Looking for plywood with brown glue. I have been using the regular baltic birch you can buy at Frost and most hardwood places here in Sandiego. Does anyone know where to find plywood with that nice brown glue that make for nice lines when foiling a set of keel fins? Contact me at danielpartch@sbcglobal.net I will be forever grateful, Aloha Daniel
It’s Finland Birch rather than Baltic Birch, a marine grade. Special order.
The glue was once made from pig’s blood or something, but not sure if
that is the case now. I used to get it at Frost in 5’ x 5’ sheets but that
was many moons ago…
Finnish birch as the plywood today made is exclusively made in Finland,… though rumor has it that birch of suitable qualities is being imported from russia as well (and possibly From the baltic states…) no matter.
http://w3.upm-kymmene.com/upm/internet/cms/upmcms.nsf/$all/ebc3a33da53d90edc225708c003d49a5?OpenDocument&qm=menu,4,5,0&smtitle=Plywood
These days the adhesive used in is a ultra thin phenolic resin sheet. water proof, boil proof et al. conforms to european Germanischer lloyd standards… yadda yadda yadda. basicly means: pretty good stuff cannot advertise it enough except the weight…
In thar olden days blood based “albumen” glue was used apparently it was slightly more water proof than the so called “water proof” casein glue… pigs blood as well as cows blood was commonly used to make albumen glue. Casein glue was made from the milk proteins thingies , whatevers. Though neither was a purely waterproof glue as we today understand it. Also was susceptible to microbes (mildew etc) and organic decay… me thinks. I think It wasnt until after WWII that Finnish wood industry got a truly waterproof adhesive in the form of aerolite, same stuff they used to glue the mosquito planes together with… aerolite was good but didnt work too well (long term) in hot and arid areas… but that was the problem of the aussies and south africans. at some point phenol, resorcinol etc came about…
whelp it’s lookin loike we might turn this here thread
how’s bout gluin’ some veneers and usin ’
some “contrasting” glue???
mebe some contrasting veneers?
lemme know if you are lookin’ fer
another way to make things
take longer with more work.
…ambrose…
I gotta sand
whaddya mean? 
LIke what I did? Glued one three-plywood- mahogany-threeply-mahogany alternating… etc like in photo below… The picture doesnt do justice but every 4th red band is actually an mahogany veneer layer… the other three are glue lines/layers. Shows up in better light. will try to post a better picture which would make it clearer. Why did I do this? well I had extra glue, extra veneer andnot enough pywood- to mak ethe base of fin thich enough. Oh and yeah, a little bit extra time (doesnt take that much longer) Only the added time to select the veneers, lay em out, spread the glue, lay em in a cake, clamp- dry . voila! ok the dryng time for me was 24H but I had other things to do in the mean time.
btw… the plywood in question is exactly the same wisa craft, marine/aircraft quality birch plywood. the plywood bits were 2.0 and 2.5mm thick and the reddish glue is not pig blood based, but phenolic resin…
yeah thats it.
then my mind reels
to flex controls
like stiffer woods in the base
and flexy in the tip
and all grain running same direction
ala no 90 degree oppositions
or mebe just 45 degree coordination
…ambrose…
“Flex control” !? Hey now you’re talking to a guy who has yet to “catch his first wave standing up”… 
tish tosh, flex control, mlex control… I’ll dwelve into that subject more once I learn to surf and see IF “#001” aka “fastfood” aka “damn heavy bugger” aka " WTF is that? an ironing board!?" actually works other than hanging off the wall… 
But seriously though, The pictured fin is pretty stiff. though it flexes just a tad… My guess: its too stiff. Never actually held a REAL fin of anykind in my hands so I have absolutely no experience on the subject matter.