Posted by Graham Knight on October 11, 2003 at 13:40:16:
In Reply to: Re: Okyme, Meranti - Good Marine Ply? posted by RonW on October 11, 2003 at 09:13:55:
Interesting stuff Ron. I have to admit that I have no 1st hand experience with DF ply, simply because it's not available here as far as I am aware, and I spent ages trying to find it!
My knowledge of DF checking comes from a professional boatbuilder with over 40 years experience, who lives and still builds the odd boat on the Chesapeake Bay. He warned me about the tendency to check when I told him I was using solid DF in my boat, and he says the problem is worse with DF ply especially when it is bent.
Having said that I would have happily used DF ply if I could have found it, not least because it has better rot resistance as you say. I would imagine the checking problem is solved by encapsulating provided it's done properly, having just finished encapsulating my boat I can't imagine it being able to check under all that glass and resin!
Before I bought my ply I spoke to several local boatbuilders to find a source, they all recommended the same company and the same grade of ply that I bought, but they all said that they wouldn't have bothered with encapsulating it! They just use the normal marine wood primers and topcoats, and swear that is quite adequate.
The ply is BS1088 marine grade, all marine ply in the UK has to meet this standard. I understand that in other countries ply that is sold as marine grade doesn't neccessarily meet BS1088, but I don't know what the difference is.