Favorite woods

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jess_hawk
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:35 am

Favorite woods

Post by jess_hawk »

OK I'm still in the planning stages of my kayak, in fact still haven't settled one hundred percent on a design yet. I have one strip built and one stitch and glue option picked out, and I go back and forth and then sometimes I think maybe I could use the plans for those two and create my own hybrid design. Anyway, on to my question. Cedar seems to be a common choice for building boats, because of it being lightweight and apparently easy to work with. I am hoping that everyone will answer a few questions to satisfy my curiousity:
1. What is your favorite wood to work with in boatbuilding (outside of cedar)?

2. Why do you particularly enjoy this wood?

3. What specific uses do you make of this wood (i.e. using walnut as an accent wood on a cedar canoe)?

4. What are the advantages of this wood over other woods?

5. What are the disadvantages of this wood as opposed to other woods?

6. Are there any woods you dislike using and why?


Thank you in advance to everyone who replies.
Don
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:07 pm
Location: B.C.

Post by Don »

Hi
All woods that I use for the body of the canoe, other than cedar, are accent woods. All have a common disadvantage in that they sand differently than cedar or other surrounding woods so care has to be taken in thicknessing so sanding is at a minimum.
I have used:
maple -- hard, not a lot of contrast, has been good for kayak cockpits and bow and stern
purple heart -- brittle, tearout when doing bead and cove, nasty splinters, great color
palm wood -- interesting coloration, the worst splinters of any material I've used, epoxy soaks straight through it, very heavy, tear out,
ash -- good for thwarts etc, very strong, not too interesting color wise
mahogany -- interesting and nice to use
walnut -- heavy but a favorite for color and workability
poplar -- light and white, can become fuzzy but relatively easy to work
spruce/pine -- good strength to weight, works well, not a lot of contrast and not as white as poplar
fir -- not as flexible as pine but good strength and fairly durable. More interesting grain
oak -- turns black in water and I don't like the grain as well as maple or ash
juniper -- very interesting colors, only available in small pieces

Overall, if you find something you like, try it. It might be a pain to work with but, when only using for accents, you don't have to deal with it for long and you do get to see it for as long as you have the boat -- worth the effort. The only real cautions would be mixing epoxy with oily woods and always using a respirator -- particularly with tropical woods.
good luck
don
Finding worms is a sign God wants you to go fishing.
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pawistik
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Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:20 pm
Location: Saskatoon, SK

Post by pawistik »

Hi Jess,
I think the reason why you have received only one response in the better part of a week is the size of the question. There is a lot of material that can be covered and Don has done a good job at starting the discussion.

Basically, most people build using primarily cedar (western red cedar), then they may turn to other woods for accents or other components as Don described.

So, why cedar?
1) It's light, 2) it looks great, 3)it's easy to work with, 4) it's fairly strong for the weight and 5) it's generally not too expensive (but this is highly variable, depending on your location). It's also resistant to rot, but that's not a big factor once encased in fiberglass and epoxy resin.

Alaskan yellow cedar, though not truly a cedar, has weight and strength properties similar to western red cedar. It is very light in colour, and makes a great contrast with wrc but might be a tad boring used on it's own. The alaskan yellow cedar I used on my kayak was very uniform in it's pale colour (except one dark streak which I could not avoid using because I was running out of material) and was very nice to work with (planed and sanded well, no tearout, smells nice).

For those of us where cedar is expensive, other woods may replace some of the cedar such as spruce/pine. However pine weighs more, and is less interesting aesthetically so the vast majority of boats are still built with wrc as the primary wood. On my next boat, I would consider using thinner strips of pine on the bottom, switching to cedar at the waterline, or in some other design.

Now since I've just added a third coat of varnish to the kayak, I'll illustrate the alaskan yellow cedar with a bow shot or two of my kayak:
Image
Image

Cheers,
Bryan
jess_hawk
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:35 am

Post by jess_hawk »

Thank you both!

Yes, if I remember right Cedar is fairly expensive in my area - pine tends to be the cheapest you can get but of course I haven't checked prices on the quality of pine that I would want for use in making a kayak - I used pine for my last building project and when I destroy that stuff it will give me great joy. I may still stick to cedar, its a big favorite of my dad's, ignoring cost; or I may do as you suggested you might, Bryan, and do a design of pine and cedar. But I do plan to create some kind of design using accent woods so the rundown of different types of wood is very helpful in determining what I may want to use. I'll probably end up raiding my dad's scrapwood pile and then coming back and saying, "has anyone used: ...?" For instance, I know my dad has a big piece of cherry leftover from a cabinet he made my mom, and cherry has the loveliest color... but other than that this gives me a pretty good idea of how some of the more common woods will act when I try to use them for this particular use.
Charles G. Clark, Jr.
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Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:06 pm
Location: Huntsville, AL

Post by Charles G. Clark, Jr. »

I like WRC. However, living in Alabama, finding good WRC can be a challenge.

I made my first boat using cypress. I drove 4 hours to Memphis to get clear, rough cut boards. They were beautiful. The color was a medium yellow tan. The wood worked well, but I had to be careful of splinters. It sanded and finished well. I may use it again on my next boat.

I made my gunwales and decks for my Wee Lassie from 50-year old air dried walnut. It machined wonderfully well and made fine gunwales.

I made my decks for my Freedom 17 from Australian Lacewood. The stuff is beautiful! This highly figured wood chipped unless my tools were freshly honed. Although beautiful, I don't know that I would use it again.

I have a buddy with a home mill--one of those big bandsaw mills. He gave me some Eastern cedar. Normally, this stuff is very knotty. It makes great closet liners and little trinkets. However, the boards he gave me are 14-ft clear boards. Their pinkish red and creamy white colors are very pretty. Although tempted, I have not used this wood for boatbuilding--yet. I need to build a test panel with fiberglass and epoxy to see how the wood behaves. Perhaps I will try it for the next boat.

I encourage others to talk about their wood.
Chuck
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Bassbug
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Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
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Post by Bassbug »

Beyond the WRC, I have used redwood on each of the three boats I have built. The first (Redbird) was made entirely out of Redwood (we found 20' planks locally). The downside is cost - $200 for the wood. On the subsequent boats, I used redwood as an accent along with pine, basswood and walnut. I heard the redwood chips more than WRC, but that was not my experience and I had a constant problem with WRC chipping and splintering, unlike the redwood. I will continue using redwood; besides, I really like the color as contrast to the WRC. The photo below shows the bow of a 15"Ranger WRC (ash gunwales and stem) with one visible redwood strip alongside the redwood Redbird (cherry and walnut gunwales, walnut stem). Additionally I have used cherry, ash, and maple for gunwales, thwarts, seats and yokes.
Image
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Erik, Belgium
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Post by Erik, Belgium »

I 've used spruce on my latest strip kayak, and to me it's better is more then 1 way: it's very cheap, quite light as well (4,5mm thickness X 19mm stripheight): 15 kg finished. And personally to me: looks nicer then cedar.

More pics on my site under Disko Bay Kayak.

Erik, Belgium.
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