planking wood

[jaburgin]

if given an option on purchasing an older vessel im curious what the opinion of some of you guys choice would be mohogany, oroko, cedar???

[Bob Cleek]

Iroko, mahogany and cedar, in that order.

[jaburgin]

thank you bob for your input! i didnt realize how good iroko is i guess, what a bout oak?

[Bruce Hooke]

What size and type of boat are you talking about? There is a big difference between what makes sense to plank, say, a 14' rowboat versus a 45' displacement powerboat, versus a 30' lightweight racing sailboat...

[pcford]

Iroko is used in Europe a great deal. It's good; I have little direct knowledge of it here.

Mahogany and cedar can be wonderful woods. It depends what variety you are talking about. Most Philipine mahogany I see is pretty much trash. In the old days it was possible to get wonderful Philipine. Same with Honduras mahogany. I used to order patternmakers grade. The last stuff came with a color approximating orange sherbert. African Mahogany is pretty reliable. Nice stuff.

[jaburgin]

the vessels are in the 57' range all three are displacement vessels the hardwood vessels are both european makes and double planked, the cedar is an american make single planked.

[imported_Jimmy]

If you are actually deciding between specific vessels with hulls planked with these woods, I wouldn't decide purely based on the hull wood. Many other things would be more important. The first thing I would want to know is how it is fastened. I would choose a bronze fastened douglas fir hull over a iron or galvanized fastened iroko hull.