More plywood discussions

Discussion in 'Materials' started by flatsbuilder, Dec 4, 2012.

  1. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    I wish there was a plywood with the strength of oak, weight of balsa and appearance of Cuban Mahogany. There ain't no such stuff though and we deal with what is available. For me, the weight issue is most often the determining factor and I choose occume as the best suited for most boating projects. Its not the most durable or the strongest or the most beautiful or the cheapest but does have an adequate mix of all these characteristics. Occume is always treated with epoxy on my boats depending on where it is used. One thing often forgotten is that occume is just as durable as Sitka spruce, which many consider ideal for much boat work.

    If more weight can be tolerated, meranti is more durable and stronger. Fir is fine for hidden work and I have seen some beautiful boat built with it although the materials and effort to make it beautiful negates the initial cost advantage. Other hardwood plywoods run the gamut and can often be useful. Some Southeast Asia and Chinese plywoods should be viewed with suspicion unless individual pieces can be tested. Some is garbage.
     
  2. Steve W
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    Steve W Senior Member

    I wish someone would make a plywood out of Paulownia to BS1088, it would check a lot of the boxes for me, the stuff is a hardwood that is as rot resistant as cedar at about 2/3 the weight, reasonably attractive but may want staining, im not quite sure how the strength compares to occume in plywood. Actually i wouldnt mind a WRC BS1088 panel either. What i have no interest at all in is anything made to US standards, whatever they may be they are the lowest in the world, at least the chinese claim to build panels to BS1088, they often look as good as anyone elses, the only problem is the matter of trust in the glueline and this is a real problem. I tend to trust the glueline of US marine plywood but as they dont for whatever reason conform to BS1088 like the rest of the world everything else about the panel is crap, but at least everything else except the glueline can be visually evaluated, conversly the chinese can make a panel that visually conforms to but i cant trust them enough to believe in the glueline without testing so im not willing to buy it sight unseen which is how most of us have to buy our plywood. You have to trust someone and i would trust anything from France, Israel, Phillipines, NZ, Australia, just not the US or china.

    Steve.
     
  3. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    Pretty limited view. The reason for trusting panels made elsewhere is that the imported stuff you are interested in is rated as marine grade. Other stuff from the same overseas sources is just as crappy, if not more so, than US made plywood. The major plywood manufacturers like Simpson quit making panels for the marine trade long ago. There are some that still do make marine grade for specific buyers like Hatteras but the bean counters nixed that line from the big manufacturers as not an economic positive. The old Simpson marine fir panels were excellent quality for that species. It's all about us and the construction trade. Price is the driver and we all shop at Walmart, don't we?
     
  4. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    Interesting that France, a high cost manufacturing country with no timber, can produce high quality panels for export but the US cant.

    Perhaps Importing is more profitable than exporting.

    Who produces the machines for processing plywood ?
     
  5. Steve W
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    Steve W Senior Member

    Maybe i do have a limited view but it is based on using marine plywood for 40 years in 4 different countries, using BS1088 from many many countries, and never to this day recieving a single panel that was not what i was expecting EXCEPT US made ply. I actually very much like douglas fir as a species, it is strong, moderatly durable (better than occume) has a nice honey color and nice grain(especially VG) and moderate weight, apart from the splinters and finishing problems which are easily dealt with it is great, i would love to see US manufacturers just build to BS1088 like everyone else, it is a very reliable standard, ive seen posts where Aussies have said that NZ and Aus have a grade that is superior to BS1088 and that may well be but imho it is hard to see how. Im sure that if the US manufacturers did they would be competative, wtf, is it just ego keeping them from doing it? I have seen a few decent fir panels, not many, but not enough plies, i dont think ive ever seen a sheet of 1/4" 5 ply fir.

    Steve.
     
  6. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    Perhaps the marine industry in the US is so small that marine grade ply is not profitable to produce ?
     
  7. Steve W
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    Steve W Senior Member

    I dont think thats it Michael, if they made a competative BS1088 Fir panel they could export also, VG doug Fir face veneers are absolutly beautiful, my son used to build cabinets and the VG fir veneer is available on mdf so they must be available for plywood, i know lots of people who prefer the lighter color to the teak cave look. I think its more of an ego thing, a bit like refusing to go to the metric system, maybe if it were renamed international or world standard 1088 they would get on board or maybe they just are not capable of producing the quality. I dont know,quite frankly living here i find it embarrasing, i want to buy US made.

