Flexible Veneer sheets

This was a product that came just after the bending plywoods became available,with some eighty (80) species on offer,its easy to find what your looking for.We stock Beech,Maple,Oak,Teak,Cherry,Walnut,Ash as the basic stock line,we fly in most orders,so supply is not an issue.Each sheet is hand matched,series matching on request,the basic sheet is 1.6mm thick and will bend or flex with ease around a pencil,with no grain fractures,a sheet is 1220mm x 2440mm in size,special sizes can be made to suit your needs.

Epoxy for boat building

Epoxy has in many ways changed the face of wooden boat construction,probably those most known persons to have actually raised the level of epoxies being really well understood,would be the Gougeon Brothers from Canada,who made their own epoxy brand,the West System (wood saturated epoxy treatment) a prooven world leader brand since the mid seventies,their book on the subject Wood and West System Materials (1979) is well worth finding,most informations you will require are to be found in that publication.

We sell our own brands,its an issue of us buying bulk and using what we know about ourselves,it was Dudley Dix,when building his Didi 38 design for himself,that introduced me to an epoxy brand he had tested prior to building,that saw me first use the same epoxy system on my own boat Flying Cloud ten years back,which is Dix 43 made from wood/epoxy rather than the normal steel.

Shell Chemicals made an epoxy called Epikure 816,this is the base for many re branded systems you will find world wide,we have left it just as Epoxy 816 for simplicity and when Shell Chemicals sold out to Resolution,we renamed it as Resolution 816 epoxy.The epoxy is no use without a hardener,we supply and use CV 140 cure agent and 205 cure agent.Both are mixed in a ratio of 100 grams of epoxy to 65 grams of cure agent,either the 140 or 205.

Use the thicker 140 cure agent (amber) for construction and back filling of joints and epoxy fillets,then the 205 cure agent (clear) for wetting out and applying glass tapes or cloth,the 205 being thinner than the 140 makes such opperations a lot simpler.

Saturation? this is probably not a correct term,we say 'envelope' which probably is closer to what we do when we apply thin epoxies to a wood structure,the 'envelope' of epoxy is all that is needed to stop the ingress of moisture to the wood and ply.We once had a visit from a technical guy,he brought a piece of wood he had vacume saturated with thin epoxy,which made the wood so solid it was turned into a hard plastic lump ,it would have sunk in water for sure!

roy

Bending Plywood by Superform

We have sold Bending Plywood for around two decades now,as the first importers (commercial lumber) ever into South Africa of this wonderfull product,made and distributed under the brand name of Superform,which is made to the strictest production criteria and meets CE levels,it is also from a renewable source.The glue line is a phenolic resin and is fully waterproof,prooven over many years in the various boats we have seen it used in.

Superform bending plywood is sold in three thicknesses,3mm 5mm and 8mm and with the grain direction going in either long or short ways,so use it either for making columns with the long grain,or curved counter fronts with the short grain? Fixing instructions and use ideas may be found on our web site,one end use is architectural,either as concrete moulds or external roof soffits, for this application,we would recomend that the ply is first treated by a vacume process first,either PCP (clear) sprit based or TT (green) water based solutions,depending on the end use,technical data sheets are available on request,we can arrange treating for customers.

Retail Distributors in South Africa and some other countries are invited to contact me.

Roy

North Sails Cape Town

When we cost our sail boat designs as a kit,we invariably ask our local North Sails loft to quote on a set of sails too,they will normally come up with a quote in 24 hours,with production based on the size of the order and their own work load but a few weeks normally sees our sails order made and collected.We can only sell North Sails to those who buy our kits,its a licence thing,we can also supply you after you have recieved and built your boat kit,this can save on cash flow but will add on to the shipping charges,so worth thinking about. North Sails,Cape Town, are super cost effective,we know this having shopped around for other alternatives,either from other lofts and even as pre cut kits,the bottom line just keeps coming down to the fact that its no more costly to place your order through CKD to order your sails.Any sails made by our local North Sails loft carries their global 12 month warrenty,so service by their other lofts is assured.

Roy