated. Some (but not all) of the shuttering plywoods are also very durable despite their use.
I still have some teak veneered marine ply off cuts from my first fit out in about 1974. At that time I bought full sheets in various thicknesses and the supplier veneered them. (I also was able to buy an 8' by 12"x 6" teak plank which the same supplier sawed into various thicknesses for me to cut up for lippings trims etc., it did two boats and I am still using it) Interestingly, the 19mm. stuff with thicker 'mahogany' plies and 'marine category' is certainly no more durable than the 6mm. panels over a Finnish birch core.
However, you do need to know what to look for, some plywood sold today is rubbish, it is baffling why it makes sense not to use water resistant bonding, it surely adds little to the cost.
 
Most glues in water resistant ply are variations of recorcinol. If you look at the cost of them compared to say PVA glue, you can see where some might try to shave costs. I remember seeing, a long time ago, some 32 ply 1/2" thick,formed by some compressive process. Very heavy and needed cutting with a hacksaw.
A
 
Phenolic ply

Thanks guys,
Thats the stuff, available either phenol coated or phenol bonded and coated; one of the trade names = Rigaform, phenol bonded and coated, water and steam resistant. Only problem is that it looks as if you have to order a shipload.
I am impressed and grateful for how effectively these obtuse technical questions are answered here, it is what the forum should be for!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top