Marine Plywood dealer in Dallas

Lowe's might be cheaper than driving to Austin, or San Antone .... for a couple sheets of plywood.

However, I'll buy you a t-bone dinner when you get down to SA some day. In exchange for telling me where I can find Okoume in SA ....

Uh, not this saturday though .... I don't commute back for a couple more days.

 

Marine plywood for fiberglass coating?

May be someone able to give me some advise on the following ideas:
I am thinking about using one-off fiberglass boat approach developed by Glen L plus stitch and glue skills to make a mold.

According to my idea that the most labor concentrate part of fiberglass boat building is building the mold. According to the boat plan, fiberglass is covering the frame of the boat by planking with c-flex.

Now the stitch and glue boat building with plywood solved the labor concentrate frame work. I think if I use the stitch and glue skill to build the mold cover with c-flex. Would this be cost effective?

Using marine plywood will increase the cost of wood boat building tremendously. If the marine plywood is $41 per sheet with 4 mm plus transport the plywood to Dallas, and each boat need about 3 sheet of 4 mm and 2 sheet of $87 for 12 mm for a 14' skiff. The total cost for plywood alone would be $304. Estimate transportation cost of 200 lb, is $80 Fiberglass and epoxy risen cost for 14' skiff about $236.

Total material without counting the tools and other wood work, will be $620.

A new Alumacraft 14' Flat-Bottom Jon Boat by Academy of Plano, TX is $699.00

Only $80 difference. Why bother to build a boat if not for hobby? The marine plywood will make the wood boat building out of market.

 

Pctong, I am completely new to boat building and am running into the same issue, annnnnd I live in DFW as well...
I however, am not looking to build anything too fancy. I'm on an extremely tight budget and will be building a 16 ft square back canoe for fishing the local lakes. Therefore i cannot afford marine grade stuff. I'm planning on going to the Lowes in Denton and getting the cheapest treated plywood I can, after close inspection of course. I will follow this thread among many others to see how you fair in finding the ever elusive marine grade plywood...
Best of luck!

 

The only reason that you custom build a boat is to create something unique.

Off the shelf boats are always cheaper.

Used off the shelf boats are two for the price of one.

 

El Guero,

I'll have to look back and find a similar thread to find the San Antonio reference.

DentonDon,

There is no such thing as "treated plywood" that I know of. Good luck. Are you going to use glass and epoxy or just paint?

 

Ah, ok. I was going to glass tape the inner and outer seams and then cover the entire underside in glass cloth.

 

When you buy the plywood be sure all three layers are equal thickness. There is an awful lot of decorative ply for cabinets where the outer layers are almost too thin to see. That will not have enough strength.

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

Found Glen-L boat site with reference of plywood dealer in DFW

I found that Glen-L.com has a list of comprehensive plywood dealers. I did not actually call them to confirm. But it seems very promising.

http://www.glen-l.com/resources/lumber-suppliers.html

 

Thank you!

Wayne