# Marine Plywood for trailer deck replacement?



## DallanC

Anyone know of a spot in UT County or SLC that stocks marine grade plywood? 

I need to replace the deck on my snowmobile /atv trailer. I've read up enough to know regular pressure treated plywood de-laminates too quickly. Marine ply painted with a good oil based paint seems to be the best recommendation from the sled-head crowd.

Its a dang good trailer, well worth deck replacement.


-DallanC


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## Goshawk

Try MacBeath hardwood in salt lake


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## Critter

Low's also usually stocks it, depending on the thickness.


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## hondodawg

I've used Intermountain Lumber years maybe 20 years ago to get marine plywood living in St. George

Here is a link for the SLC 
Location
http://www.intermountainwood.com/saltlakecity.htm

Not sure if they still stock it or sell small qty anymore.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## .45

I like your idea of using Marine Plywood....I might try it. 

Lumber Products in Salt Lake might carry the stuff.


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## Huge29

LUmber Products, MacBeath and Intmtn are certainly your best bets and the latter two are located pretty close to one another. Intmtn would be my best bet.


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## Airborne

I work for a large building materials supplier in Utah Valley. AC Plywood would be cheaper and would hold up just as well for your purpose I think--both Marine and AC would need to be painted. AC is more readily available and much cheaper. Marine grade plywood is designed to be in the water ALOT like for a boat hull and its going to be 3 to 4 times as expensive as regular plywood, while AC plywood will be roughly double. You are overkill with Marine plywood.

Plywood weakness in regards to weather is the knots, this is where water pools and warps. Plywood is given a grade for both outer plys. AC plywood has one side grade A and one side grade C with the inner grades being no less than C. A grade has no knots, so this would be your moisture bearing surface on a trailer (Face Up). Grade C is the lowest grade available for exterior use, so your downward facing ply would be C grade and that is totally appropriate for that purpose as it's exterior rated. 

The most common type of plywood (I refer to as regular) sold for home building purposes is CD grade with the C graded ply facing the exterior.

I hope this helps


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## DallanC

Airborne,

I appreciate the feedback but as this is primarily a snowmobile trailer, the underside gets nearly as much moisture as the top. I've built two trailers previously and normal ply has never held up. I thought potentially of using pressure treated but apparently the collective snowmobile crowd has had terrible history with pressure treated delaminating, and it cannot be used with aluminium trailers as it reacts and corrodes the metal.

Pretty much every snowmobile trailer mfg out there uses marine ply to start with.


-DallanC


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## Kevin D

Anyone besides myself consider using a composite trex decking material as a snowmobile/ATV trailer deck cover? Carbide wear bars on the bottom of snowmobile skis will chew through any grade of plywood. One can install ski guides to prevent this, but I'm afraid they'd eventually get torn loose as I'm using the trailer to haul ATV's and building materials for work.

I'm just kicking around the idea as my trailer deck is also shot and needs replacing. Any thoughts??


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## BPturkeys

What about 2x6's instead of plywood?


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## DUSTY NOGGIN

i like the idea of 2x6s instead of any flat sheeting, as the it would also help support and aluminum frame , possibly help reduce cracking from the twisting action a flat bed has


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## DallanC

Kevin D said:


> Anyone besides myself consider using a composite trex decking material as a snowmobile/ATV trailer deck cover? Carbide wear bars on the bottom of snowmobile skis will chew through any grade of plywood. One can install ski guides to prevent this, but I'm afraid they'd eventually get torn loose as I'm using the trailer to haul ATV's and building materials for work.
> 
> I'm just kicking around the idea as my trailer deck is also shot and needs replacing. Any thoughts??


I've thought about it and wondered how it would hold up.

I dont see that much damage from my carbides on our sleds. My deck is rotting through in other places / getting spongy. Primary damage is on the corners of the sheet where the screws have pulled through and the sheet is starting to curl up away from the frame. Where the ski's run there is very little damage at all. This after 12 years of use (bought the trailer in 2005). 12 years out of the existing deck is pretty good.

One can always get ski-glides if the carbides are causing too much damage. Also, you can buy used bed-liners off the guys that do rino lining. They usually sell them for cheap... put a old blade on a skill saw and cut them into 10" strips for the skis to run down.

Anywho its a summer project I need to get done, but am in no rush to do it now that the weather is nice.

