Based on my experience with cabinetmaking and wood working, and with a lot of boat projects over the years, here are some comments and suggestions about obtaining teak and alternative hardwoods for your boat.
You probably do not want to try to source Door Skins for a project on your boat. The Luan door skins are made from soft wood, which may make them more flexible than hardwood panels, but do not use waterproof glue in the lamination. Fasteners will not hold as well in the soft wood, and the plywood will delaminate relatively quickly (OK, in a few years) in the humid environment of a boat. Agree with Ken that you should avoid most ¼ plywood sold for underlayment in a home floor. It is really made to have carpet installed over it. However, in your local big box store or lumber yard you can source a premium underlayment intended to provide a finished surface under linoleum or ceramic tile. It is sanded very smooth and uses waterproof glue. The surfaces look like birch, but are some African or South American hardwood other than birch. I have a friend whose business is wooden boat restoration and boat interior remodeling. He often uses this material for the side panels on cabinets. He is making cabinets and shelving to fit into the port pilot berth outboard of the settee on Imzadi. (I sometimes feel like I am building a LF38 from the hull inward.) The cabinets and shelves will be made form ½ plywood made from an African hardwood called ACUNA. It looks and performs like teak, but is substantially less expensive. A 4x8 sheet of ¼ teak plywood runs over $100. A sheet of acuna is about $30. Similarly, the solid parts of tha cabinet frames and the door frames will be made from another hardwood called JATUBA (also pronounced as jatoba). Again, it looks and performs like teak, but is less than half the cost per board foot. Your local big box home improvement store can also provide hardwood plywood, though probably not teak, and has the advantage of having it already cut into partial sheets. My local Lowes provides ¼, ½, and ¾ thick in 2x2, 2x4, and 4x4 sheets in red oak, white oak, mahogany, birch, and cherry. They also have solid wood pieces in various sizes up to 1x8 and in various lengths for use in cabinet making. One of the best sources I know of for marine hardwoods is in Beaufort, NC and is named Atlantic Veneer. Their primary business is making plywood for boat construction and restoration, but they also supply rough cut planks and various sizes of lumber. (I was there over the weekend to buy a 4/4x6x11ft cypress board for restoration of a Dyer Dhow for the local Power Squadron chapter.) Im sure they would cut a sheet of ¼ acuna ply into 2x4 panels and package and ship it by UPS for ½ to 2/3 the cost of a sheet of teak ply including the shipping cost. My friend Bob, the boat restorer, tells me there are a number of places in the New Jersey area where you can source specialty hardwoods used for boat building. Id guess there would also be sources in Canada near areas that have a tradition of boat building. And if all else fails, ask a friend who does woodworking or look in the phone book for a local cabinet maker (not someone who orders and installs custom cabinets made in a factory). Im sure they can tell you who is a good local source for specialty hardwoods. Rick Brass Washington, NC From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Ken Heaton Sent: Friday, July 12, 2013 6:02 AM To: cnc-list Subject: Re: Stus-List C&C 37+ Overhead Panels Try looking for "Door Skins" but beware of the really cheap stuff Home Depot and others sell for floor underlayment, it is useless for this sort of thing. Look in the door section rather than the lumber section of a big box store. It is the sort of veneer plywood used for interior hollow core doors so is intended to look good and take a good finish. Ken H.
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