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Anyone ever work with Boral ?

5/3/16       
B.H. Davis Member

There is a relatively new product now being sold called BORAL. It is a fly ash based product that is supposedly in competition with PVC. They say it has similar working properties while being much more dimensionally stable.

I've been asked to quote a very large radius millwork project that will be trimmed in Boral. I'd heard of this product before but have never had any in hand.

A major concern is of course working properties. From what I've found online that looks encouraging.

The BIGGEST concern though is the health aspect. I'm not particularly crazy about creating ash dust in the shop with the same material that might going into supposedly eternally lined ash landfills.

For gluing I've found online that polyurethane glues (Gorilla Glue for example) do a good job after sanding off the included primer.

Has anyone got any first hand experience with this material? I'm very early in the quote stage on this and need to determine if I'm going to follow through with a proposal.

Thanks,
BH Davis

5/3/16       #2: Anyone ever work with Boral ? ...
Peter Gagliardi Member

I have a colleague who has used it for exterior trim work. It is safe to assume that the concerns you have are quite valid- none of that dust is good for you.
Another consideration is that tooling needs to all be carbide. Good luck with it

5/4/16       #3: Anyone ever work with Boral ? ...
james mcgrew Member

Some come of composite, here are the resources from the company, msds etc.

Boral Resources

5/6/16       #4: Anyone ever work with Boral ? ...
rich c.

I was thinking fly ash was almost glass so did some Googling.
"Fly ash is a byproduct from burning pulverized coal in electric power generating plants. During combustion, mineral impurities in the coal (clay, feldspar, quartz, and shale) fuse in suspension and float out of the combustion chamber with the exhaust gases. As the fused material rises, it cools and solidifies into spherical glassy particles called fly ash."

That can't be good on lungs or tooling!

5/7/16       #5: Anyone ever work with Boral ? ...
B.H. Davis Member

Thanks everyone for the input and links. Earlier this week I decided to decline the project.

BH Davis

9/14/16       #6: Anyone ever work with Boral ? ...
B.H. Davis Member

UPDATE:

5 months later and the project just came across my desk again. Boral has been eliminated and replaced with Blue Star (brand) Meranti which apparently has a decent fire rating for a wood species.

As a result of the feedback on this question I've learned about Boral and made the decision not to run it in our shop. Also the straight run shop that originally asked me to price the curves on this project has now decided to keep it out of their shop as well.

Plus the entire commercial building where these mouldings will go has had the product specification altered due to the feedback from myself and the straight run shop......all due to the help of the good people on this forum.

Thank you to all of you.......and to Woodweb for this great resource.

BH Davis

8/4/17       #7: Anyone ever work with Boral ? ...
Tim  Member

Website: eastmanwoodworking.com

Boral is a PITA to work with. Make sure all your tooling is carbide, as it will dull HSS in one second!


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