When I rebuilt my boat, I used plain old 5/8" exterior plywood that I
encapsulated in thin epoxy (best deal I found was at USComposites.com)
I filled all external defects with bondo first, pre-fit the panels and
then used a roller to apply the epoxy to each sheet of plywood top
bottom and sides. After the first coat dried, I sanded it lightly and
recoated.

Once that dried and after installing the deck panels, I laid a
lightweight fiberglass cloth down (I bought an 10' wide bolt and a
length long enough to eliminate all seams) over the deck and poured
thicker epoxy "wall to wall" across the deck creating a pan for the
deck back that drains back to the bilge. the deck is nice and stiff and
very resilient.

I covered the finished deck with marine "Deco Dot" vinyl which I really
am happy with. Be sure to use marine grade adhesive and follow the
instructions carefully (in other words, more adhesive is not better...
coat back of vinyl and deck and let tack dry before laying it down.)

Hope this helps.

Jeff


After installing
Tom G wrote:
I'm replacing the carpeting and a couple of rotted deck boards on my pontoon
boat. Marine plywood is pretty much hard to get around here but I can get
MDO plywood (Medium Density Overlay) which has a resin impregnated (Paper?)
layer on each side. This stuff works great for outdoor signs, etc and lasts
virtually forever. However the carpet guy is telling me that the carpet
adhesive won't work with it because "nothing sticks to it". I've queried
the mfg of the adhesive and they don't seem to have a good idea of what MDO
is either. The carpet guy even tried to tell me that paint wouldn't stick
to it. Years ago I had a commercial outdoor sign painted using it and it
lasted for years with no noticeable weathering or paint loss. So, has any
one had experience using it and applying carpet or glue to it. The Exterior
plywood I've found is really bad quality.

Tom G.