Boat Builder Central - Builder Forums

Can Divinycell be used in place of marine plywood for the V12?

garym wrote: ↑Thu Sep 13, 2018 4:54 pm Can Divinycell be used in place of marine plywood for the V12?

If it can be done in plywood it can be done with Divinycell.
The biggest difference is you will need to use more glass when using foam. That being said it sure is nice to work with.

garym, I agree completely with Fuzz!! More glass and more epoxy!! See the thread from FishGitR, he is building a 16 foot ConchFish from Divinycell!! Jeff

I agree with too as you will use more glass. The foam doesn’t soak up as much epoxy as plywood. Foam is really easy to work with too.

My v12 was my first build. Used 2x epoxy and did 12oz bottom. The ply version only uses tape for seams, no ply skin. With all my over build the completed hull is 150lb.

What advantage would there be to using foam as it will require both sides of each panel being glassed? That includes frames and seats.

Just curious.

In small boats there would be no weight advantage and would cost more to build " more epoxy and glass ".
In bigger boats you would see a much bigger weight advantage but it still costs more to build and some
people do not like wood.

Idk... another guy and I are both building the Conchfish. I’m doing it in foam and I’m at just over 19 gallons. I am pretty much done besides a little fairing. I won’t go over 20.. the other guy is around 15 gallons in and hasn’t built a cap yet. I too did more layers of glass than what would be used on wood.

Please do not compare the amounts of glass and resin for a plywood core to a foam core. You need at least twice the amount of glass and epoxy on a foam cored hull. Don't guess, have somebody with experience do the math.
I built my 1st foam cored boat in the early 70's and plan to progressively, offer many of my plans as foam cored hulls.
It is a big job, do not ask me to do it for a particular boat, I'll do it properly open boat plan at a time.