Hello and a Question Ply for Laminating?

[ora8i]

Hi All.


This is the first post I’ve made to this forum so please excuse my dumb questions.

I’m looking of a source of hardwood plywood in the UK BUT the ply needs to be bonded with a clear glue and suitable for external use.

I’m going to laminate it, I’ve tried before using far eastern hard wood ply and it looked good with one exception when cut at a shallow angle unsightly angle bands of dark glue were exposed.

Any suppliers?

Should I be asking in some other place?


Many Thanks Ora

 

[George_N]

Hi Ora, welcome to the forum. I'm sure someone more knowledgable than me will be along soon with the answers you need. In the meantime, are you sure it was dark glue lines? Because the grain of each ply is at right angles to the adjacent one you get alternating long grain and end grain bands. The end grain will often soak up varnish more than the long grain ply and thus appear darker. Maybe I've misunderstood what you meant. Give us a bit more detail of what you propose to use it for and you'll get more detailed advice from the experts.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Ora

Welcome to the forum.

Just keep asking as many questions as you want.

Cheers
Neil

 

[ora8i]

Yes it was the adhesive, the individual ply’s had been bonded together during manufacture using Resorcinol and that is a dark purple.

The effect of the grain from the individual wood veneers (ply’s) was very pleasing some showing a pearlescent effect, but spoilt by the glue lines showing as wide bands when the block was cut a very shallow angles.

So I’m looking for ply made with a transparent glue.

An alternative would be to laminate up myself but I have not been able to find a supplier of thin sheet wood at a sensible price.

Something like :- 3 foot x 10 inches by ¼ thick and in a range of attractive hardwood.

I found “Sound Woods” who supply thin material for Guitars and so on but the price is eye watering and some suppliers of real veneers (ever more £) but I don’t need such good material.

I did consider the very fine 2 ply Birch with the intent to stain from both sides and laminate into blocks. But again I found it hard to obtain although on the up side one company did ask me how many cubic meters I’d like You can imagine how the rest of the conversation went.


Best Regards Ora

 

[jasonB]

You may be better off using constructional veneers, these are thicker than the usual decorative veneer usually 1.5-2.0mm thick. You could then bond them with a suitable adhesive such as Extramite or epoxy resin.

Thesepeople do small quantities.


Make sure you choose a durable hardwood if it is for outside use as some hardwoods are perishable.

Jason

 

[Scrit]

Hi Ora and welcome!

The plywood generally used for structural glulam and for furniture lamination is birch. The thinnest thickness you'll probably get is called 3GL or 3-ply 1.5mm. The glue line in birch is normally a resorcinol formaldehyde glue, and so almost transparent - the "red stuff" (actually brown) used in a lot of Far Eastern and South American exterior grade ply is resorcinol formaldehyde as you say. So once you've found a birch plywood supplier next thing to ascertain is whether or not the glue is "WBP" (i.e. weatherproof) because a lot of the 1500 x 1500mm sheets supplied to the furniture manufacturing trade are interior use only. In the North West I'd recommend Pennine Timber in Oldham (also at Tilbury, Essex) and Peter Benson Plywood at Darwen

Scrit

 

[ora8i]

Many Thanks Ora

 

[DomValente]

Try Timbmet/Silverman

Good luck
Dom