-DallanC


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## Fowlmouth

Could you do a metal deck? Something like aluminum diamond plate? I never had much luck with the wood deck trailers. I picked up a Echo all metal trailer when I had my wheelers.


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## TheoCleaner

Plywood is way cheaper and does the same job, at least for me.


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## Kingfisher

if you can get it... (from someone at utility trailer) their aluminum decking provides not only a surface, but strength as well. I have a 16 foot tandem, custom made by a former util worker that is now 35 years old and the deck is in fantastic shape. the steel frame is rusting in places but the entire deck is great. snowmobiles, atvs, rzrs, and general hauling, wood, garbage, rocks, etc -ive run em all - sideways, frontways and backwards. if you have the money and a contact, you will never have to resurface a trailer again.


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## LostLouisianian

Years ago dad had a pirogue built out of marine plywood then he bought some sort of fiberglass covering kit and put that over the whole outside of the boat. Nearly 50 years later you can't tell there has been any use on it. Thinking you could use CD plywood and cover it with fiberglass somewhat inexpensively


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## DallanC

Ok update time I guess, the overhaul is pretty much done at this point. Really happy I decided to both do this, and how it turned out.

After getting alot of input, the overall recommendation was to NOT use marine plywood, but rather use AC plywood. The theory is because the A side while more expensive, does not contain knots which means less points for water to soak into the sheeting. The second major recommendation was to use the new Deck Renew "paint" that has come on the market. Its more like Rino-lining than paint. I used the heavy "texture" roller HomeDepot sells so it wouldnt turn out so slick in winter time, boy did that work great! The surface is very rough, like I threw sand onto it. It seems extremely durable. We cut the sheets to size, then coated it all, both sides, edges and let it cure. I am interested to see how it holds up over the winter. Sled scags might tear it up, but the prior wood wasnt scratched up too bad so I dont expect a whole long of damage. We have a quarter can left for touchups. If wear becomes an issue I'll get some ski-glides.

Day 1, tore old deck off. It was screwed down with screws rusted in too tight to remove. Prybar wasnt getting me anywhere then I had an idea. I cut a 10x10" hole in the center of a sheet, stuck a highlift jack in there and lifted the sheet straight up off the trailer. It tore through the rotted screws easily and popped right off. 3 more holes and wala, the trailer was exposed.










With the sheeting off, I got a good close look at the frame and was pleasantly surprised at just how well this baby was put together. As my favorite youtube author would say, it was built "skookum as frig!".

The industrial paint was starting to separate in places trapping water and causing some rust, so I decided it all had to come off. Heck if we're going to do it lets do it right! With the heat we spread the work out over a week, but took turns hitting it with a grinder and a half dozen flapdisks. It worked great, the paint came right off easily. We didnt take it down to polished metal, but knocked off the major rust and painted it with that new Rust Converter stuff. Really impressed with how that stuff works. Using that as a primer layer, we painted all treated surfaces with black paint after. There were some non-structural spots we didnt worry about, but the rest looks A-OK and good for years.










Closeup of the deck renew finish:










I bought some type F Torx head 1/4-20 self tapping metal screws, they worked extremely well for screwing down the deck (same screws original mfg used). We coated all of the screw heads with more deck renew to prevent moisture from entering around the screws.

Near final result. Got a few spots to still do like the Ramps and Tongue, but as is its GTG! Had someone yesterday stop and ask me if I bought a new trailer... lol, made me feel good about the job for someone to think it was new.










Thanks everyone. One less "honeydo" to worry about.

-DallanC


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## BPturkeys

I like how it turned out. Looks great. The only other thing I think I'd do is go ahead and stick some new wheel bearings in it. Won't cost that much money or work and you'd end up with a like new trailer.


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## DallanC

BPturkeys said:


> I like how it turned out. Looks great. The only other thing I think I'd do is go ahead and stick some new wheel bearings in it. Won't cost that much money or work and you'd end up with a like new trailer.


Thanks. Yup, I had to yank the wheels to grind the frame behind them and noticed they were a little loose. I actually have a set of new bearings in the garage from a buggy project I've never finished. I'll throw them on one of these days. Too **** hot right now... time to go fishing!

-DallanC


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## Critter

Looks good, did you update the wiring also or is it still in good shape?


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## DallanC

Wiring is great. They welded some 3/8" round tube to the center of the trailer and ran the wiring through that. So other than the ground point, its all protected.

I guess I should have mentioned in the beginning this is a Walton Trailer from their Bison line.


-DallanC


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