Plywood Care

[Dougster]

My plywood (hydrotek 1088) got rained on in transport. It has water marks but is not to be finished bright. I spent two hours yeasterday sifting through each of the two dozen pieces (hot south Texas day!) and can say everthing is bone dry. I can also say plywood gets heavy and is a PITA There are water marks, plenty of them. A judicious effort with 220 grit sandpaper lifted an inch of one them so I think its just superficial. They are not warped. They are lying flat under a shed roof of a 26 foot long work shop, sitting on top of evenlyspaced 4 by 4's laid across a leveled bed made of 2 by 6's. No dew falls under there, and scrap on top and around the sides would protect from blowing rain, which is uncommon from the exposed direction. They are lying lengthwise against the wall in the center, under the shed roof, which extends about 3 feet beyond them (7 feet of roof over head, the whole length of the wall). I'll be working slowly, so they will be there awhile. If I must rethink it, so be it and I'll get 'em moved in the work shop. What do folks think? Cover with tarp? If so, plastic or canvas that can "breathe"?

Thanks for any advice,
Doug

[Steve Lansdowne]

I'd just leave them as they are and not sweat it. A standard test for durability for marine plywood is to boil it for an hour or more, or to leave it out in the wet outdoors for several months to see if it holds together. The good stuff normally does. Heck, water doesn't hurt wood or marine glue, even if it is unfinished.

[pipefitter]

Same thing happened to me. Tarp that I was covering the boat with leaked and stained the wood. No problems. The scraps that are still outside (meranti) ,show only slight surface checking after 3 years exposed.After light sanding,the epoxy coats seem to make the stains disappear.

[Dougster]

Well thanks guys, I needed a little reassurance. The wood got wet on the trailor after I picked it up. It was one of those days that make a funny story after the fact. I set out on a 4 hr. trip to Houston to buy plywood with my tired little ancient utility trailer, comforted by having had the bearings repacked and the spare tire fixed the day before. Half way back home I look in the rear view and see chunks of tread peeling off the left tire. I pull off, put on the spare and continue. Five minutes down the road I go through a frog strangler thunderstorm and curse that luck. Well, you cry about a nickle, you'll die about a dime. 'Cuz 10 minutes later the spare blows out I pull off and decide to put the tread shredded tire back on which still has some air in it. Jack won't fit now cuz the trailer's sitting on the rim. While struggling with it 10 minutes ago thunderstorm catches back up with me and it's back to the frog strangler. Call wife on cell and lament my fate. Eventually get old shred tred on, wife calls back and has found wheels 12 miles away at the nearest town in Walmart of all places (little, lousy, hate em for sure tires). I figure creep into town at 20 mph and get new wheels. I make 7 miles. So I unhook the trailer, leave $1000 worth of plywood on the side of the road and tear into town, buy two wheels. I get back, all is well and go back to struggling with jack. Starts raining again. Soaked, greased, sore all over, I get both new wheels on, climb into car and point her home, resolving to not exceed 50 mph. Two minutes later I feel a jolt, look in rear view, and see left tire has come off Some fool didn't tight the lugs. Pull over, open the car door, and whoosh, said tire goes rolling by me down hill, way down hill and eventually into a distant ditch. Hike to ditch, get tire, take two of the four lug bolts off right tire to use on the left, and manage to cripple home by 9:00pm. Unload plywood. Hug wife.

Doug

[Paul Girouard]

Doug the plywood should be fine , if a bright finish where to be desired I'd say mist down the whole sheet let dry then sand lightly. Raises all the grain sort of equal so you don't get "water spots "

Keep it covered as you said I'd go with no tarp , unless it could be suspended like a curtain to keep wind blown rain off. Just let plenty of air flow around the ply that is stored.

Your adventure reminds me of a old joke .

Guys driving past a nut house , gets a flat . Jacks up car put lug nuts in hub cap . A passing car hits the hub cap all the nuts go flying . The guy jacking the car says out loud "What I'm I going to do !"

One of the inmates (kooks) who's been watching says " Hey mister why don't you just take one nut off the other three tires and slowly drive to town and buy more lug nuts ."

The driver says , "Good idea , your pretty smart , why are you in there?"

Guys say's "Oh I'm nuts! But I'm not stupid"

So I guess your nuts , would be the punch line EH

Well you are building a wooden boat

G/L Paul

[pipefitter]

The guy I work for offered to drive with me across the state from here to pick up the ply I ordered to save the 65.00 shipping charge. About a 3 hr drive from here. Add cost of fuel,time and hassle and the freight charges seemed like a bargain. After reading this story, it would have been worth double the freight. I couldn't do it for that price.

[Dougster]

Yeah save a dollar by spending two. $80 worth of wheels (wrecked the rims when blew out). Plus cost of a bottle of ibuprofen over the next two days. Still, I have my memories....

Hey Paul, I noticed the grain standing up on the water stained areas, like you mentioned. I'm not finishing bright so won't bother. I like the point of air flow, no tarp except for wind break. Got a little rain yesterday and everything stayed dry, so I'm feeling ok. BTW, Pipefitter, I've long admired that Simmons you've built. Beautiful thing. I even toyed with trying it myself but decided I don't have the skills yet. All I've done is the little Devlin dinghy, Pollywog. Gonna spash it this week The new plywood is for another stitch and glue, but a huge job for me. It's a Bateau2 design, the LB22. http://boatplans-online.com/products.php?cat=18 Now that I'm trying to get started I see it's clearly an enormous thing for such a beginner. Well, I wanted a long term project, perhaps ready for retirement in 3 years or so. And I already have the "nuts" story for the kickoff. No doubt there'll be many more. I seem to learn all of this stuff by doing it wrong first. Ah well.

Lug nuts Dougster

[Steve Lansdowne]

Howdy, neighbor, looks like you have several years of happy boat building before you. Don't finish it too soon, as then you'll just have to figure out what boat should be your next boat to build. I had a similar experience going to Houston for lumber in 1999. I lost 2 quarts of oil in my 14 year old minivan coming back and ended up buying a new pickup instead, which I consider a positive outcome. When you get enough done to want to show off your handiwork, give me a holler and I'll recruit some local wooden boat fans to come by to inspect your work.

[katiedobe]

Thanks I have not laughed that hard in so long. I have had those days too. I am glad you made it safely home. I did not know what a frog strangler rainstorm was until I moved down here to the tropics. Oregon does not get rain, it just gets wet all day long.

Look like a nice boat. Make sure you post pictures as you build it. Take your time and you will do fine.

Thanks for the laugh.

[qm]

Sounds like me! QM

[Dougster]

Hey Steve, that sounds fun, if I ever make any progress. I'm still puzzling over the darn jig! Good to Know there's someone nearby. Hope you're having a good summer and avoiding trailers with little bitty tires.

Dougster

[Boatmik]

The one off wetting won't hurt the structural integrity of the ply.

But if it goes through cycles of wetting and drying the surface will become more uneven over time and may check (get cracks).

If the stack gets wet and sits there for a bit the timber might get mold or fungus which may start premature wood rot.

There is no better preventative for rot than keeping timber dry!

I would put a couple of empty boxes on top and drop a new polytarp over the lot. The boxes are just there to provide a slope so that any incidental water will drain off.

Timber only needs to "breathe" if it gets wet.

Michael Storer
my boat pages