Decent marine ply at a reasonable price

[Frogsider]

I wanted a sheet of 6mm marine ply and couldn't find any at a reasonable price here in France.  Most of the DIY sheds only have 5mm exterior grade but it's useless for boatbuilding or repair, as it's of only 3 ply construction, of which the core, made of spongy-looking yellowish woody mush, is about 3mm thick on its own.

Decent 5 ply 6mm marine stuff is not on sale except at specialist places and usually has to be ordered, so you end up paying a delivery charge on top, making it very costly to buy in small quantities.  In the course of my research, I found out that the well-known Joubert brand of marine ply, made here in France, costs less in the USA than it does here in its country of manufacture.  This looks suspiciously like collusion by the manufacturers on a Eurozone price fix that they know they can't get away with in America.

Anyway, I ended up buying a sheet of nice quality 5 ply 6mm BS 1088 marine ply from Jewsons in Canterbury, while on my way back to the channel tunnel the other day, after a day of personal business in UK.  

The cost was just £18 plus VAT.  A decent price for a decent product - and I would like to compliment Jewsons on an excellent service too.

[Timmo]

That's useful to know. Don't always associate Jewsons with Marine quality ply! Will check out our local branch.

Tim.

On 19 Mar 2013, at 14:26, Frogsider [via UK HBBR Forum] wrote:

 I ended up buying a sheet of nice quality 5 ply 6mm BS 1088 marine ply from Jewsons in Canterbury

[Port-Na-Storm]

Frogsider wrote

it's of only 3 ply construction, of which the core, made of spongy-looking yellowish woody mush, is about 3mm thick on its own.

And your point is?

[Frogsider]

Well, the French 5 mm stuff is just two very thin outer veneers covering a single soft mushy core.  It can't have the strength of 5 layers of almost equal thicknesses laminated with the grain in each layer at right angles to its neighbour.

The grain of its very thin outer veneers runs parallel to the long side of the sheet, so presumably the grain of the core runs across the sheet, making planks cut lengthways more likely to snap when bent.

In addition, the thick core of the 3 ply stuff looks spongy and will be vulnerable to any ingress of water, and you daren't sand down too much, to fair bumps and joints, because you risk going straight through the veneers and leaving the core exposed.

That's why I didn't buy the local French DIY shed's inferior 5mm product at 47.90 euros per sheet, but went a little out of my way to get the 6 mm Jewsons BS 1088 Marine grade 5ply product at half the price!

[Port-Na-Storm]

My apologies, I was trying to be amusing. and as usual failing.

My last build, Katie Beardie, was built using something very similar to what the French had on offer. I had no excuse other than being a cheapskate, better quality ply was readily available.
I wasn't the only one to make this mistake but I'll let them tell their own tales.
I now expect a torrent of abuse from certain quarters related to my Scottish ancestry.

CW was demonstrating some very nice supple birch ply at Cobnor last year. I really would like to try building with that.
Burns well too.