Laminated Plywood
We laminate plywood to order. You choose the decor, the core and the thickness, we press it, and it leaves our workshop in Plymouth as a finished board ready to cut.
Most of what we make goes into campervan conversions, furniture, shopfitting and joinery — anywhere someone needs a durable decorative surface on a board they can work with a normal saw and router.
What laminated plywood actually is
A sheet of high pressure laminate bonded to a plywood or MDF core under heat and pressure. The laminate gives you the colour, the pattern and a hard wearing surface; the core gives you the strength and the thickness you need to build with.
It is not the same as a melamine faced board, which has a much thinner decorative paper pressed directly onto chipboard or MDF. High pressure laminate is considerably tougher and considerably better at surviving daily use, which is why it turns up on worktops, bar tops and van interiors rather than flat pack furniture.
How we bond it
We press with a two pack urea formaldehyde resin, heat activated in the press. It is a thermosetting glue, so it cures into a hard, permanent bond rather than simply grabbing and staying tacky. Once it has gone off, it has gone off for good.
The pressure drives the resin into the surface and leaves no air behind it. The heat triggers the cure.
That is worth understanding if you have ever laminated a board yourself with contact adhesive. Contact glue is quick and it works, but it stays flexible for the life of the board and it softens as things warm up. Edges and corners are usually the first to lift, and a van interior sitting in the sun is exactly the situation that finds it out. A heat cured resin bond does not behave that way.
The trade off is that you get one attempt at it. The surfaces have to be clean, the pressure has to be even across the whole sheet and the heat has to be right, which is the honest argument for letting a press do it rather than a roller and a tin of glue in the workshop.
Choosing a core
The core is the decision that matters most, and it is usually driven by weight.
Lightweight ply
The popular choice for campervan conversions, where every kilogram counts against your payload. Also the sensible option for lift out panels, bed boards and anything that gets moved regularly.
Birch ply
The one to pick when the edge will be seen. The layers are clean and even, so an exposed edge looks deliberate rather than unfinished — plenty of people use it as a design feature rather than edge banding over it.
MDF
Flatter and heavier, with no grain and no voids. It machines beautifully and takes a routed detail cleanly, which makes it the steadier choice for shopfitting, painted carcassing and anywhere a perfectly flat face matters more than weight.
Every board is made for your order
Nothing here is stock. Your boards are pressed once you have ordered, which is why we can offer this many decors without holding a warehouse full of them, and it is also why we ask you to be certain before you commit — once the laminate is on order we cannot unpick it.
Most orders are ready within 7 to 14 working days. If you are working to a deadline, tell us before you order and we will confirm where we are before you pay.
See it before you buy it
Samples are free. Order one from any product page and we will post it out — it is a piece of the laminate itself, not a laminated board, so you can see the true colour, finish and texture in your own light.
Greys shift under LED lighting, whites divide into warm and cool once you hold two together, and wood decors almost always carry more colour in the hand than on a monitor. If you are matching something that already exists, a sample is the difference between a job that looks right and one that nearly does.
If you are trying to match an existing finish and do not know where to start, our Match My Laminate tool will take a photo of what you are matching and show you the closest decors we can supply, ranked on both colour and grain.
Delivery and collection
We deliver across mainland UK. Delivery is calculated by postcode at checkout, as one charge per order rather than per sheet, starting from £56 in Plymouth and Cornwall. Prices exclude VAT.
Collection from our Plymouth warehouse is free, and if you are local it is often the quickest option.
Bespoke sizes and cut to size
The sizes and thicknesses on the site cover most jobs, but they are not the limit. If you need a different thickness, an unusual core or a quantity that does not fit the standard options, call us on 01752 341 478 or email contact@uklaminating.co.uk and we will price it properly.
We also cut to size, so if you would rather receive parts than full sheets, send the cutting list over with your enquiry.
Browse the range
Over 450 decors — plain colours, gloss finishes, wood grains, stone effects, metallics and patterns.
Filter by colour, wood type, finish or brand, or search by decor name or code.