I went with the 5.2 MM outdoor Luan from Lowe's.
Not bad looking stuff but once you get the panels cut you cant leave them laying out because they'll look like a tater chip the next morning.
Nothing burying them in a stack of 1/2" OSB wont take care of.
I need to order a 68 sheet skid of that stuff too. It's down to 4.33 a sheet.
Matt makes a good plan.
I had the panels laid out and cut in about an hour and a half including timeouts for 12 oz. curls.
Made my cuts with a saber saw using a 24 TPI Bosch metal cutting blade.
No splintering problems whatsoever. Cut it like butter.
The frames went a little quicker. Piece of cake.
I'm a strongback builder so I had to compensate for that in laying out the frames. I like pulling a string to set frames and get everything squared before I ever deal with a panel.
I've got a bad back folks, I aint much on rolling around on the floor.
I prefer to get it up in the air where I can just walk around the strongback.
Strongback building changes the SOP somewhat also.
I'm going with option 3 which is glassed. I'll be glassing totally inside and outside.
I wont take it off the strongback until the outside is faired and the graphite loaded epoxy is on the bottom.
I'll probally hold off on the paint as of yet until I decide just how much money I am willing to spend. Spraying Imron is an option so is rolling and tipping some System 3 Paint or Sterling. But first things first. I've never used this outdoor luan in a boat. If fairing it worthy of an expensive topcoat proves out of reach, I'll settle for something cheap and file my experience in the appropriate drawer. Right now I have a file labeled, we'll see!
I've got 3 boxes of goodies supposed to be here tomorrow. You know, that liquid gold, pixie dust in a bag, glass cloth, and some other stuff my credit card got carried away on. I should have close to enough to do both of the Enoes minus some cloth.
I've had a miter saw for years but ran across a Makita 1013 sliding compound miter at the flea market last week. I've wanted a compound sliding saw for a LONG time and I've continued to beat my wallet back into my pocket everytime I look at one. I passed it up. It ate on me all week and I went and bought it yesterday. I didnt get one of those killer deals but I got the saw for less then half of what new would cost. I figure I saved 250 bucks or so.
Spent two hours taking it apart and cleaning it up. It looks almost new now. If they saw it now they would have wished they had put a higher price tag on it. It works like a champ. I had to make a tiny adjustment to get it cutting dead on square and wouldnt you know, the blade is a good cutting blade. Not the best blade but it makes some nice clean bur free cuts.
Now I got to figure out how to put some pictures up.
