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Plywood for the idiot boat builder...

Overwhelming as the choices in plywood can be, is there anyone out there that can help me with sources for plywood? I'm in the Virgin Islands and shipping is the problem. Bruzyneel Occume seems to be the wood of choice for me, but it is so expensive, anyone try plain Marine Grade Ply or have any other ideas? I'm going to be painting the inside and out, so I'm not worried about the finish, just the strength.

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Permalink Reply by boatsmith on November 10, 2009 at 6:25am

You can buy marine grade okoume from Seafarer marine in Fort Lauderdale and Merritt Supply in Pompano.
Both of these stores export. David www.boatsmithfl.com

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Permalink Reply by Axel on November 11, 2009 at 3:54pm

If I remember correctly JWD recommends exterior grade Doug fir ply for the sustainability since it is plantation grown. I know of a T38 that was built out of that in the US. The builder bought a 4x8 sheet, cut it into 1 inch squares to check for voids and problems then built the boat. It would obviously be a lot cheaper than marine grade hardwood ply but the ply price is not a huge part of the overall cost. Personally I don't like the DF ply. I have used a few sheets of marine grade DF on my boat. It's harder to cut neatly, checks/splinters like crazy and seems to have a variable hardness surface so you can get uneven sanding.

I would not consider using DF ply after my experience, Okume is so much easier.

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Permalink Reply by Tom on November 29, 2009 at 10:55am

I'm not sure if this is a useful idea or not, but when we picked out our plywood we did the following:
1) Looked at all the ply locally available
2) Acquired a small (2" x 2") sample scrap of the stuff that looked good
3) Put the sample pieces in the preasure cooker

This is where it got fun. Some of the ply delaminated afer only 20 min or so. Others held up much longer, and through more rounds of tests. With the good stuff, it was interesting to see that the cellulose fibers of the wood on the external faces broke down after 4 hours on high, yet left the glue intact. The ply we ended up picking is a pine ply glued with a waterproof/boilproof glue. It's not marine grade, but the few gaps are negligable...I think they could sell it as marine grade but i'm not telling them :)

4) Back to the lumber yard to buy. Try picking through the stacks to find the best pieces (bring a stout friend). We found a lot of A/A mixed in with A/B, and were able to reject pieces with poor patches, a visilbe gap on the edge, exceptionally bad B sides, etc...