Decking with Cbond or Alucobond?

Has anyone here had any experience with composite materials for decking or flooring? I've been looking for some time for the right material to use for my floor. I wanted to go aluminum to keep the weight down vs plywood. The prices of aluminum are pretty crazy right now though. I was looking to go 1/8" thickness. So I started searching and I found another site where someone mentioned using a material called Alucobond for his boat floor. It is basically two thin pieces of aluminum sandwiching a polyethylene core. I can't find anyone that sells Alucobond but I did find a local supplier of Cbond which seems to be a similar material. Here is some online info on it that I found https://www.cgategroup.com/cbond.html in case anyone is interested.

My question is if anyone has used it and how rigid it is compared to all aluminum? I was looking at 3mm sheets. That puts it just a hair under 1/8" and it's just slightly heavier than all aluminum as well. If it is rigid enough though there would be huge savings. It's $69 for a 4x8 sheet.

So anyone have any info?

Just did a quick read of the Cbond page and it does say that it's quite flexible, so it might be a problem. Although it may only flex in one direction...?

I would think that if you had a good base of foam or some other support under the sheet of material, you could have a good floor with minimal give. And the price is pretty good...

Skidz

I'm using it in my build. Check out my signature.

I'm planning on replacing the transom wood in my 1442 with Alucabond if I can ever get around to it.

Thanks all for the input. I think I am going to go with it. The price is right. Keeps the weight down and I don't have to worry about maint.

Brine...Looks great on your deck. Now that you have used it can you give me an idea how much it flexes? I'm not putting a high deck in my boat. Just going over the ribs. Trying to decide what bracing or structure to put under it. Unfortunately my ribs are not flat. My boat is a v and it's pretty flat most of the way but there is a slight curve on all the ribs so I'm thinking I'll have to build above them and knowing how much space between supports would help.

CoolHand,

I over engineered my deck, so I don't have any flex, and I used the 4mm. My thought was that no matter where my foot was on the deck, there would always be a piece of tubing under it.

Hard to give you any guidance without seeing pics of the boat, but my advice is to frame out what you can to allow for a flat installation of the ACM. In the flat areas, you could probably get away with just securing the ACM to your ribs if you have the correct height foam sheet (same height as your ribs) placed in between.

If you can't do that because of the contour of the hull, I'd do my best to frame out a flat floor made of tubing. There are quite a few different ways to do this as evident by the mods on here. If you haven't looked yet, check out all the V-Mods and see if that gives you some direction.

Good luck.