Hi Sam,

Mildura is about 11 hours drive inland from Sydney. It is on the Murray River in the North West corner of Victoria. The nearest sea to me is about 4 1/2 hours drive away. Yachts are beautiful things and they fascinate me, but seeing them on television during the Sydney to Hobart race is as close as I have ever been to one. Hopefully one day I will be a bit closer to the sea and rectify this.

The tests you have done are an excellent quantification of some of the discussions on this board.

It would be interesting to see some tests on Okume with only one side laminated. If this test were performed with one set of panels with the glass in tension as well as a set with the glass in compression it would provide some interesting results. (How does the compressive strength of ply compare with glass?)

What effect does coating ply with epoxy have? The manufacturer of the epoxy which I have been using claims that it strengthens the ply.....(insert sceptical raising of eye brows)

What sort of results would we see with a plain sheet of ply and an epoxied (no glass)sheet of ply?

It would also be intersting to do some tests in pure bending (simply supported beam style) to determine the effect of the grain orientation in WRC and indeed in ply.

Once again.

Thankyou for a great post.

Nicholas Sheahan
Mildura Australia