What kind of plywood? (interior restoration)

[dahlke]

Hi guys

Firstly, thanks for a great forum (old and new). Great resource for information.

I've been the proud owner of Ballad #332 for all of 3 weeks now. I'm planing to spend the next two years here getting ready for cruising. A big part of that is going to be restoring the inside of the boat. I came across prjacobs' awesomely inspiring blog (http://www.sintacha.com). A huge source of both motivation and inspiration. Thanks prjacobs

One of my first challenge is to figure out what kind of plywood to use. I got in touch with a company that makes marine grade mahogany plywood (here in Denmark). But it seems that the are asking USD 530 for one sheet (250 cm x 125 cm, 16 mm) of plywood. I don't know how many sheets I'm going to need but I bet it's going to be more than a few. What are my options? Should i really expect to pay USD 530 per sheet?


Regards

Mads

[MarkRyan1981]

Hello Mads,

Congratulations on your purchase!! The Ballad is a fine choice, Triola (number 50) has never let me down and we have been through some very challenging conditions indeed.

We use Robbins Timber in the UK, and for the visible parts of the interior, where the plywood is structural, we use 12mm Tiger Elite (which is marine ply faced with Stripey Sapele) which comes in at £211 (circa 320 USD) per full sheet, for the non structural stuff, 9mm is fine and that comes in at £192. If the plywood is not to be 'shown', Elite is good plywood and is only £86 per full sheet (my father is a shipwright and would only recommend the super elite, which is twice the price). Their price list is here http://www.robbins.co.uk/pdf/Marine_Pricelist.pdf, I have no affiliation to the company, I have just been pleased with their products. You are in Denmark, so I should imagine it will be cost prohibitive to get the wood shipped over, but it is a good base line to demonstrate 530 USD is probably too much to pay!

Hope this helps,

Best regards,
Mark
www.albinballad.co.uk

[Bob McGovern]

Yes, mahogany marine plywood is desperately expensive. Ouch. Much of our furniture has been water-damaged and will need replacing.We are planning to mix wood grain and off-white paint, to try and make the interior look bigger and cooler. Using expensive Lloyd's 1088 hull-grade plywood for settees is unneeded, and painting beautiful mahogany is silly! So one option is to buy plain exterior plywood and add your own mahogany or teak veneers. We are looking at MDO -- medium density overlay, which is a average-quality fir plywood faced with a thin layer of medium-density fiberboard and a melamine coating. It is used most often for constructing outdoor signs:



There are some small interior voids, and like any plywood, the edges must be sealed from water. But it is ready to paint or veneer as desired. You can buy self-stick veneers (pressure sensitive adhesive), but I like the double-thick grades with a mylar film between:

http://www.veneersupplies.com/products/ ... 4-x-8.html

These cost typically $75 USD for a 4'x8' sheet. You only need to veneer the show faces; or you can use a cheaper veneer for the back side if you want a balanced construction. A sheet of 12mm MDO costs about $65 USD. So combined price (minus glue and your labor, of course) would be about half that of mahogany ply.

[prjacobs]

I purchased my plywood from a local supplier, West Wind Hardwood. It was all "Joubert" BS 1088 made in France. The 18mm I used for bulkheads retailed for $205 Cdn. and the 9mm was $130 Cdn. Because I bought quite a bit they were kind enough to discount my order. All edges were sealed with two coats of epoxy, just to make sure.

My thoughts were that if I was going to invest a great deal of time and effort I wanted a good product to work with. Although the wood is not as handsome as the original Sapele Mahogany, and I ended up staining it, the end product is quite OK. It was one of the more expensive phases of restoration!

[dahlke]

Thanks for the suggestions. Happy to hear that USD 530 seems high.

Prjacobs, what species of tree are those BS 1088 sheets you used? I've seen the pictures and it looks absolutely gorgeous in my opinion!

I've talked to a five different suppliers now. Only one of the even knew what BS 1088 was and there product wasn't certified. They only suggestions I got was to use Okoume plywood (that was not BS 1088!). It wasn't five small mom-and-pop shops. Tomorrow I'm going to call two companies that do restorations of sailboats. Those guys must be able to point me in the correct direction or maybe even sell me some sheets. If that doesn't pan out I'm going to call Joubert and ask them who I should call (in Denmark).