Best plywood from Lowe’s??

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OrangeQuest
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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by OrangeQuest »

The HD by me I noticed they had some very thin (3 or 4 mm?), very cheap 4' X 8' sheets that would work for making templates. I did a quick web search and found a Mom and Pop lumber yard a few miles from my work warehouse. They have a very good selection of marine ply that they have had a number of years so I would call it seasoned marine ply. But I was pleased with their price, very pleased. Will be getting my last few sheets soon.
"that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends." "Depends on what?" "On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it."
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seaslug
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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by seaslug »

Welcome to the group Rickfenn, Some good advice so far, and I'm in complete agreement with the others on not using junk ply. Since you'll be purchasing materials for 2 boats the shipping from BBC will be minimal, especially worthwhile if you can buy all, or at least the majority of your supplies on one order. If you can afford to buy the Meranti ply, while not as light weight as the Okoume, will still be an excellent quality marine ply guaranteed to never give you any future trouble, and also nice to work with. For the 2 boats, and being budget sensitive, I suggest using the Marine Epoxy brand, it's quite excellent. You won't have the benefit of using the corresponding System 3 products like Quick Fair, but you'll save a lot of money making your own fillers. My suggestion for the two boats is; One 4 1/2 gallon, and one 6 gallon kit of epoxy, Minimum 5 pounds wood flour, very cheap, so I'd order 10 to be sure, 6 pounds Micro Balloons, 4 pounds Glass Bubbles, 1 pound Silica, 1 pound non skid, if you plan on this type of deck finish, 1 pound Graphite powder, if you plan on using on the hull bottom, A few notched spreaders that work great for spreading and even film thickness of fairing compound, that you can trowel flat with a wide spreader, A metal fiberglass roller, graduated mixing cups, at least 1 gallon of primer, and paint if you know what color, and what brand you'll be using. 2 boxes of 100 extra large orange rubber gloves, the best gloves you'll find anywhere. They also sell some essential hardware, rub rails etc., so don't be shy, order away, and start building. Hope this helps. Good luck, Mike

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by piperdown »

seaslug wrote: Wed Feb 13, 2019 8:38 pm You won't have the benefit of using the corresponding System 3 products like Quick Fair, but you'll save a lot of money making your own fillers.
Mike, forgive my ignorance, but I thought if you let the marinepoxy fairing coat cure fully, that you could use Quick Fair as the final coat? I was planning on using the marinepoxy and BBC fairing filler for the first couple of coats and then use Quick Fair for the (hopefully) last coat.
Eric (aka, piperdown)

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by seaslug »

That's correct, as long as you give the epoxy time to cure fully you can switch brands, but I was just trying to help them out saving some money by using the less expensive epoxy and mixing fairing fillers and filleting mix, which would offset some of the shipping cost so they could buy quality plywood from BBC.

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by piperdown »

seaslug wrote: Wed Feb 13, 2019 10:14 pm That's correct, as long as you give the epoxy time to cure fully you can switch brands, but I was just trying to help them out saving some money by using the less expensive epoxy and mixing fairing fillers and filleting mix, which would offset some of the shipping cost so they could buy quality plywood from BBC.
Whew! Glad to know!
Eric (aka, piperdown)

"Give an Irishman lager for a month and he's a dead man. An Irishman's stomach is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him." --> Mark Twain

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by Capt UB »

Marine plywood is stronger and has consistent mechanical properties, with no voids.
Marine plywood is easier to work with, especially when bending, and finishing.

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by OrangeQuest »

wrote: Marine plywood is stronger and has consistent mechanical properties, with no voids.
Marine plywood is easier to work with, especially when bending, and finishing.
and lighter. and epoxy grabs it more consistently.
"that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends." "Depends on what?" "On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it."
A. A. Milne

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by Fred in Wisc »

I've built several little boats, mostly on the cheap, so I can speak to this from experience.

One I used 4mm Okume marine, one AC exterior, one Lauan/ mahogany/ meranti (not sure which they look close- not marine rated but passed a boil test), one BC exterior, and 3 cheap Canoes with 1/4" underlayment.


The exterior plywoods use a LOT more epoxy and take a lot more fairing. With pine plywood you need to finish all surfaces with light cloth rather than just sealing with resin, or the grain seems to "pop" loose in areas, breaking down the epoxy barrier. It's likely that you will spend in cloth and resin about what you save on plywood. And the boats are heavier. My son's 8' long AC plywood kayak weighs WAY more (nearly double) than my daughter's 12' lauan/meranti/mahogany boat- they are built the same width from a scaled down CC14 plan. In this case, it wasn't a huge deal- he's super light and I needed a little weight to get the chines in the water, but on a big boat it would be a big difference. It's also splintery to work with and doesn't bend real consistently (only 3 plies so stiffer one way than the other) or easily (it's real stiff and harder to pull bow seams together).

One of the 3 underlayment canoes has serious delamination in the plywood. These were taped seams, graphite bottoms, and wood sealed with 2-3 coats of epoxy plus paint. I haven't seen the other 2 for a couple years so I don't know what they look like. I sure wouldn't use that again. It's also rather fragile- doesn't take impact well and has some internal gaps that broke when bending, we had to recut those pieces.

The meranti/lauan/mahogany and the Okume was a whole different story. The plies are thinner and more numerous, it bends great. No internal gaps/ voids in the marine stuff. It's light. The surface finish is super smooth and easy to fair. And the panels I got were dead flat, not all bowed or warped like exterior.


I second the opinion above- have Jeff quote shipping it all with yor epoxy and cloth. Even the 6566 Meranti will be a HUGE improvement over exterior plywood, and when you net out the amount of epoxy and cloth you save, plus time, plus frustration in getting the lines fair, plus surface fairing and sanding, it's worth the extra $. I say this as a cheap guy who has put myself through way too much work to save a buck here and there. Also I really enjoyed the "good" plywood builds more than the cheap plywood builds, and I ended up with better boats.


Whatever you choose, build on!

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by Aripeka Angler »

Just to keep the record straight, Lowe’s actually does sell 11/16” and 7/16” fir marine ply, not that I would necessarily advocate it’s use.
They call it 3/4” and 1/2” but it’s a little thinner.
If it came down to not being able to build a gf16 due to a tight budget, use the fir and buy the glass and epoxy here.
Otherwise, do the better option and use all top quality materials.
I probably spend more money on consumables when I build a boat than on the ply that I always buy right here from this site. :D
Richard
Completed boats...XF20 "Red Alert", Aripeka Angler's Strip Canoe, FS18 “Bare Bones”, GF12
Currently building...PY12 Kayak
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Bare Bones build thread...
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=62146

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Re: Best plywood from Lowe’s??

Post by piperdown »

Aripeka Angler wrote: Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:34 pm Just to keep the record straight, Lowe’s actually does sell 11/16” and 7/16” fir marine ply, not that I would necessarily advocate it’s use.
They call it 3/4” and 1/2” but it’s a little thinner.
If it came down to not being able to build a gf16 due to a tight budget, use the fir and buy the glass and epoxy here.
Otherwise, do the better option and use all top quality materials.
I probably spend more money on consumables when I build a boat than on the ply that I always buy right here from this site. :D

Maybe Lowe's does in FL but it's not available in KS or MO, at least not online. It shows up in the search but says not available for in store pickup or delivery. Maybe it can be ordered at the pro-desk but I'm not sure.
Eric (aka, piperdown)

"Give an Irishman lager for a month and he's a dead man. An Irishman's stomach is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving of him." --> Mark Twain

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