I worked in a commercial lumber yard in high school back in the dark ages and remember only 4x8 sheets of plywood. Forward many years and while working with Habitat for Humanity building in Connecticut our local affiliate came into a trailer load of 4x9 sheets of 1/2 inch plywood that had been used to board in an outdoor concert venue. It was nice stuff for sheeting houses as it covered the the rim joist plus the entire first floor wall frame. It would have been nice for model railroading for 9 or 18 ft benchwork.
As noted drywall routinely comes in 4x12 lenghts as it makes it possible to do many rooms with no butt seams and only the middle tappered seam at the 4 ft level. The tappered seam is much easier to finish compared to a butt seam.
riogrande5761 BTW, I've noticed at Home Depot and Lowes, the 4x8 sheets of plywood are pretty warped. I decided to us OSB (Oriented Strand Board) nominally 1/2 inch thick as it has little or no warp and only costs about $8 at my local home depot.
BTW, I've noticed at Home Depot and Lowes, the 4x8 sheets of plywood are pretty warped. I decided to us OSB (Oriented Strand Board) nominally 1/2 inch thick as it has little or no warp and only costs about $8 at my local home depot.
Yeah, that sheathing grade stuff can be warped - just have to be picky about what you buy. Or you can buy the better stuff they have for more money. I'm not a fan of OSB, but I'm sure it works for a tabletop layout.
Enjoy
Paul
bogp40The first Google search showed this: http://www.eagleplywood.com/
Pics of larger sheets on Bobs' link. Thanks for posting Bob.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
ACY I recall seeing sizes larger than 4x8', but that was when I was a kid, over 50 years ago.
I recall seeing sizes larger than 4x8', but that was when I was a kid, over 50 years ago.
Of course what matters is present day. 50 years ago is only good if you have a time machine.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
maxman BATMAN A 5' x 10' sheet is certainly more $ than a 4' x 8' sheet but not a lot. Since none of us can seem to find any place that would sell a 5X9 sheet, it would be interesting to know your point of reference concerning price. What are you comparing? I would agree that the plywood manufacturers probably have the ability to change sizes, but how many sheets are you willing to order? One? A hundred? A thousand? I doubt very much that the local lumber store is going to be interested in special ordering one 5X9 piece. Maybe a big sign shop actually has access to the stuff, but that guy isn't going to run a piece of plywood through his books at cost either.
BATMAN A 5' x 10' sheet is certainly more $ than a 4' x 8' sheet but not a lot.
Since none of us can seem to find any place that would sell a 5X9 sheet, it would be interesting to know your point of reference concerning price. What are you comparing?
I would agree that the plywood manufacturers probably have the ability to change sizes, but how many sheets are you willing to order? One? A hundred? A thousand? I doubt very much that the local lumber store is going to be interested in special ordering one 5X9 piece. Maybe a big sign shop actually has access to the stuff, but that guy isn't going to run a piece of plywood through his books at cost either.
My local big box suppliers do a brisk trade in 2 x 4 sheets of (mostly) thinner plywood. I guess the amateur cabinetmakers around here specialize in night stands and other small items.
I recall some years back MR suggested cutting a triangle off a 4 x 8 sheet and reattaching it to make a shed-shaped surface for one track plan. That was back when there were several suggested plans in each issue (and, boy, did I just date myself!)
Since my construction sequence has me making cardboard track pattern templates first I have no problem with using small or odd-shaped pieces of ply when I cut my cookies. I just make sure to keep everything properly aligned. OTOH, I've reached the point in physical capability where handling even a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood is more of a challenge than I need. 4 X 8 foam, no problem (yet.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
alco_fan BATMAN I suppose if you wanted to build a layout on plywood and didn't know that anything larger than a 4' x 8' existed why would you even look for it. It may be just something to consider if you can hunt down a plywood specialty store or it just becomes more readily available. Or just buy a saw. I live in a pretty big town and there are no "plywood specialty stores". There are a couple of good lumber dealers but the cost of a 5X10 plywood special order there would be way more than two quality 4X8 sheets _and_ the saw.
