local timber yards are normally cheapest if not then wickes never ever good to homebase or b&q unless you like being ripped of, look at the ply good ply is about 6+ layers of wood cheap stuff is about 4/5 the good stuff cuts better and splinters less

 

B&Q & WICKES are a joint company.only know this as bought a kitchen from wickes & turned up in a B&Q lorry lol T:

 

Hi Phil, not sure on the cheapest place near you but a few questions T:

Don't buy the cheap Chinese ply, it will bite you in the bum I: (speak to Dave (bigcat))
What sort of radius are we looking at for the curve?? (don't need a pic if it's a secret just a rough guide)

 

What sort of radius are we looking at for the curve??

Erm not sure, when i said design what i meant was i drew a picture on a scrap of paper and said thats how i want it to look.I:

Im guessing from your questions i need to make a few more detailed plansT:

 

the "good stuff" lol ..... what you after 6mm to bend ? drop me a pm if you want quality , not the cheepest but it is the "good stuff"

 

or what chippy offers T:

 

I got most of mine from Wickes on a deal on buying 5 or more, however they didnt do the 4mm which I used for my roof so I went to Totem timber ( dont know if they are nation wide). By the way good luck with the build cant wait to see your progress

 

yeh i used Totem timber if you can find 1 near you there always good on the wood and cheaper than the restT:T:T:

 

Nah mate your alright, what I was getting at is the tighter the curve the thinner the ply needs to be to bend T:

I did a 300 ish mm curve on the front and had to steam bend 4mm to get round it but like I said I wished I'd used decent stuff for the roof. To the point where I'm gonna have to re-do the roof and tailgate. You lives and learns

You gonna insulate it aswell mate?? Bear in mind the cost of ply doubles to do the inside skin aswell

 

What size bit of ply do you need mate? My workplace bins a disgusting amount of perfectly useable ply (6,9,12 and 15mm) Not full sheets but offcuts mainly but sometimes are fairly large offcuts. If anyone else wants any ply drop me a line and I'll see what i can do.

 

try headlam flooring supplies for this kind of wbp ply . 4mm upwards and it is realy good grade ply , you could even stain it with little sanding , it realy is very good quality .

 

Beware going cheap. Most of the hardwood faced poplar cored plywood sold at general merchants is frankly not good enough for what you want. Ask for "wbp* hardwood throughout " at least. If you can find it, aim for what we used to know as "Malayan, Far Eastern" as distinct from Chinese. If you can afford it use exterior BB grade birch. The better the board the less likely you'll find it off the shelf. B+Q didn't get massive orange stores by making nowt. If you can , try a specialist timber merchants.

*wbp stands for weather and boil proof and refers to the glue used in the lay up. Most cheap chinese plywoods look decent because the face veneers are clean and tidy looking, but they are so thin that to use a wbp glue for them , which is dark in colour, because they are thin, it would percolate through to the face and spoil the appearance, so, the mills tend to use a clear moisture resistant glue for the faces , which can easily fail if it gets wet and delaminate. The core veneers are usually wbp bonded.

 

Cheers bigcat,
I found a company not to far away from me that does Malayan , far eastern ply.

 

Well put Dave T:

Phil, have moved to the trailer section to help other builders, hope you don't mind T:

 

Not at all mate, it all helps the masses.