Mike,
I have a friend who is a cabinet maker in a near by town and he buys all his wood from some company in the State of New Hampshire. I don't know the name of the place, but they have every type of wood including Teak at a reasonable price. Last year I bought some Teak plywood pen boards off Rudy. They're OK, but if you don't seal the end grain, they'll warp. I had the lowest board warp on me and Rudy cut me a new one this year to replace it. When I removed all the wood from my cabin to stain it and varnish it, I also stained and varnished my pen boards. I'm thinking now that I probably could have made my own pen boards out of solid Mahogany and be way ahead of the game. Two years ago I built a frame for the inside of my companionway hatch out of solid Mahogany with the intention of making the companionway pen boards a little more intruder resistant. What I did is kind of hard to explain in words, but it seems to be pretty solid when it's shut and locked. Whereas my cabin wood is a dark red Mahogany color now, I'm thinking that I could make some new pen boards out of solid Mahogany and keep the plywood for spares. I had bought some stainless steel barrel bolts and never used them. I could probably use them. Oh well, that can probably be my next project, that is, after I build the settee and V birth compartment covers to replace the old dilapidated ones that are on there now.
Joe
