Malaysian Hardwood Plywood

What Malaysian hardwood plywood is

It is plywood made from tropical hardwood, with hardwood in the inner layers as well as on the faces. You will also see it sold as Far Eastern plywood, which is the same thing.

The difference you notice is weight. An 18 mm sheet is 32.1 kg, against 28.4 kg for the same size in a poplar core board. That extra weight is solid timber in the middle instead of soft filler, and it is why this board takes knocks, holds a screw and stays flat under load better than the cheaper general purpose sheets.

Its face is a sound, flat working surface with natural colour variation and the odd patch, made for jobs that will be covered, lined or lived on. That is where it earns its keep: you pay for toughness in the middle of the board rather than for a show face nobody will see.

What people use it for

Malaysian plywood is the board for anything structural that gets covered up or lived on. The regular jobs are:

• Floors: shed, workshop and loft floors, and platforms that carry real weight.
• Vans and horseboxes: floors and linings that take trolleys, tools and heavy boots.
• Garages: shelving, storage units and workbench tops.
• Boxing in: casing where the board might get knocked.
• Site work: hoarding and temporary floor protection during a build.

It is also a common substrate: the layer under a tiled floor, under a laminate worktop, or behind a cladding or panelling system. In all of those the board is doing the structural job while something else provides the finish.

Malaysian plywood thicknesses

Every sheet is 2440×1220 mm, the standard 8×4, in four thicknesses. Choose by what the board has to carry:

• 6 mm (10.7 kg a sheet): lining and covering, such as van walls, boxing in and backing boards fixed to a frame. You can handle it on your own.
• 9 mm: the same jobs with more resistance to knocks, spanning short gaps between battens. It is the usual choice for a van floor where weight matters and the load is spread over the deck.
• 12 mm (21.4 kg a sheet): the general purpose thickness for shed floors over closely spaced joists, shelving, van floors and worktop substrate.
• 18 mm (32.1 kg a sheet): floors and platforms carrying weight, workbench tops and anything that has to span without complaint. It is a two person lift.

How much does Malaysian plywood cost?

Malaysian plywood sits between the lighter poplar core boards and birch on price, and what you pay for is the hardwood core that gives it its toughness. Price rises with thickness, so the easiest saving is choosing the thickness the job needs rather than one step up. Every sheet is the same 2440×1220 mm size, so per sheet and per square metre comparisons give the same answer. Enter your floor or wall area in the calculator on the product page to see how many sheets you need, and the cart adds the matching extras automatically.

How it compares to the other boards

Against hardwood faced plywood, which has a poplar core: this board is denser, heavier, tougher on the surface and better at holding a screw. The poplar core board is lighter, and suits sheets that are only being painted and will never be knocked.

Against birch plywood: birch is stronger again, much more consistent inside, and has an edge worth leaving on show. It is also a good deal dearer. If the board will be seen, buy birch. If it is going under a floor or behind a lining, this board does the work for less.

Against marine plywood: this board is bonded for interior and humid use, so it copes with an unheated garage or a shed. For rain, ground contact or a permanently wet floor, marine plywood is the board to choose. For rough structural work at the lightest weight, softwood plywood is the other option.

Working with it

It is hard on blades. Tropical hardwood contains minerals that blunt a saw blade faster than softwood or birch does, so fit a decent tungsten carbide blade and expect it to need sharpening sooner than you would like.

It splinters at the cut more than birch does, particularly on the underside. Score the line if the edge will be seen, and use a backing board under the cut where you can.

Pilot screws near an edge. The board grips well, but a dense hardwood edge splits along a glue line if you drive a screw into it dry.

Wear a mask. Tropical hardwood dust is more of an irritant than softwood dust, and a shed or garage with the door shut is exactly the wrong place to cut a lot of it without extraction.

Using it as a floor

Shed, loft and van floors are the most common job this board gets bought for, and there are a few things worth doing properly.

Support the sheet at every joist rather than just at the ends, and set the joists out so that a sheet edge always lands on one. An unsupported edge between joists will flex underfoot and eventually break down along that line.

Stagger the joints rather than lining them all up in a row. A continuous seam across a floor is a weak line, and it will telegraph through anything you lay on top of it later.

Leave a small gap at the walls. Plywood takes up and gives off moisture with the seasons, and a floor laid tight to the walls has nowhere to go when it expands, so it lifts in the middle.

Screw it rather than nailing it. Nails work loose under foot traffic and start to squeak, and a screwed floor can be lifted again if you ever need to get underneath it.

Keeping it dry

Store it flat and off a concrete floor. Concrete holds moisture and wicks it straight into the bottom sheet of a stack, and a board that takes up damp unevenly will bow and stay bowed.

If it is going somewhere humid, seal both faces rather than just the one you can see. A board sealed on one side only takes up moisture on the other and curls away from the dry face.

Malaysian plywood in Dublin and across Ireland

We stock all four thicknesses in our Dublin warehouse, for collection or delivery across Ireland. The 6 and 9 mm sheets are a one person job; 12 and 18 mm are easier with two. Store the sheets flat and off a concrete floor until you fit them.

Use the calculator on the product page to work out how many sheets the job needs. Birch, marine, flexible and fire retardant boards, and how the grades compare, are on the main plywood page.