Rebuilding the galley. Plywood vs...?

[Kelpie]

I've been thinking long and hard about this one. I'm well aware that any sort of butchery inside a boat is not to be undertaken lightly. We've been living aboard full time for nearly two years and on balance I think it's a project worth doing.

Our galley is built from hideous wood-effect formica on a plywood backing. It's grotty and stained and just a bit past its best, which was never great to start with.

It's also wasting a huge amount of space. Moody built various lockers and then slotted them in to the boat leaving enormous gaps between and behind. There are voids everywhere. I'm slowly formulating a better design which should at least double my galley storage space whilst giving everything an aesthetic lift.

I need to think about materials. Is ply the only option? Does it need to be marine for this? Will a standard kitchen worktop survive on a boat? I'm keen to move away from the woody look so any other materials options would be great. But at the same time my access to supplies is fairly limited, as I'm in the Caribbean.

I'm going off to watch some Uma videos because I remember they did a big galley revamp and it looked great...

 

[Jim@sea]

I had a 1986 boat and the galley was plywood and varnished. Probably not even 2 pack. Basically I just bought sheets of thin marin ply and stuck it onto the existing plyweek and varnished it with 2 pack varnish. For the galley surface I bought 1/2 inch marine ply, varnished it then fitted new sink and taps. Easy but time consuming.

(The first time I hand painted with 2 pack paint and varnish was in 1982 when I had a body shop and I dont think that International Paint had even started to sell 2 pcak paint for yachts. I used both a small roller and a brush.

 

[Kelpie]

I had a 1986 boat and the galley was plywood and varnished. Probably not even 2 pack. Basically I just bought sheets of thin marin ply and stuck it onto the existing plyweek and varnished it with 2 pack varnish. For the galley surface I bought 1/2 inch marine ply, varnished it then fitted new sink and taps. Easy but time consuming.

(The first time I hand painted with 2 pack paint and varnish was in 1982 when I had a body shop and I dont think that International Paint had even started to sell 2 pcak paint for yachts. I used both a small roller and a brush.

Thanks. I'm a big fan of two pack paint- I built my tender from 5mm Robbins ply and finished it with two pack polyurethane. Excellent stuff, although I've not tried two pack varnish. I think I'd want some kind of plain white formica for the worktop itself though.

I'm quite keen on using a tambour door for part of the galley- seems a neat alternative to conventional doors, and I could use it right behind the cooker where hinged doors aren't very practical.

 

[alahol2]

This is another, slightly more expensive(?), solution.

 

[geem]

We recently did the counter tops in our galley. They were formica. We used a self leveling countertop epoxy with a pigment on top of the sanded formica. Very happy with the finish. We know have a shiny, hard wearing clean surface that self seals any edges so no unsightly silicon at the borders.

 

[steveeasy]

A material I’ve used in the past is white acrylic sheeting. The stuff used in commercial kitchens. Better than painting wood. Cheap. Wipable and with nice wooden trim gives a good contrast. Just one material of many you can use. No need to rebuild if you can reline
Steveeasy

 

[doug748]

I'm quite keen on using a tambour door for part of the galley- seems a neat alternative to conventional doors, and I could use it right behind the cooker where hinged doors aren't very practical.

I really like sliding doors, as on this Rassy:



.

 

[Kelpie]

We recently did the counter tops in our galley. They were formica. We used a self leveling countertop epoxy with a pigment on top of the sanded formica. Very happy with the finish. We know have a shiny, hard wearing clean surface that self seals any edges so no unsightly silicon at the borders.

Did you source everything out here?
I'm not aiming for a million dollar look. If you saw the current state of it you'd understand that almost anything would be an improvement.

 

[Kelpie]

A material I’ve used in the past is white acrylic sheeting. The stuff used in commercial kitchens. Better than painting wood. Cheap. Wipable and with nice wooden trim gives a good contrast. Just one material of many you can use. No need to rebuild if you can reline
Steveeasy

I want to rebuild, because the existing shelving only uses a fraction of the available space. Sheeting would be perfect although I might need some persuasion to use plain white on anything other than the worktops. Maybe if there was enough trim. But I'll have to see what I can get my hands on.

