Made the mistake of sitting down in front of the Boob Tube, watching the local "Home Improvement" shows when one contractor was speaking about the benefits of using Engineered Lumber for house construction.
Watching them work with it, it's obviously very strong, dense and heavy. Being used for floor joists and what not in building construction. What caught my attention was the "green factor" of not using up "old stock" forests. And of course, all edges and surfaces always being true (no knots, bad grain, etc).
Has anyone ever used this before? Any issues / concerns we should be aware of?
Edited:Â Mostly interetsed in using this for Keel Assembly.
There are number of products that can be called "engineered lumber". Para Lams, OSB, LB's, etc. For the most part thay wouldn't be useful on small craft. The only thing that might be is LB's, but these are most effective in "static" load situations, not the dynamic loading seen on boats. They will support a long lengths with a fairly heavy static loads, but can't tolerate wracking, movement, twisting, etc. all seen repeatedly on boats, especially sailboats or high speed power craft.
The short answer in no. None of the home construction industry products will work very well in boats under say 40 or 50 feet. Now I could see a use for LB's as sole stringers on a big boat, but not a small boat.
I recently downloaded plans from Duckworks of one of Lewis's boats. He mentioned using MDO ply as an option instead of Marine ply. What about that? Not that I found any at Home Depote anyway, but curious.
M
Again, here I am with not-so-useful advice. My friend bought a martin guitar recently with an engineered-wood neck. We were all looking at it trying to figure out what kind of wood it was. It looks really good. It's supposed to be more stable than normal wood, good because we get a lot of variation in humidity up here that is no good for guitars. While I would agree with the above advice for structural stuff, I think you could make some really nice-looking trim pieces with some of that stuff. When it's carved it has some pretty groovy-looking patterns in it. I bet it's hard as a rock though.
Typically "engineered wood" is an clever bit of product use and some minor engineering. Almost always it involves glue and bits of wood, in hopes it will support what they're asking of it. It's really a laminate of some kind. If WBP glues are used, then it's a good thing, but will it take repeated stress cycling's, maybe.
I've experimented with many different offerings from the construction industry and time after time I've found they meet their goals, but fall short of cyclic loads. Which is understandable considering they don't need to meet this requirement.
If you find a piece of engineered lumber that looks fine and meets your goals, then use it, but more often then not, it's a wonderful joist material or product, but sucks at anything else.
I used MDO for the Garboard planks on a Chamberlain Dory Skiff.
I used MDO becuase as I was getting in the build I found the stock I had planned to use was a few inches shy in a few key places.Â
This boat was a Birthday gift for my wife and largely built out of leftover stock from other builds. And since it was a surprise gift for my wife, I didn't want to tip my hat having the marine lumber delivery. So I got local lumberyard elivery of MDO.
I paid about as much for the MDO as BS 1088 Merranti ply and it left a sour taste in my mouth. No wheres near as nice as the 1088 and cost me more than the 1088 would have. So why bother?
Thanks Ray,
I was unsure of cost or the availability of marine ply in south central Alaska. After moving from Fairbanks, I lost my supplier of 1088. The local land pirates sell only fir marine ply.
I was looking for alternetives, MDO doesn't sound like what I am looking for at all.
I think I'll keep looking.
M