One more Redbird

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Ramps
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:33 am
Location: Australia

Post by Ramps »

Tom
As far as native woods we're pretty limited for low density timbers. Australian Red Cedar was avery valuable boat building timber in it's day but the only way you're likely to come across it nowadays is if you happen to buy an old chuch pew.

We do get WRC over this way ... mostly imported from your neck of the woods so whatever you pay, we pay 50% more for the value of the $ + the cost of import ... comes to about $1/strip metre for really rubbishy stuff. At that price your cutting it yourself. Looked at the prices from Bear mountain but with the transport costs and the exchange rate it was out of my budget.

I decided to chose Paulownia, you might have heard of it. It's a (supposedly) very quick growing hardwood and a number of plantatins went up over this way about 15-20 years ago. A blonde timber with nothing like the grain and colour of WRC but at 35-40% of the cost it was a good starting material and density of about 2/3 of WRC but not as light as balsa. I just had to use a couple of feature strips of WRC though, I love the look and the smell. And using some native sheoak for trimmings ... stems, decks etc but at about 800kg/m3 I'll keep it to a minimum.

Anytime you want to see the progress I have a thread going on a Oz ww forum
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.a ... hp?t=36091 but I will post a final product pic on these forums to show how you guys are affesting the world in a positive way.

Loved your decks they have inspired me to be a bit adventurous.

I'm starting to think about paddles what made you decide on the paddles you made, both materials and construction method?
Thanks
Ramps from Oz
tom in caledonia
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2004 1:13 pm
Location: Caledonia ON

Post by tom in caledonia »

Hey, Ramps. I'm not familiar with Paulownia but at 2/3 the density of WRC, sounds good. I really like the grain and figure in sheoak, but fairly expensive over here. I too love the smell of the cedar ...it's a shame we have to cover it up with epoxy. Also too bad cedar dust is so bad to breath in.
I was really pleased with the way my decks turned out. They fit really tight to the gunwales on the top side (not sure how close on the bottom....can't get my head in to look...hmmm perhaps a mirror would be easier?). That was just a process of putting them in, marking where stock need to be removed and going to the disc sander which was set at the same bevel as the gunwales. Had to do that several times but it worked really well. I didn't make the paddles shown in the pictures. I'm currently making one for my wife (last years Mother's day gift...woops) out of nice chunk of cherry that I was saving. You should go to the paddlemaking forum on this site to check out what has been made by others. Some very nice stuff!!!!
Went through your thread on the ww forum. The 'bird looks really good so far. Sounds like you get a good bit of "encouragement" from your mates!

Regards,
Tom
User avatar
Ramps
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:33 am
Location: Australia

Post by Ramps »

Tom
Paulownis is a chinese timber broad leaved deciduous tree, as you can see is quite pale with nothing like the features of wrc but should stilll come up nicely with a bit of grain. Would work in well as a feature with wrc (as in the opposite to what I'm doing).

I spent a couple of hours on the forum cruising the paddlemaking section a couple of nights ago. Lots and lots of info. Heaps of ideas. Think I now know what basic paddles to start with but somewhere along the line all the optioins just added to the confusion, beaver tails, otter tails, greenalnd style. etc,etc :confused

Think I'd like to make a couple of kid size paddles for the girls (aged 6 & 9) and a couple for us and a kayak paddle in case I'm out there alone. I'd like to have it right in my mind before I start so I can do them all at the same time ... working in th ecarport means the setup time can be a killer so I like to do all the machining in one day or one w/e the pack it all up.

Hope you mind if I borrow (read that as steal) your basic design for the decks ... mine should be sheoak though not walnut.

And yes our Ubeaut forum is very active, verbose :rolling eyes even and very, very helpful :smile
Ramps from Oz
tom in caledonia
Posts: 45
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2004 1:13 pm
Location: Caledonia ON

Post by tom in caledonia »

No worries, you're not stealing my deck design. I've seen other boats with the same built-in handle. Woodsong Canoes (check out their website) do it that way as well as others. It does look nice though.
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