Pine or not to Pine??

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Graham
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:23 am
Location: United Kingdom

Pine or not to Pine??

Post by Graham »

Down here on the south coast of England UK .. Cedar appears to be expensive, all most prohibitively so .. I have done an estimated costing for a 16 foot canoe using the local Cedar supplier and the initial estimate puts the cedar cost at about £800 UK Pounds .. (+/- $ 1500 US Dollars) so I have been looking for a substitute….

Has anybody built a canoe or kayak using Pine (furniture grade Pine) as a substitute for Cedar.. The costing (for Pine) works out at a fraction of the price of Cedar….

Has this been done before or is the thought of using Pine to much of a sacrilege and not to be discussed, mentioned or even contemplated…I would welcome any advice or comments on the matter..

Best regards - Graham
AlanWS
Posts: 209
Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:30 pm
Location: Shorewood, WI

Post by AlanWS »

Go ahead and use pine. Canoes have been made of a large variety of species, certainly including pines. Cedar is very lightweight, and at least in the US and Canada, readily available. The ability of cedar to resist rot is not so important when the wood is encased in epoxy. You might want to consider adding a few strips of contrasting color.
Alan
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Glen Smith
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Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada

Post by Glen Smith »

Yup, pine is fine. You might consider making the strips 3/16" thick to cut down a bit of weight.
sedges
Posts: 325
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 5:37 pm
Location: georgia

which pine

Post by sedges »

There are many species of pine. Some are denser and heavier that others. In North America eastern white pine, Pinus strobis, is regularly used for woodstrip canoes. It is a little heavier than cedar. The yellow pines in North America are often as heavyr as many hardwoods and would not be apprpriate for canoe construction uless weight didn't matter. I would find out the specues of pine that is available in furniture grade stock and and compare the specific gravity to cedar or weight\cubic foot. Tables of these measurements are readily available on the web.
Dave
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon May 10, 2004 5:29 pm
Location: Milroy,Mn

Willow

Post by Dave »

I went to an outdoor show earlier this year and there were 2 builders there. One had a canoe and the other a row boat. Both were absolutely gorgeous. We were talking about the difficulty in finding quality cedar. One of these guys (Glen-he knows your buddy Scott Larsen} suggested using Willow. He had some paddles there made from it. Its a light wood and attractive. Might have to go to a local saw mill or something to get it. Just another thought.
Dave
Graham
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:23 am
Location: United Kingdom

Has it been done?

Post by Graham »

Hi
Thank you all for your comments .. But has any body actually built a canoe / Kayak completely out of Pine?
Regards
Graham
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Glen Smith
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Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 9:08 am
Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada

Post by Glen Smith »

Hi Graham, many builders use pine as a secondary wood in their canoes and kayaks but some have used pine as their primary wood. I hate to send you off to another forum but if you don't get any satisfactory responses here you could check out this thread at the Guillemot Kayak Building Bulletin Board: http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Build ... ead/155167

Also read all the responses to this particular thread.
Rick
Posts: 727
Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 9:23 am
Location: Bancroft, Ontario

Post by Rick »

I believe Bryan Hansel built one with white pine.


http://www.nessmuking.com/about.htm

PM here:

http://www.bearmountainboats.com/phpbb2 ... ofile&u=59

He might be canoeing out there somewhere at the moment, so you might not receive a reply right away.
Roscoe
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:59 pm
Location: Ireland

Post by Roscoe »

Hi Graham

I built a Freedom 17 last year using WRC. The finished canoe cost about £800. The

cedar cost about £200. I live in N.Ireland where nothing is cheap. Did you price the cedar

as bead and cove strips or as raw planks? I bought two 18' x 8" x 4" ( I think ) planks

from an importer and had them cut into oversized 3/4" x 1/4" at the local sawmill and

bead and coved them myself. Even if you have to buy a few tools you will have them for

the next boat. I would like to build a kayak from spruce if I could find some in decent

lengths. Good Luck.

Roscoe
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Erik, Belgium
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Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 5:31 am
Location: Gierle, Belgium
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Post by Erik, Belgium »

Roscoe,

Spruce is cheap , I built a kayak from 19mm x 4,5mm spruce strips.
the spruce boards were all shorter hten the kayak itself, which is no problem using butt joints.
The weight (14-15kg) is no problem if you rip the strips like this.
More info http://www.qajaq.be/DiskoBay.htm
Image

Erik, Belgium.
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Bryan Hansel
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Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: Grand Marais, MN
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Post by Bryan Hansel »

Hey Rick or Glen can you remove my email from the above post? It's not encoded in java and that tends to attract spam. No offense, but I'm not getting a lot of spam at that email yet, so I haven't had to delete it and change it recently.

Pine is fine. Lots of kayaks have been built just in pine. Three below:

http://www.ledsled71.com/kayak20041204.html
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tstheiii/ ... pg&.src=ph
http://www.byg-kajak.dk/
willo
Posts: 156
Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:48 pm
Location: Echo Bay ON.

building with pine

Post by willo »

I just finnished my second Ranger and put 1/3 pine on it . Looks great. I am thinking about all pine next with cedar accent. White pine is a lot cheeper than cedar .If you know the species of pine available to you compare the density with cedar.
Tom in MN
Posts: 162
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:42 am
Location: Eagan, MN

Pine

Post by Tom in MN »

I used white pine to build a 14' puddle duck out of Gilpatricks book. It worked great. One problem I noticed is that we moved the canoe outdoors for sanding, and some of the glue joints popped and separated. I know in other woodworking applications, the oils in pine cand prevent the glue from making a good bond. I do not know if this happened here or not, because I never tried to move a canoe before fiberglassing. I will never do it again either. The boat is fine looking, very light color but the finished canoe only weighs 54 lbs and the strips are 7/32".
Graham
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2006 4:23 am
Location: United Kingdom

Many Thanks

Post by Graham »

Folks
Many thanks for all the info sent down .. going to take a very close look at building out of pine.
Again - thank you for the help!
Regards - Graham.
Lawnmower
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 5:47 pm

Post by Lawnmower »

I'm in SW UK too and have exactly the same problem. Looking like pine will be my main choice of wood.

I read on another forum that epoxy should not be used with oak, 'cos of somthing in the oak retarding the setting. is this the same with pine?
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