Phil

reading about plywood I recently bought some WBP from a local diy store.The plywood which had been kept in an outside brick building started to wrinkle.I complained to the store manager and he said there was no such thing as water and boilproof plywood. I got trading standards involved and though they were very helpful they said there were so many variables that they could do nothing. I pointed out to them that WBP stood for water and boilproof and even though the wood had been kept indoors it had started to delaminate therefore it was not waterproof. No joy. All in all it came down to an inferior plywood which was incorrectly glued and on the internet they said that a lot of this kind of thing was happening with suppliers conning the buyers and companies. It still does not explain the ignorance of the manager at B&Q at stoneferry in Hull, I now go elsewhere for my tools and materials. So watch out when you buy plywood, you have been warned. Phil in the UK. Take care.

 

Thanks Phil we are all very very scared of the same thing. I have found the glue to be ok BUT the lamination process was questionable.

What i found was that where the different layers were joined -the joints were on top of each other like building a wall with bricks in the normal fashion.

What this means is that of 5 layers - 3 are solid wood - and 2 are just gaps with some glue in between.

If you cut the ply into strips 2" = 50mm wide along the lenght of the 8x4 sheet and bend the strip it will ALWAYS BREAK where the laminate joint was.

All they have to do to prevent this is to ensure that when the roll of thin peeled wood runs out - that the different layers dont run out at the same time - at least 2" intervals

 

Interesting, Phil...

I got a couple of sheets of 6 mil from B&Q and then later found another private wood merchant that also did the WBP stuff 40% cheaper. I've kept them both indoors for about a year and the B&Q stuff is fine but the cheaper sheets have warped and delaminated. They both have 3 ply layers but the B&Q stuff has a thick inner layer with thinner outers. The cheap ones are equal layered.

Let the buyer beware!