 

[Tranona]

Ply is fine. Does not need to be marine. I have the same formica "teak" - must have been a warehouse full of it in the 1970s in Plymouth where our boats were built!. I have painted mine in standard domestic paint suitable for kitchen and bathroom. You really don't need "marine" paints. However getting anything to stick to formica is not easy and although I used a primer for "difficult" surfaces it is not particularly knock resistant so really only suitable for vertical surfaces. Otherwise for horizontal surfaces I have veneered them - Sapele for the saloon table, and currently American Oak for the worktop and chart table. Satin single pot varnish for the table and the oak will be oiled with the same stuff used for my solid oak kitchen worktops. Veneering probably not a good idea where you are, both sourcing the veneer and applying it, but 2 pack on worktops (either varnish or paint) is OK as it has superior wear resistance, but on balance for DIY laminate is still hard to beat if you can find it in a colour that suits.

some photos. Before and after for saloon table, side panels of saloon then engine box with the new box built out of WBP on Piranha pine framework and top veneered in teak.

 

[Kelpie]

That looks very smart. And yes the 'before' pictures are eerily familiar!

 

[geem]

Did you source everything out here?
I'm not aiming for a million dollar look. If you saw the current state of it you'd understand that almost anything would be an improvement.

The epoxy was sourced from Budget marine. The pigment came from the UK

 

[geem]

A material I’ve used in the past is white acrylic sheeting. The stuff used in commercial kitchens. Better than painting wood. Cheap. Wipable and with nice wooden trim gives a good contrast. Just one material of many you can use. No need to rebuild if you can reline
Steveeasy

We replaced our teak faced plywood sliding doors at the back of the galley with off white acrylic. Far brighter. Our boat was a typical dark teak interior. Not anymore. We have lots of solid teak trim everywhere. You are right. The contrast makes a nice effect

 

[geem]

Epoxy worktop

 

[Kelpie]

The epoxy was sourced from Budget marine. The pigment came from the UK

Was that over existing formica?

 

[RunAgroundHard]

I used corian on tops, offcuts from a local corian fitter. Looks good, wears well, easy to clean and remove scratches. Don’t use corian sinks, use stainless. The offcuts get glued and fillet joints and the join polish’s out, so seamless
I retained the old frames but fitted new ply. All the doors were cut from the new ply so that grain matched. Robins interior ply, one with a teak veneer.
Carefully removing the old exterior and keeping the frames made the job quicker. To template, I used 3mm birch ply cut into 2” strips. Then with a glue gun and a pair of scissors, cut and stuck the ply strips to make an exact template to cut either corian or ply to fit; easy peasy. Cost about £500 ex labour in 2016/17.

Good luck.

 

[Tranona]

We replaced our teak faced plywood sliding doors at the back of the galley with off white acrylic. Far brighter. Our boat was a typical dark teak interior. Not anymore. We have lots of solid teak trim everywhere. You are right. The contrast makes a nice effect

Just making similar sliding doors. In my old Eventide I used smoked acrylic as in the photo, but the track mouldings that I bought although nominally 5mm, the bronze acrylic sample that i got would not slide freely, and could not find 4mm tinted so I have made wooden doors with 5mm ply (which does fit!) framed in Iroko.

The photos are first the ones in the Eventide, the mock up I made to test out what worked and lastly the galley as was. The Iroko I am using comes from and old stair banister rail I removed from the house over 30 years ago when we changed the layout of the stairs. The one in the photo has teak strip framing which was in my gash stock of timber.

This week is veneering the oak - all cut ready to go on and fitting the doors and framework, Very time consuming but rewarding.

 

[Blueboatman]

I am only going to add to the op
If you can get good plywood then 10 or 12mm is fine , cut, seal all pieces and end grain before assembling/filleting in place , jobs a good ‘un.
In America plywood is -imho-dire quality and they habitually use 3/4 inch to achieve comparable strength..
I think even those Uma architects added a fair bit of weight just in 3/4 inch ply and of course it is much harder work to cut and handle on the aft deck workshop and dinghy ..
Depending on which Caribbean island you might get lucky !
Geems flow coat pigmented epoxy finish looks fantastic, I don’t know how it stands up to hot pans Vs Formica(?)

 

[steveeasy]

We replaced our teak faced plywood sliding doors at the back of the galley with off white acrylic. Far brighter. Our boat was a typical dark teak interior. Not anymore. We have lots of solid teak trim everywhere. You are right. The contrast makes a nice effect

White is becoming popular to break the dark interiors. You have to be brave and do it well.
not that I did of course.
Steveeasy

 

[geem]

Was that over existing formica?

Yes. You just sand the Formica. We then cleaned and used alcohol to degrease before a single coat of epoxy to a thickness of about 1.5mm. Worth watching some Utube vids to see how its done. A hot air gun is needed to pop the bubbles. It also encourages the epoxy to flow.