Tips on Boil Bake test for plywood

[Johnny Mandernach]

I'm looking for plywood to build my hitia 14.  I'm living in Okinawa, Japan right now, and I don't speak very much Japanese.  I've looked at two local stores and they only have one type of plywood. They can't tell me any details about it so i don't know the species or if it is marine grade. I did 5 boil and bake cycles on it and it looks like it's barely starting to delaminate on one of the pieces.  Just checking to see what you guys think.

[paul anderson]

You will be fine mate.

[Johnny Mandernach]

Thank you

paul anderson said:

You will be fine mate.

[paul anderson]

The biggest threat to ply imho is freshwater ingress.

[boatsmith]

We see plywood that appears similiarr to this. We refer to it as doorskin. We use it for templates. We frequently find inferior quality plies inside the outer plies are very thin compared to thicker center ply. This is not balanced and is not near as strong as three equal plies.  I would not recommend this plywood for anything that was not disposable.

[Johnny Mandernach]

I'm going to continue my search for plywood but I was hoping this might be a good back up plan.  Do you know of any strength tests I can do on it?  It seems decent and it is held up pretty well to the boil test.  Thank you for the help.

boatsmith said:

We see plywood that appears similiarr to this. We refer to it as doorskin. We use it for templates. We frequently find inferior quality plies inside the outer plies are very thin compared to thicker center ply. This is not balanced and is not near as strong as three equal plies.  I would not recommend this plywood for anything that was not disposable.

[Nathan Stanley]

Any luck finding marine plywood in Oki yet? I'm also looking to build a Hitia 14, but I haven't bought plans yet since it's tough to find the materials here. Make-man only has so much! 

[Johnny Mandernach]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you.  I ended up sticking with the plywood above.  I found a lumber yard that sells 4'x8' sheets and I was able to see the shipping records in English and it confirmed that the plywood is meranti which is Mahogany.  After a lot of research and my boil test I feel pretty good about this wood.  The boat is coming along well, now I'm ready for this Typhoon to pass so I can start working on it again.

Nathan Stanley said:

Any luck finding marine plywood in Oki yet? I'm also looking to build a Hitia 14, but I haven't bought plans yet since it's tough to find the materials here. Make-man only has so much! 

[Nathan Stanley]

That's great! I'll have to find some.