Exotic Woods

[reinbilt]

There are two exotic hardwoods that I'm thinking of using as accent strips on the decks of a Rob Roy I plan to build this winter. One option is Bocote and the other is Padauk. Has anyone used these woods? Are they suitable for epoxy and varnish? Thanks for any help.

[Glen Smith]

I have some sample pieces but I haven't tried anything with them yet. However, I have found evidence of several boat-builders using Padauk mostly as an accent wood. I haven't found any (that I remember) who used Bocote but this link has a bit of interesting info on it. They also have info on Padauk and other exotic woods. http://www.countyfloors.com/species_padauk.html

[Bassbug]

A couple built a Kipawa and used padouk. The Green Valley Boats site posted a letter from them with photos.

http://www.greenval.com/kipawaletter.html

[Bassbug]

Sorry about that website - it should be:
http://www.greenval.com/kipawaletter.html

[Juneaudave]

I guess that answers the question about padouk. Sweet boat there Bassbug!!! Being a knothead from AK with only local woods.... is that padouk or padauk, or podunk?

[canoeblderinmt]

Reinbilt,
One caution about Padauk: It looks beautiful when it's just cut but it is VERY succeptable to UV and will turn a muddy brown with time. Bocote is beautiful but is a little brittle. I used it for a yoke but was worried each time I picked it up that it would split. IMHO, these woods would probably make beautiful accents, like decks or maybe even thwarts, but you might make one up and stress test it first.

Greg

[Mike in B.C.]

I used Padauk in my stems, thwart, decks, gunnels and accent stripes. It steam bends beautifully, polishes to a glass-like finish and is very tough. I found it virtually impossible to hand plane without severe tearout, so resorted to a lot of filing, hand scraping and sanding for shaping. Once under a protective coat of fibreglass and varnish, it holds its colour well. Applying epoxy or varnish to the wood turns it a deep purple colour, not the orange-red you see when the wood is freshly cut. My biggest problem with the use of this wood is that sanding tends to smudge the red coloured sanding dust into adjacent light coloured woods, especially soft open-pored woods like cedar and spruce. Maple wasn't as much of a problem because of the small pores, but I still had to be careful to avoid colour contamination. Attaching the dust-vac to my random orbit sander helped a lot when sanding over abutting woods, but when I took the boat out of the shop into the sunlight for the first time, I could really see a definite pink hue embedded in the adjacent woods. Seemingly endless hours of tedious detail hand sanding resulted to eliminate my "Barbie Boat" look. Also, the solvents in some varnishes will dissolve some of the colour out of the padauk and deposit it on adjoining woods, on your brush, in your varnish, etc. I avoided this potential disaster by spraying on a very light sealing coat of varnish with HVLP to set the colour prior to laying down the main thickness coats of varnish. The epoxy I used (West System) did not appear to bleed the colour, so it wasn't an issue for me. Maybe it was more hassle than it was worth, but I'm still very pleased with the final appearance. Good luck.