BATMAN I suppose if you wanted to build a layout on plywood and didn't know that anything larger than a 4' x 8' existed why would you even look for it. It may be just something to consider if you can hunt down a plywood specialty store or it just becomes more readily available.
Or just buy a saw. I live in a pretty big town and there are no "plywood specialty stores". There are a couple of good lumber dealers but the cost of a 5X10 plywood special order there would be way more than two quality 4X8 sheets _and_ the saw.
The big box lumber/hardware stores near where I live will cut it for you. At least one cut is free, I have never asked for more. Makes it esaier to haul home.
There are specailty plywood suppliers that will stock or order sizes larger than the traditional 4x8. Generally used for signs, specialty substrate on casework, store fixtures and tops. Not all species are available in larger panels. If one was to need a panel so large for our purposes, a search will show suppliers, but usually in larger cities or manufacturing areas.
I use one of these suppliers for cabinet grade, and flexible panels in various wood species.
http://www.boulterplywood.com/
The first Google search showed this:
http://www.eagleplywood.com/
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
I'm assuming we are talking about modelers who are not capable of sawing, gluing and screwing plywood sheets together?
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
BATMANA 5' x 10' sheet is certainly more $ than a 4' x 8' sheet but not a lot.
BATMANI suppose if you wanted to build a layout on plywood and didn't know that anything larger than a 4' x 8' existed why would you even look for it. It may be just something to consider if you can hunt down a plywood specialty store or it just becomes more readily available.
I doubt you will ever find anything larger than a 4' x 8' sheet at a big box store. There are specialty plywood shops around here that carry larger stuff. I was talking to my Father in law and asked what the larger sheets were used for and he said all our sheets came from a sign company that made large roadside billboards and signs for real estate companies selling things like farms or comercial properties where a large sign is needed. He said you can get plywood 16' long that is used in the Yacht building industry. Also I read that modern fully computerized mills can change the size of the sheets they produce with the push of a few buttons and will do batch orders. 4' x 12' sheets are being used in the construction of these new monster Mcmansions that have 12' ceilings.
I suppose if you wanted to build a layout on plywood and didn't know that anything larger than a 4' x 8' existed why would you even look for it. It may be just something to consider if you can hunt down a plywood specialty store or it just becomes more readily available. I use to move my 5' x 10' plywood prairie back and forth between the dining room and family room when my son and I set up the old stuff. The track was nail down but it was a gut buster to move. I think foam was a marvalous invention.
My first layout in 1961 was built on a 5 x 9 sheet of 3/4 plywood. I remember the night my dad brought it home on the roof of his 1960 Ford Galaxy!
Wayne
18 inch and 22 inch radius were probably designed and standardized because of the 4x8 plywood straight jacket.
As for 5x9, I would heartily recommend that except I've never seen a 5x9 sheet in my life. I think that is a good minium size however and allows more reasonable curves in HO.
Not only because 4x8 is a common size, but it also fits 18 inch radius for HO. Most new modelers think in terms of table tops so they build a 4x8 table and put the track on it. When you get away from the "table" idea and think in terms of roadbed (like L girder) then the rectangle starts to fade away.
That said, sometimes I think I should go ahead and built a 4x8 just to see what can be done in that size, like the Virginian.
Not that the timber dimensions here would have had any bearing layout designs on US model railway magazines though.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
NittanyLionI remember ping pong tables being way more common in the past and lots of kids around having trains on ping pong tables.
Remember that pingpong tables used to be large, heavy affairs. Now a days they are flimsy folding things that I would not trust a layout. on. The east blob on my layout consists of two pingpong tables end to end, but these were built by us, and you would have no trouble parking a tank on them. Well, perhaps a volkswagen.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
cacole An older Atlas track plan book calls for 5x9 foot plywood sheets, which were apparently fairly standard back then. Today's standard sheet is 4x8 feet. Don't know when the size changed.