    Steve.
     
  8. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

  9. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    Exactly. At least that is the view of the bean counters that rule the boardrooms of all US corporations. Having had the dubious job of handling the discontinuing of profitable product lines that did not meet the target return of investment, I think that is why we don't produce plywood to BS1088 or similar standard. Our own industry standards used to be pretty good but see sentence 1. Of course, BS1088 is only a product claim and not a guarantee any more, since the standard is no longer supported or enforced. As said, it is about trust in the supplier and manufacturer. Anyone who has built with plywood for 40 years knows that availability and quality is a moving target.

    I am not disagreeing with the basic claims that Steve makes, just saying that pounding on US manufacturers is too selective. We are all to blame for our constant search of low cost products and material. That is probably the main thrust of half the original posters on this forum. Too many hate big government and then cry about the lack of inspections and standards. Can't have it both ways.
     
  10. michael pierzga
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    michael pierzga Senior Member

    What company produces moldings, door frames ...for the American marine market ?
     
  11. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    The problem is standard compliance, which is voluntary in the USA under the APA. The bulk of the USA industry, services land based construction concerns, so they focus on their biggest market. Marine plywood grades fall under a "specialty product" designation, which by it's nature is relatively small and diverse. It would be nice if a specialty plywood firm could exist, producing only the odd stuff, like foil faced panels, but these companies tend to get bought up by the larger concerns, which drop the lower margin products fairly quickly.
     
  12. redreuben
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    redreuben redreuben

    Aust and NZ

    This probably explains the Australiian Standard as well as anything.
    http://www.boatcraftnsw.com.au/marineply/MARINE PLYWOOD 2009 UPDATE.pdf
     
  13. missinginaction
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    missinginaction Senior Member

    A few years ago I was visiting relatives North of Boston and stopped at Boulter Plywood to pick up a few sheets of Okoume on the way home. While I was there I noticed a huge order of beautiful plywood (hundreds of sheets, could have been a thousand or more, I wasn't counting). I asked one of the guys in the booth..."Where's that shipment going?" He looks at me and says "Egypt." We discussed it for a minute and he says "Yeah, it's kinda strange. They make it in Europe, ship it over here and then we sell it and ship it back."
     
  14. Steve W
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    Steve W Senior Member

    redreuben, thank you for that link, that pretty much explains it. Tom, ive got to agree, it is frustrating to continually see people on various forums bitching about the cost of decent plywood and putting price ahead of quality, for me the cost of a BS1088 panel is just part of the project, the problem is the cost of carrying a number of sheets in inventory as everything needs to be ordered in and the shipping cost demands you place a decent size order to keep it reasonable on a per sheet basis. I have never had a problem with availability of occume or meranti or with the quality of the panels i have recieved but i only buy from a few different suppliers, Boulter, Harbor Sales, and Noahs. Actually i did get a bad sheet from a company in Florida a few years ago while i was down there building a new centerboard for a Tri, it was just one sheet so the shipping was expensive and it was not the quality i was promised or used to cosmetically, so i did a boil test just to be sure, it was fine but its one supplier ive taken off my list. At least with plywood you can visually inspect everything apart from the most important, the glue line, this you have to test yourself if you dont have faith in your supplier and is why i only shop around amongst the suppliers i have history with.

    Steve.
     

  15. tom28571
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    tom28571 Senior Member

    Steve, In the 1960s' I could get FAS pine, white, yellow and ponderosa in clear form for 15 cents a bf. Exterior fir ply was at least as good as current marine and cheap. Availability of marine plywood was good. The we went through the introduction of FG and sources either dried up or didn't always have what you needed. We re in a resurgence of home wooden boatbuilding now and plywood is more available. Quality is another issue and sticking with good grade plywood from trusted suppliers is the only way to reliably get good stuff. Good lumber is even more difficult to find and what was great yesterday is often trash today. Finding decent mahogany is not always possible, regardless of price.

    Somehow we manage and my method is to never turn down good wood, whether I need it or not. Having to find a particular wood just when its needed is the pits. My stack is good enough now to keep me going for some time.
     
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