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Any Gotchya's to watch out for on Spindrift?


bhanchett

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Bill:

 

I recently placed a plywood order with these guys:

 

http://marine-plywood.us/

 

They sell Joubert Okoume, which is well known and respected brand of the Okoume plywood. They are located near Sandusky, OH, which I reckon is a long day trip or an overnight if you were starved for entertainment or were going to be in the area anyway. They also ship, but I figure it would cost around $225 to crate and ship a $400 order. They told me their main trade is serving the boat building / boat repair industries......everything from large commercial boats to high end yachts. Being as close as you are to a major body of water, you probably have several other similar options that are much closer if you knew where to look. Ask around with people in the boat construction/repair trades and you may get lucky.

 

The Okoume is like other plywoods in that both are made from plys of wood and come in 4 x 8 sheets and are called plywood, but that is about where the similarity ends.

 

Aside from a 1/4" panel having 5 plys vs. 3, both faces will be clear and there should not be any voids in the plys. The bow section of that bottom panel that has been discussed has to make nearly a 50 degree twist inside just a few feet. Okoume is flexible enough to do it without snapping. Most others are not. It's also lighter than most anything else and since nearly every panel section has a bit of a curve to it, the finished boat is incredibly strong.

 

Again, not only does the plywood have to survive that heavily tortured twist, the taped joint does too. An epoxy taped joint really is that strong, but only after the epoxy has cured. BTW, another attribute of the epoxy that B&B sells is that it is a bit thinner than most, meaning you get a faster wet out of glass cloth and tape, and it may soak in to wood a bit farther, which may give it a bit more grip, although in almost all cases, the wood or plywood will fail before the epoxy does.

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The Okoume is like other plywoods in that both are made from plys of wood and come in 4 x 8 sheets and are called plywood, but that is about where the similarity ends.

 

Basically this is case as most companies internationally have matched the basic standard size originally established in the US.  I found however that Joubert BS 1088 plywood comes in sheets of 125 cm x 250 cm which is just over 49" X just over 98".  Not that this will alter how much you order or your scarf locations.  It does however mean that a sheet has 1.33 more square feet of material than an American sheet of plywood.  Of course it is manufactured to metric thickness as well.  What we (in the US) call 1/4" is really 6 mm and therefore just a hair under 1/4" thick.  None of this should however effect doing all your measuring for the build in our antiquated and tedious SAE system.  I find it ironic that Great Britain who gave us the inch, foot, yard, rod, fathom, etc., is way ahead of us converting to metric.

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http://www.noahsmarine.com/items.asp?Cc=33

Noahsmarine.com

 

Just another 2 cents, I have bought marine ply, BS1088 and their BS6566 in both Okoume and Meranti with no issues. I built a Belhaven, 3 spindrifts and a Penobscot 14 with their plywood. The shipping will be about half if you have, say a yellow freight terminal near by as I do. you can have it sent to the terminal and pick it up yourself. It seems the the shipping doubles when it's shipped to a residential address.

As for quality it's nice stuff, I did find one very small void in a piece of BS6566 meranti once. But other than that it held up to the boil test and I have had some scrap pieces laying outside for years from my Belhaven build that showed no sign of coming apart.

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What we call 1/4- isn't. Nor is 1/2 really 1/2, and so on. It's all now slightly under, requiring cabinet makers to buy new bits for routers to fit the "new" sized plywood. A true sized dado or rabbet will be sloppy

 

And Scott- just buy a metric tape, stow it alongside your SAE tape and use which ever is called for- simple :P

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What we call 1/4- isn't. Nor is 1/2 really 1/2, and so on. It's all now slightly under, requiring cabinet makers to buy new bits for routers to fit the "new" sized plywood. A true sized dado or rabbet will be sloppy now.

Yes. I notice the big box stores now list actual measure, like 1/4" is 7/32" and 1/2" is 15/32".

Many moons ago the Harbor Sales folks said the extra length on Brunzeel, Joubert, etc was for scarfing, as in you could scarf two sheets end to end and wouldn't come up an inch or so short because of the scarf.

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And Scott- just buy a metric tape, stow it alongside your SAE tape and use which ever is called for- simple :P

 Yeah, really.   :rolleyes:

 

We are so hung up on converting back and forth when there is no need at all.  Rulers are simply a means of communicating between the plan and the material.  Why do we fight so hard to not change to a much simpler system?  My European friends laugh at me all the time for putting up with our silly system, even more for forcing it upon our children.