An older Atlas track plan book calls for 5x9 foot plywood sheets, which were apparently fairly standard back then. Today's standard sheet is 4x8 feet. Don't know when the size changed.
I remember ping pong tables being way more common in the past and lots of kids around having trains on ping pong tables.
Now that my friends and I are roughly the same age as our parents were back then...none of us own ping pong tables. Then again, we all had a grandma that owned an electric organ and none of our parents did!
4x8 is easier to handle, and as has been pointed out, fits 16" studs either way. 5x9 is ping pong table.
Largers sizes, especially in panelling is possible. My shop teacher did some contracting in the summer time, and for one job that pecified perhaps a 10 or so lenght of panneling, he doubled the price on his estimate. When questioned he said it was "in case I make a mistake". The outraged homeowner said 'Mistakes are on you." Reply: "Fine, go find someone else to do it." He got other estimates, and all of them came in at more than double what he offered, so they came back to him, and he did the job.
Apparently each country has its own 'standard' size. Here in the US, it's 4 x 8, and larger sizes are special order items. Houses are built to use that size, both plywood and drywall, and that's what ordinary DIY folks find at their big box home improvement centers.
In Japan, the equivalent is one tatami, which works out to 3 x 6 - and that's the standard size for a sheet of plywood. Houses which employed tatami flooring had rooms specified as four, six, eight or other counts of tatami, not specified by wall dimensions. The very common 9x9 room was specified as 4 1/2 tatami, and the mats were spiraled with a half-mat in the center.
Since four feet = 1219.2mm I rather suspect that plywood sheets in other parts of the world which have active forest products industries have more convenient metric dimensions. Or they might have gone the way of Japan, which had been standardized on the non-metric tatami for a good many centuries before the metric system was developed.
I actually built a model railroad in a one-tatami closet back in the early '60s. The Akane USRA 2-6-6-2 I accidentally acquired looked seriously ugly rounding the 400mm radius curves - but it handled them.
You can special order larger sheets of plywood, up to 16ft in some materials, but you run into stability ( expansion/contraction), type material, thickness, weight, and cost. It would be more cost effective to add on to the 4x8.
Besides, you ever try to get a 5x12 chunk of wood down a set of stairs.....WITHOUT putting a hole in the wall or wiping out something?
4x8 is the largest I have ever seen. If you get 2 sheets of 4x8 and have them each cut across at 5'4", you get 4 pieces that can be arranged into a 5'4" x 12' tabletop. If you have the room, this is probably a better start than 4x8 for HO.
You must have specially milled plywood or plywood form olden days?
As was said, VERY common to find a 4x8 anywhere here.
I hav never seen anything larger in plywood than 4x12, not even on the home improvement shows either.
I HAVE seen longer sheets of drywall, though, up to 4x 12 & 4x 16 footers! They are rare and the 4x16 footer drywall has to be special order/deliver. i only saw it on a short film about making drywall at the factory. 16' is double the 8' length they said so it could be made for special places.
and as mentioned the 4 foot width divides by 16 On Center for builders easily enough.
JUST because I have NOT seen it {a 5x9 sheet of plywood} doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
But a quick look at HD's website doesn't reveal anything larger than 4x8, though I did not check every nook and crany. A quick search for "5x9 plywood" HD said back "sorry no matches found".
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
If you have a larger sheet, go with it. Thing is, 4 by 8 is the standard plywood size, and I've never seen anything bigger. I hear you can get 5 by 9 for ping pong tables, but I don't remember ever seeing it in a lumber yard.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
BATMANThey measure 5' x 9'
You could, at one time, purchase 5X9 foot sheets for ping pong tables. The standard ping pong table dimensions are 152.5 cm by 274 cm, which works out to about 5 X 9 feet. Not many folks go into the big box stores looking to build ping pong tables any more
Hi Guys:
I live in Ontario, Canada and have never seen a sheet of plywood larger than 4'x8', even on DIY shows.
Four by eight sheeting matches 16" or 24" on center for the building trades.
Dave