Okoume ply

clinton andrus

Active member
Ok sitting here sore and hurting from being at the doctor's office all day yesterday and bored so I jump online and start doing some reading and just messing around.

I bought my ply from butler ply and their website labeled it as Okoume A/B BS 1088 Lloyds Approved and I took that as it was the best and lightest weight to go with.

Now I'm surfing the web today and I just decided to Google Okoume ply and I find severely supplyers of it but I see it labeled differently some have the name as

Bruynzel and Joubert and they have the same Lloyd's stamp and BS 1088 stamp but they are listed with a heavyer weight then the ply I bought from butler.

So it got me to thinking did I buy the right ply?

I'm sure a member here will beable to tell me what is the diffrence from the ply I bought and these other ply's that I listed.
 
Bruynzeel seemed to have started here in Florida back in the mid to late 80's. It got real pricey so we switched over to Joubert real nice too, super consistent quality. In time our suppliers were pushing lots of okoume ply other than the brands mentioned above. We saw some good, some not so good. I had a big name plywood supplier here in Florida offer me okoume at about a third of the going price,I ordered a couple hundred sheets, when it got here I wouldn't even unload it from the truck. This stuff was only okoume on the faces and some unknown stuff on the inside. I have used thousands of sheets in my last 35 plus years of cold moulded boat building. Just be sure of what you buy.
, maybe ask the sulpplier for references. Rich
 
Well I spent a few mints talking with the guys at butler ply and they told me what's what.

The ply I bought from them is made of Okoume in all the ply layers, not just okoume in the outside layers and that's the reason why my ply' s weight is lower then the other Okoume ply I had listed in my first post.

So that answer's my question i did buy the right plywood.
 
Clint. the Bruynzeel and Joubert plywoods are the best of the best. All Okoume thru and thru. We tried some bs 1088 made by some unknown manufacturers over the years, had issues with some of it it. Delams, were in some of the sheet, some wouldnt lay flat. Just like the fir plywood made in the US, there tons of factories in the northwest making plywood, some good some not so good. As long as your supplier has sold this stuff to others and they are not trying to burn his warehouse down, you will probably be OK. Rich
 
Thanks for the reply Sir.

The website is Butler ply out of Maine if I remember right.

You can look up their specs on the ply I bought if you wish. To see what you think of it.

Okumee-1/4,3/8,1/2,3/4 is the thickness I went with for building my boat.
 
Clint, Couldnt find Butler, But if it is Boulter in Somerville Mass. they have been around since the flood,they sell good stuff! Rich
 
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