What type of wooden board was this?

[Dave Baker]

In my last house the garage had a pit for working on cars in. To cover this when it wasn't in use there were two layers of perhaps 3/4" thick wooden type sheet about 18 inches wide x the 4.5 or so feet long that was the width of the pit. They rested on the top of the side walls of the pit which were finished 1.5 inches below the concrete surface of the rest of the garage floor so everything was flush with them in place. They were clearly an engineered material not just sheets of sawn wood. They had a diamond pattern embossed in them, presumably for grip underfoot, were a very dark brown colour and were very strong. The finish was so uniform you couldn't see any strands or chips of wood showing.

With them all in place I tended to forget that there was even a hole underneath where I was walking, or working, and had engine stands and other heavy items on top sometimes. I suspect they were some type of OSB but not of any type I can find on Google or even know what terms to search for.

Anyone know what these were exactly?

[therustyone]

How much did they weigh? Most wood is lighter than water, and most everything else, plastic etc. is heavier. Unless it's a composite structure.

rusty

[The Natural Philosopher]

Umm. this mightwell have been high desnity fibreboard - a sort of super MDF but made in layers of something like paper and a thermoset glue - think massive PCB - and the embossing carried out by a press as they were pressed and heated to set the stuff.

we used to cover ply in the stuff, but I cant remember the actual name of it.

possibly Tufnol or similar

[Andrew Mawson]

Sound like the stuff Ifor Williams use to bed their trailers - a very resilient hard wearing basically plywood, but impregnated with something like phenolic resin then squashed very hard in a press. One side usually has a pattern on to give a good grip. I had my 17 foot Ifor Williams re-bedded last year and it was bally expensive stuff.

AWEM

[The Medway Handyman]

Buffalo Board?

[Uncle Peter]

erything else, plastic etc. is heavier. Unless it's a composite struct= ure.

Plastic heavier than water? Never seen such a thing.

-- =

A bunch of lawyers were sitting around the office playing poker. =E2=80=9CI win!=E2=80=9D says Johnson at which point Henderson throws do= wn his cards. =E2=80=9CThat=E2=80=99s it! I've had it! Johnson is che= ating!!!=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9CHow can you tell?=E2=80=9D Phillips asked. =E2=80=9CThose aren't the cards I dealt him!=E2=80=9D

[news]

One of the phenolic compressed boards, search on buffalo board, often used for trailer floors.

AJH

[mike]

Permali maybe?

[Dave Baker]

That looks very similar. Thank you to the wonderful collective on here. A superb source of knowledge.

[Bill Wright]

Yes, and what few things we don't know we can easily make up, so it's seamless.

Bill

[PeterC]

Polypropylene is less dense than water; most others are denser (including polystyrene).

[Uncle Peter]

I found all sorts of plastic items around the house and none sank, can you think of an object that would?

[F Murtz]

Depends what you call plastic Melamine sinks, solid nylon sinks probably heavy chopping boards (have not tried them.

[Uncle Peter]

Most plastics don't.