What wood is this?

[Seagreen]

Good evening everyone.

Currently making temporary companionway steps from a large piece plywood left in the garage at the house I bought. A happy coincidence?

Well, the plywood is very odd, being some 3/4" thick, but made of one large single core of a reddish-brown tropical hardwood, and two 1/8" veneers holding it together. The odd bit is that the main red-brown wood smells like... old socks, stale vomit, old cheese. Its a little bit unpleasant, to be frank. There is nothing rotten in the wood, its all fine.

I just wonder what this wood is and to what purpose the plywood was made for? The companionway steps are a temporary solution, so I'm not fussy about ditching them.

Any answers?

/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Poignard]

Sounds like blockboard. If you Google [Images] for blockboard you can see some pictures of it.

 

[Seagreen]

Ok I'll accept its a blockboard, but the main core is a tropical hardwood of some sort. I works like teak, has a short compact grain and smells sour. What's the wood?

 

[Poignard]

I don't know. The only hardwoods I have ever had anything to do with are teak, mahogany, iroko, utile, oak, spruce, ash and balsa. I don't remember any of them smelling bad. Maybe it's the glue that smells?

 

[Erre]

Iroko can smell like you describe, but so can teh glues that hold it all together.

 

[MapisM]

Really?

I'm surrounded by tons of iroko on my boat, and never noticed any bad smell.
Even from the builder, and other boaters, I never heard of this problem.
Are you aware of any specific conditions in which iroko can release such smell?

 

[Poignard]

Spruce goose.

Correction to my previous post. Spruce is not a hardwood.

 

[cliff]

Re: Spruce goose.

[ QUOTE ]
Correction to my previous post. Spruce is not a hardwood.

[/ QUOTE ]Nor is Balsa for that matter /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
--------------------

"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
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[Poignard]

Re: Spruce goose.

[ QUOTE ]
Nor is Balsa for that matter .

[/ QUOTE ]

As they say in pantomimes

"Oh yes it is!"

 

[Timbow]

I remember when I used to do carpentry using blockboard with a foul smelling dark hardwood core full of gaps and voids. It had a roughish yellow hardwood outer veneer.

I don't know what the wood was but any blockboard is very unlikely to be suitable for a marine environment. It isn't sold much these days and was never graded by the same system as plywood but my recollection is that the adhesives were the same as ones which were rated MR (moisture resistant) in ply, that's better than interior only but falling short of weatherproof.

 

[srp]

It could be Keruing - it can smell pretty revolting when being machined, especially if your cutters are not perfect. But there are a million tropical hardwoods that are used in man-made boards, all fairly horrible to work with, and some of them can be a bit suspect from a health point of view.

 

[clyst]

Left by the previous owner in the garage ?? you sure cats haven't p*ssed on it ?? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Seagreen]

Well, no, the cats haven't been at it. And I'm getting used to the smell. Luckily the bits I'm using at a temp companionway step doesn't seem to have voids, but other bits did have huge voids, so I'm not trusting it much. Trying to get the old mahogany stairway rebuilt, so that's my recycling hat firmly on. It's quite a heavy wood, but I don't think its good very for anything structural. I think one of the previous owners of the house used it as a base for his model trains... Should've got a real hobby... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[ccscott49]

First time I've seen Cliff wrong, but he is this time, balsa is most certainly a "Hardwood".