Does anyone have experience using lauan plywood as a core material?
If so what are its benefits and short comings?
Just curious.
Pretty heavy, no? Why not plastic corrugate sign board. I’ve had pretty good success with wet layup.
Doable. Might be pretty heavy, and resin might soak into the wood. As for strength benefits, compared to plywood…not sure.
Also, isn’t Lauan rare, and almost illegal to use? Thought i heard something about that ages ago.
Corplast? Talk to me about what you’ve done to use that. Needing a cheap core material and was considering cardboard but had begun to wonder about Corplast. Got a bunch of that available, but to my experience plastic and epoxy don’t like to bond. Do I need to give the face of it a sand to give it some bite?
Needing to make a roughly 24" x 24" panel and wanting to add some stiffness. Will be using epoxy and fiberglass.
benefits are that it’s starts out relatively stiff for a given thickness compared to other options, good impact resistance, easy use of fasteners, that it is cheap and readily available.
major con is weight, other con would be water damage if not properly sealed
coroplast is a poly ethelene and you are right, epoxy will not stick well to it. sanding might help, but is probably a waste of time and product if board is subject to any flexing it will eventually delaminate. supposedly using a propane torch to flame the surface helsp too?
many cabinet shops carry 1/8" thick luan
most stores like lowes/home depot only carry 1/4" thick luan, though some do carry the thinner stuff.
foam core would work well, but if it gets wet it looses strength.
I have seen this yellow foam in youtube videos people use, not sure what it is called or how good it is??
I am interested in what you wind up doing as I have a similar need.
gator board is like foam core on stereoids, more dense, but also heavier.
Has anyone tried cardboard? I stumbled across this article and it got me wondering:
http://microship.com/resources/cardboard-core-composites.html
Then the mention above about corplast. I’m looking for something thin and cheap. Balsa wood would work, but I’m blanching at the cost given the size I need. Anyone ever tried a cotton matt, not all too different from breather material, as a core material?
what is end usage?
if it’s not going to get wet than gatorboard or foam or card board will work. if it gets wet it willl be a mess.
if you use coroplast and are able to seal the edges then that will prevent it from delaminating.
if you get the coroplast that is corona treated so that it can be printed on with solvent inks then the epoxy will stick better to it.
if it’s not under bending stresses, it will most likely do fine?
I sandwiched 3 layers of fibreglass, epoxy wet layup, 10mm Coroplast (roughed up with 80 grit), 3 layers of fibreglass. I use it for a front splitter/under-panel for my M3. It has held up well, zero delamination even with all the chips and chunks missing.
The next revision will be resin infused with a cosmetic top and bottom layer of CF, 2 layers of FG, Coremat 2mm and DivinyCell 3mm.