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Scott, if you worked in Metric for a half an hour, you would see the light. I work developing software for the construction industry, and I laugh everytime someone asks me how to convert an architectual scale of 1/8" per foot to engineering scale. How silly. bonus for the correct answer!

 

Take Care,

Steve

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Thanks Howard,

I checked out the online plywood website you mentioned.  That gives me the reality of shipping cost.  I guess the driving trip of about 200 miles each way to pick up some marine plywood looks a little cheaper now.

 

 I read some threads promoting epoxy precoating the interior side (and edges after cutting) of your plywood before assembly to eliminate inner areas ever wetting out when you have water in the interior.  Is that pretty well agreed upon as the best way to go now?

 

Bill

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 I read some threads promoting epoxy precoating the interior side (and edges after cutting) of your plywood before assembly to eliminate inner areas ever wetting out when you have water in the interior.  Is that pretty well agreed upon as the best way to go now?

 

If a face is going to be fairly well hidden or hard to get to like a compartment or under a deck, I like the idea, but that is probably the only time.  I like virgin wood for all joints, tape, glass etc. Secondary bonds can be very good, but I prefer primary for joints.  Most plywood edges will be joined or further trimmed, shaped or sanded, so I see nothing gained by coating first. There may be even a loss in bond strength or greater hassle if coated first.  And if the edge will remain exposed, you can do it later when you coat the whole boat. If you will mechanically fasten something such to hide a plywood edge it should most certainly be sealed first.   People have different opinions on this, but this is my 2¢

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My routine for decks, and other panels that have a semi-hidden side, is coat the interior (or on a redwood strip deck glass it) then when thatbcoat is kicked but green, roll on coat #2 . . . hustle over to deckless boat and squirt on thickened glue, and then install deck with slimy side down. You get primary bond and coated interior.

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My routine for decks, and other panels that have a semi-hidden side, is coat the interior (or on a redwood strip deck glass it) then when thatbcoat is kicked but green, roll on coat #2 . . . hustle over to deckless boat and squirt on thickened glue, and then install deck with slimy side down. You get primary bond and coated interior.

This requires planning, timing and time, but yeah, a great way to do it.  There are a lot of "hot recoat" schedules that can save a lot of time, sanding and yeild great results.  The problem for most people is the often long, uninterupted time periods that it requires just don't exist.  And stopping in the middle means cured epoxy and a whole new process for next time.

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The 200 mile trip isn't all that expensive, especially if you can get a wholesale price on plywood. My friend Tom set himself up a wholesale account with Quality Plywood and Okoume 1088 6mm cost me $35 a sheet 3 years ago. Of course he also used the account to buy wood to build a house and it was a 2.5 hour drive each way. I easily made up the savings.

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Edward,

 

I doubt if I could get the plywood wholesale but I could at least save the shipping cost.  I think I'm looking at about $65./sheet of Okoume 6 mm and only need four sheets for the Spindrift.  Though when my lady gets to the big city, who knows what it will cost.  We don't get out of our small town all that often.

 

I looked at your CS17 blog.  Your boat and your website were both very impressive.  I'll have to spend some more time looking through it.  Is the software for that easily available?

 

Bill

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Software in through www.blogger.com

It helps if you know a little HTML coding or where to look at the interface isn't the best. However, the other services more then make up. You can also for the menu link to actual HTML pages they let you create, or link to articles or other things which are shown at top of page. All this can be integrated with Google Documents / Drive, so you can do forms for people to insert date onto excel sheets and so on. Settings also allow you to email posts in from say text messaging on your phone, or a droid app is available. 

 

Usually I use Picasa from Google on my computer to blog photos, etc after cleaning them up and doing whatever image tricks need done. This way it uploads the photos directly to picasaweb.google.com now known as Google Drive, then links automatically to how I formatted blog entry.

 

www.ussstmarys.org is an example of using the pro Google hosting service versus blogger as hosting.

 

My main website is www.foggysailing.com and I paid for a domain name, and then did some customization. With the dynamic pages I carefully picked my favorite view (users can still change from top menu), then I had to be careful with gadgets as they aren't all compatible. Look at the popout menu on the right side for what does work, things like keywords, about, etc. 

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