Oak planking?

[Shang]

Is there any reason not to use white oak planking (on white oak frames)?

I have a connection to a mill which will custom cut anything for me, at a reasonable price as long as I'm not in a hurry. It may take them a while to get enough white oak, but they'll sell it to me uncured for about the same as pine.

[Ron Williamson]

It's very heavy,but if your building a replica warship or an ice breaker,go nuts.I think that it isn't very stable,therefore expanding an contracting quite a bit.
R

[Ruaridh]

I only have limited knowledge here, and experts will no doubt be along soon, but FWIW..

A number of heavy built fishing boats I've worked on in the past were oak planked (presumably european oak), so its definitely done, usually where strength is a main requirement I think.

I believe it's not very dimensionally stable, so you might have extra problems with plank warpage, seams opening, strain on fastenings etc, especially if its not ideally sawn.

Acids in oak could affect life of fastening compared to other timbers?.

I'll be watching this one with interest.

Ruaridh.

[GondolaGuy]

For what it's worth: the gondolas are planked in 5/8" oak above the waterline. It is a single plank 38' long and 2' at the butt end, and it is as much of a structural member as any other part of the boat. Because the gondola has so much fore and aft rocker, and the ends of the boat stick out of the water so far, it is necessary to have a very strong plank on the side to be able to sustain such a shape over the years. We use fir and larch below the waterline, however, also for economy. Acid in the wood is a problem for the fastenings, as mentioned above.

The advantage of using oak, esepcially if you can have it custom sawed, is that you can use smaller scantlings, and therefore the weight issue is not such a big deal. I'd bet that a foot-long stick of oak that weighed a pound would be as strong as a footllong stick of cedar that weighed a pound. The oak would just be smaller in dimention.

Also, white oak is extreemly rot resistant, as long as you avoid sap wood, so it is an excellent material for boatbuilding. There is the problem of it expanding and contracting more than other woods, but if you intend to keep the boat in the water, that isn't a problem you would have to worry about. Also, if it is a lapstreak boat, it shouldn't be such a big issue either, as long as the streaks are less then 6 inches or so.

I'd go for the oak planking and use trennels for fastenings. Remember that the most traditional boatbuilding is done with the materials that are readily available.

Good luck,
Thom Price
Venice, Italy
www.squero.com (http://www.squero.com)

[Donn]

On page 152 of issue #166, in the lower left-hand corner, there is a listing for a 130' Grand Banks Schooner, "Robertson II" which claims to be "oak on pine." I thought it was a misprint when I saw it, but maybe not.

[Thaddeus J. Van Gilder]

If I were planking in oak I would use red oak.
Not for its rot resistance mind you ( it has little) but for the combination of strength and demensional stabilty.

but it eats ferrous fasteners and speeds the destruction of bronze fasteners, so you have to keep am eye on them and don't even try stainles screws.

This could be a good place to use monel screws if you feel like going exotic.

[nedL]

The only negatives I've ever heard about oak for planking smaller vessels is 1)weight, 2)swells & shrinks a lot with changes in moisute content, 3) tends to check when in wide widths & drying out. These three things pretty much rule it out for standard lapstrake construction, though it might be ok for beefy carvel construction I guess.

[ 05-03-2002, 09:22 AM: Message edited by: nedL ]

[Ian McColgin]

Oak on oak is cool.
Use locust trennels.
In places where there's a lot of twist and bend, you may want to steam the plank first and even then, you may want to set a tapered or sholdered trennel with blind wedge.
For the shutter plank and other places where access is hard, you can draw things in with a temporary bolt that's going to be replaced with a plain cylinder trennel when other fastenings are snugged in.
G'luck

[Smacksman]

Smacks go for a whale strake in oak. That's the strake at max. beam about third from the sheer strake and 50% thicker than the rest. Used for bouncing against each other in harbour and other rubbing duties.

Used to be got from forest oak, tall and straight, but those trees are rare now. Pasture oak is still common but comes in short knotty lengths. Makes good futtocks and crooks for knees though.

Trouble with trennels is you need massive timbers to take them without splitting.

Wrought iron seems to last next to oak.

[Frank Wentzel]

The "Conrad" at Mystic Seaport is planked with 2" oak. I spoke to one of the men attempting to bend a plank into place during her rebuild somewhere around 20 years ago.

/// Frank ///

[Bob Cleek]

White oak, where available in suitable stock, has long been used for planking and is extremely durable. Heavier that other woods, yes, but not troublesomely so. The tannic acid can eat fastenings, so ferrous metals are to be avoided... trunnels are nice IF you are working to large scantlings. You see it a lot on Northern European boats.

[Shang]

Okay, sounds like more trouble than it's worth. I'll see about oak frames, but stick to a more conventional planking.


...if your building a replica warship or an ice breaker...I like the way you think...!