sourcing specific timber in ireland?

fguihen

Im currently in the planning phase of a woodworking project. I need to source a variety of high quality hardwood waterproof plywoods. Currently i know i will need:

Baltic birch plywood ( I can waterproof this myself but waterproofed would be a bonus)
A length of maple that must be 1.5" thick x 2 - 2.5 wide and about 20" long.

there will be more to add to this list but its an example of what i need to get started.

places like b&q or woodies, just supply plywood and they generally dont seem to know much about it other than the price and thickness. they never know the woods gone into it.

where in ireland can i find different types of wood such as this, that i can be sure of the quality?

Fingalian

Have you had a look at the Timber sticky for maple sources? Noyeks have Marine ply that is BS1088, but its Meranti (luan) not birch. Robbins make a really good ply but you will be paying top dollar for it. (google Robbins Super Elite). Waller and Wickham sell it. But you should be able to get good ply in any decent builders merchant .If you don't mind me asking what are you building? a boat?

fguihen

Im building a large dobsonian telescope such as the one in the image below


Because rigidity is of the utmost importance, along with weight ( trying to keep weight down, and weatherproof( generally used in damp fields throughout the night where it gets covered in dew,mist and rain if unlucky), I need High quality, rigid and relatively light ply.

The maple is for 8 blocks to hold the truss tubes to teh mirror box ( bottom box with the circle cut out of it)

Note, I have a number of different ply's recommended to me for such a project (written down at home, cant remember them off hand) but I checked a few decent sized diy stores and they just thought ply was ply and it didnt matter what wood it was made out from

Apple Ply is also recommended, but again it must be of high quality, with as few voids and with softer rubbish woods for inner layers, and waterproof. I really dont trust any of the large hardware stores to know if their ply is high quality or not when they cant tell me what wood its made from.

Alun

Is that an American design? I only ask because Maple is a pretty common, easy to get timber over there, which is possibly why they recommended it. It's quite a hard, tight textured, close grained wood, and possibly something more 'local' like Beech could be a possible alternative. Or even Sycamore, since what we call Sycamore here is actually a member of the Maple (Acer) family.

fguihen

yea, its an american made scope, and most literature on telescope making is from the US also. Il give sycamore a try. it might be nicer to have an Irish wood in the scope rather than maple. Il do a bit of research to see if its a hard enough wood. thanks for the great suggestion.

regarding baltic birch ply. it seems very heavy, very expensive, and very difficult to get hold of over here. as weight is a concern, and standard marine ply is quite a bit lighter than baltic birch ply, would standard ply be up to this job? rather than me going and asking for standard ply in a lumber yard, is there a particular type or ply i should be looking for ( must be waterproof as stated previously.)

fguihen

forgot to mention, as il be building this down in Leitrim/roscommon area, It would be better to find someone to supply baltic birch/finn plywood down there, or even better, deliver it down there. ive found one supplier in dublin, but they wont deliver, and i dont have a truck/van to transport the material to the west.

bigstar

would wbp be of any use, this is water and boil proof ply, but its the glue used that is water proof. the ply veneers will still absorb water. its available in any builders providers

jgoodman05

Interesting project fguihen,

I've bought maple before from Kantors in Dublin www.kantor.ie , and I think that they do supply various kinds of ply as well. Regarding delivery I'm not sure, but its worth a try, given the nature of your project they may be willing to add your pieces to a load going that way.

Best of luck with your scope

Carlow52

fguihen wrote: »

forgot to mention, as il be building this down in Leitrim/roscommon area, It would be better to find someone to supply baltic birch/finn plywood down there, or even better, deliver it down there. ive found one supplier in dublin, but they wont deliver, and i dont have a truck/van to transport the material to the west.

If u give them the correct dimensions then they may cut it for you and then it would go on a roofrack.

Heatherview

Hi Fqulihen

Brooks in dublin have a hardwood division.Go to www.brooksgroup,ie you can download there hardwood catalogue, they have a wide range of hardwoods inc maple
Heatherview