pitch pine or suitable substitute

[Anastasia]

Any suggestions on where I might find some European pitch pine or suitable substitute for some dutchmen and possibly a plank or two for my small Norwegian sloop. Loblolly or heavy pine has been suggested as possible substitutes.

Are there any native northwest USA lumber that would work, as I live in Oregon.

[Jack Heinlen]

Old growth Doug Fir.

For some reason I thought so called 'pitch pine' was in fact imported Long Leaf Yellow Pine, from the southern US. Could be wrong about that.And it doesn't matter much anyway, because LLYP is effectively extinct, commercially. You can still find it locally, in small quatities, but our rapacious nature cut the great southern forests of it decades ago.

I think Doug Fir would work fine, but other's who know expansion coefficients and such may disagree. We'll see.

[ 01-10-2004, 04:53 PM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[Bob Smalser]

Anastasia,

Do some research on the rate different available species expand so you understand it:

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/FPLGTR/fplgtr113/Ch03 .pdf (http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/FPLGTR/fplgtr113/Ch03.pdf)

http://www.woodweb.com/

You are looking to compare primarily the tangential (transverse) shrinkage in your original Pitch Pine with what you hope to replace it with.

I don't have anything on European Pitch Pine...perhaps one of our European friends has some local lumbermill data.

American Pitch Pine shrinkage from green to ovendry is 4.0pct Radial; 7.1pct tangential; 10.9pct volumetric.

Longleaf (SYP) is 5.1; 7.5; 12.2.

Loblolly (Carolina Fungus) is 4.8; 7.4; 12.3

Sugar (California) is 2.9; 5.6; 7.9.

Western White (Oregon) is 4.1; 7.4; 11.8.

DF (Oregon) is 4.8; 7.6; 12.4

WRC (Oregon) is 2.4; 5.0; 6.8.

Port Orford Cedar (Oregon) is 4.6; 6.9; 10.1.

And the winners are: PO Cedar and WW Pine…both available from local sawyers in Q-sawn or Rift-sawn airdried stock.

[ 01-10-2004, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Jack Heinlen]

See, I told ya. smile.gif

Port Orford makes sense, WW Pine, nah, not very resistant.

So do these figures mean DF wouldn't work? Something I've always wondered about, how important are these movement schemata?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

"Pitch Pine" in Europe means imported Long Leaf Yellow Pine from the USA. However, from a very early date, other, cheaper, imported North American softwoods were being misdescribed as "Pitch Pine" - notably Oregon Pine, aka Douglas Fir, aka British Colombian Pine ("BCP").

[Bob Smalser]

Sounds like rift-sawn DF is best.

[Jack Heinlen]

Andrew,

That's what I thought. And it's well named, 'pitch pine'. It is a hard, very resinous wood. It's a shame so much of it went into flooring and beams for factories and such. Go into any eastern American home built between 1890 and 1940 and you are liable to find it in the floors.

And by the way Anastasia, since you aren't looking for large quantities, there are people recycling wood out of mills and warehouses. It's not cheap, but maybe not much more than Port Orford Cedar. Worth a look. I seem to remember ads in the back of Fine Woodworking Magazine.

It's one of the premier boatbuilding woods the world has ever known. Sawn framing, planking, what have you. Amazing stuff. When you read about a boat still alive after a hundred years it's five times out of ten planked with 'pitch pine.' Another four teak ,and the remainder some obscure wood from down under called Kauri. smile.gif

It's very fine stuff your boat is made of.

[ 01-10-2004, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[Jack Heinlen]

Like I said, Doug Fir.

[Lucky Luke]

Pitch pine, the REAL pitch pine....hhmmmmh, the deilcious strong smell of it...the soft touch of this HEAVY wood, full of "waxy" resin, it's amazing resistance to rot - not to toredo: better have teak below waterline - what a beautiful....but that was...that WAS :( :( :(
Don't look for an equivalent: there is none, just eventually acceptable substitutes...because we have no other choice.
Does'n it make you SAD?

[Bob Smalser]

Like I said, Doug Fir. I wouldn't wax romantic about DF.

1) It is 50 pct heavier than cedar. (SG .32/.48)

2) It moves seasonally 84 pct more than cedar (VS 6.8/12.4)

3) We are really only guessing at what species Anastasia's planking is. Both wood naming and the commercial corruptions and hype can be horror stories to sort out.

The seasonal movement of DF means that the more expensive vertical grain boards become more important, where in stable cedar you can fudge it occasionally.

Nor would I get too excited about "old growth" DF...the difference in the life of planking using true old-growth material...

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/3019409/36929015.jpg

...and tight-ringed second-growth material...

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/3223936/39972445.jpg

...it a tossup. There is more significance between the two in engineering framing, IMO, but that difference is on the order of less than 10 pct.

The good news is that none of this makes much of a hoot in regards to Anastasia's needs...with a couple of samples in hand, you ought to be able to tell whether your planking is DF (or SYP) versus cedar from its hardness.

If it's hard...use DF. If soft, use PO Cedar. If you make a mistake either way, it won't matter much in a vertical grain, 9-inch wide plank.

[Jack Heinlen]

It is absolutely gorgeous stuff, LLYP. The old growth that went into residences, amazing, same with the planks on boats. I would have liked to see the forests it came from, because it is without a knot, unparalleled. I've never seen a knot in twenty years of looking at it. And we just cut it ALL. Like I said, ocassionally a rare tree gets cut these days, but it's really rare.

A shame so much of it went into residential/commercial uses where another wood might have done. Framing even.

We did the same thing with the White Pine forests of Maine and Michigan. I was in Eastport, Maine a few years back, looking at old houses. Wainscoting in 19th century houses that was three foot wide White Pine.

Ah well, it's all gone now. The power and drive of capitalism.

[ 01-11-2004, 09:22 AM: Message edited by: Jack Heinlen ]

[Anastasia]

Thanks, folks for all the info on pitch pine and possible subtitutes.

In addition to your comments I received an email from Lee who was looking for some pitch pine to restore his Nowegian made boat a few years back, and he found that it was cheaper for him to import the pine he needed from Norway than to get it from the SE USA.

I have found knots in the wood, and these tend to be close to areas where wood has softened.

Like Bob suggested I'm not exactly sure of the wood species. I'll have to work on trying to get more info on that from Dick Wagoner who imported this boat back in the 70's.