Plywood Source

[spyderxxx]

You might try Aircraft Spruce for thin high quality plywood.

 

http://www.aircraftspruce.ca/menus/wp/plywood.html?UCOUNTRY=CAN

 

Ed

[PAR]

Aircraft Spruce sells wonderful stock, but the prices suggest it's plated in gold.

[Kudzu]

I was looking at their prices too but as hard as good ply is to find for those of us inland it might be an option. Even at their prices (if shipping is not a killer) you only need one sheet so the overall price the boat is still be mighty cheap.

 

One sheet of plywood is the usually close too, if  not the most expensive item for one of my boats. Lots of people balk at the price of good plywood but they loose sight of the total cost and focus on that one item. Even if a sheet of plywood were $100 it's still the cheapest method for building a quality boat I know of.

[Charles Treichel]

I have an everlasting interest in materials and their application in different projects.  I am impressed by the quality of a product called "Integraply"  which is a quality plywood used primarily as underlayment for tile floors.  It comes in different thickness, 1/4"- 5ply, 1/2" - 7ply. exterior rated glue, sanded both sides and no voids and very economical.  It seems that it may be similar to baltic birch.  For fir it seems that 1 x 3 or 1 x 4 fir porch flooring is usually of high quality and in spite of the fact that you may incur some waste in resawing it, it might be a good economical choice.  It might also come in southern yellow pine.  Pick out the best pieces from your big box store and go to town! The same holds true for red cedar, most of it is junk, but sometimes a few good pieces can be found.   I personally like the properties of white oak which I have obtained from trees I have cut on my property and cut up with a bandsaw mill that was owned by a friend.  I also have a "Logosol" chainsaw attachment from Baileys.  This is the Swedish equivalent of the Alaskan sawmill and is currently on sale for about $100.  I highly reccomend it if you have an intermittant source of small logs.  Beats turning them into firewood.

 

 

[Hirilonde]

  I am impressed by the quality of a product called "Integraply"  which is a quality plywood used primarily as underlayment for tile floors. 

 

 

I can't say one way or the other if it is good for kayak frames.  It is designed as underlayment which requires smoothness and puncture resistance for characteristics.  Kayak frames are like a truss.  The loads they incur are such as to crush in the oposite direction of the ones underlayment is designed for.  This doesn't mean Integraply won't make a strong frame, but it doesn't mean it will.  I would test a completed frame before building a kayak and see.

[Charles Treichel]

Well, in any case I am not using it for the Poca Barta as I decided to go with my supply of white oak.  Although there are differences in the strength of plywood my main concern is quality.  Like someone said recently, most grades of plywood carried by the big box stores are junk for boatbuilding due to warp, voids, etc. Fine for underlayment of a roof though.

My real question today is how this forum works.  It seems that if you do not start a new thread, very few are going to bore down into a continuing old one.  And if you go up to a previous thread, your new thread goes to the bottom.   Is there a recommended way to create over a period of time a chain of related threads without everything that pops up in between?   Is there a way to eliminate an irrelevant thread that you have created? 

[Kudzu]

I prefer to see people finish what they start. I would have to have a build for example, spread over many threads. it would be impossible for someone new to follow it.

 

And I have never seen a thread, on here at least, get to long for people to read. You can just click on the link on the main page and it takes you to the newest posts. And some of mine when I building a boat can get rather long.

[Hirilonde]

Well, in any case I am not using it for the Poca Barta as I decided to go with my supply of white oak.  Although there are differences in the strength of plywood my main concern is quality. 

Huh?  How is white oak better quality?  How do you define quality?

 

I define quality as:  conforms to requirements  BS 1088 marine plywoods have characteristics that make it better than Baltic Birch in many boats.  But most here have found that these characteristics are not needed for a SoF kayak.  This means the BS 1088 is not a better quality as it does not conform to the needed requirements any better for a kayak.  Oak is heavy.  To me this means it fails to conform to requirements as weight is a key characteristic of a SoF kayak.  Build your boat out of what ever you want, but I find your claim regarding quality to be inaccurate.

[Charles Treichel]

I wasn't talking about oak plywood; for better or worse I am using real wood cut by myself from real trees.  I've done some rudimentary tests and am satisfied with the results.  I've reduced the dimensions of the stringers slightly so the weight will come out about the same and be just as strong.

The issue of quality I was referring to was the various grades of construction plywood vs Integraply or perhaps Baltic Birch. (neither of which I decided to use) When I see sheets in a stack all warped up and am aware of all the voids and filled in areas,  I refer to that as quality, which is not to say it is inadequate for its purpose, which obviously is not for boats. 

[Hirilonde]

A slight reduction in dimensions using oak will still be considerably heavier than WRC or AYC.  White Oak is approximately twice the weight of WRC.  I bet your boat will be plenty strong, but very heavy.

[Charles Treichel]

Perhaps a little more than slight.  The frames are finished and they come out to about 8#.   The stringers should be the same weight as cedar and my rudimentary tests show them to be stronger.