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I’m making an outdoor table using wood and tiles. Is it possible to tile onto form ply?
Hi @Arcawi
A Ply table tiled sounds nice. Ideally the ply is pretty thick as those tiles and glue are going to weigh a bit and can cause the under ply to overly flex
Probably 10mm thick ply as a minimum guide. If your ply is 5mm there is no problem just glue some more ply ontop thats the nature of ply anyway layers of criss crossed wood fiber.
To answer your question several glues will work for a smaller area such as a a table Standard flexable Tile glue like
Liquid nails is a contact stlye adhesive There is and outdoor variety which is weather resistant.
Both of these will hold tiles solid on a flexable surface.
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @Arcawi. It's sensational to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about adhering tiles to formply.
In answer to your question, you'll have great difficulty adhering tiles to formply. Formply has an ultra-slick coating on it, which repels cement products and assists in its removal when used as formwork for concrete. It would not lend itself well to your use. As @Jewelleryrescue has suggested, you'd have much better luck with natural plywood without this slick coating and using Dunlop 2kg Wall And Floor Tile Adhesive. So, instead of going with Ecoply 2400 x 1200 x 17mm F14 Formrite Formply, I'd suggest Ecoply 2400 x 1200mm 17mm Plywood Pine Structural CD Grade.
Sounds like a super-cool project, and we'd love to follow along!
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
Thanks @MitchellMc
I missed the form ply cement freeing repelling qualities do you think sanding a layer off will work better if the table is allready made?
I would still back liquid nails to glue to for tiles to the ply. The weather resistant stuff liquid nails.
Yes, Liquid nails on ply would be fine, @Jewelleryrescue. It might even stick to the formply coating, but I'd scratch it right up with 40-grit sandpaper so it had some nice deep grooves. You could sand the coating entirely off with a powered sander.
Mitchell
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