Cedar vs. Pine planking

[Ron Carter]

Building a 13'6" sharpie for inboard power. Atkin's Bagaduce. Plans call for Cedar which is difficult to come by locally. I just stumbled into some clear Eastern White Pine that would make decent planking. Checking mechanical and moisture shrinkage properties on the Forest Service site would seem to indicate the pine would be a reasonable substitute for the cedar. Not concerned about rot resistance in this case as the boat will be dry way more than it will be wet. Opinions solicited.
Ron

[Bob Cleek]

White pine is suitable, if properly sawn. If it isn't quarter sawn, it probably isn't going to be good for planking much. Problem is, however, that your "dry more than wet" comment suggests that pine planking may not be your best option. A planked boat needs to be in the water to stay tight. In and out may not work over the long haul. As for wood, on a thirteen foot boat, there is no sense in economizing with materials. The small amount needed and the difference in cost are negligible, compared to the value of the labor you will put into building her. Splurge a bit! You'll be glad you did when she's done.

[Ron Carter]

Bob, By splurge do you mean import cedar from the coast or go with something besides a planked hull? Good quality marine plywood is locally available. Understand your comments regarding in and out but unfortunately she's going to have to be a trailer queen due to the logistics involved.
Ron

[ 11-20-2005, 05:08 PM: Message edited by: Ron Carter ]

[ssor]

Ron, you should be able to get northern white cedar in Michigan. You don't necessarily need to use Western red cedar. Ask around the local suppliers.

[ishmael]

I'm always suprised that people in MI can't find good cedar planking stock. My memory is that northern Michigan is full of cedar swamp and forest, some of it quite large and looking delightful for planking. The builder of skiffs where I summered, who I never knew, built lovely Whitehalls and outboards with local cedar. Is no one sawing it? Check with you local ag or forestry extension.

If the boat is going to sit out a lot, how 'bout planking it lapstrake? Done right(see Walt Simmons) it would work out just fine. Actually, if you put a wide bottom strake on, carvel would be probably be fine, as the lowest seam would be above the waterline unless the boat was heavily loaded. Maybe a ply bottom if you want to dunk and go. I looked at 'Bagaduce', and adapting it to lapstrake would be straightforward. With the flat sides the beveling of plank would be a good, easy introduction to lapstrake planking.

What do you propose to power her with. Nifty little boat. Intended use?

[Ron Carter]

There are sawmills in the upper peninsula that still saw cedar. Long clear timbers are history according to the mills I've talked to. The problem is one would need to go there and sort through the cants to find anything approaching clear or tight knotted stock. Not impossible but would be a lot of travel on speculation. The proposed engine is a Detroit Auto Marine single cylilnder 2 stroke built in the very early 1900's. Direct reversing with no gear. Use is basically to showcase the engine and Sunday afternoon rides. Intend to use work boat type finish with minimum brightwork. The plans call for batten seam construction on the sides which should address the tightness issue on the side planking.

[Bob Smalser]

You can certainly use pine for a Sharpie, where I bet a higher percentage in their near 200 years of existance were built of pine than cedar.

The trick is you need all heartwood, and your boat will be more maintenance free using riftsawn instead of flatsawn. Pine is harder, stronger and heavier than cedar but it also moves seasonally significantly more. So if the pine you speak of doesn't meet those standards, then I'd keep looking.

And forget about trailer boats not needing rot resistance and protection. Anything you put 600 hours into you want to have the best chance of survivability...and with that in mind, materials costs are minor compared to lifetime maintenance costs. Build it to withstand mooring in the open, and your Grandkids will enjoy it some day and spend little on it. Build it to live in the garage, and it may break your daughter's heart when somebody tells her the bad news that her favorite heiroom can't be saved at a price short of a new boat. The time is the same for either, and the difference in materials costs for fresh water is minor.

[ 11-20-2005, 09:10 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[ishmael]

Ron,

Batten seam, okay, good. Screw it, don't glue it.

Have you spent a morning on the phone with the forestry folks? I don't know where Branch is, but there's a bunch of cedar on the hoof in the top half of the southern penninsula. Gotta be some guys with wood mizers sawing small amounts. Hook up with your local woodworking groups, too. Seek and yeeee shall find, I think. Pine would work too, and doesn't need to be quarter sawn(rift sawn boards would be good), but cedar would definately be preferable.

Good luck, neat project.

[Bob Cleek]

Okay, Ron, what Smalser said. Now you're talkin'! Nothing like a little work boat with a classic one lunger in her. I passed one up at a very reasonable price thirty years ago and still regret it!

Given the engine you will be putting into her, and as you say, the boat will be the "setting" which holds that "jewel," you DO NOT want to go building a cobbed up plywood piece of junk. Nor do you want to use techniques and materials that are not contemporaneous with the engine. This does not mean that the task is any more difficult at all, since traditional methods are by and large the easiest of all, assuming you are willing to invest the time to do it right.

As Bob and others have said, use a good local planking wood if you can't find western cedar. (BTW, western red cedar wouldn't be my first choice for boatbuilding at all. You want Port Orford or Alaskan yellow cedar for boats. Red cedar is for making pencils, not boats.) Don't worry much about wood. Everything you need won't fill a pickup truck. You could order it from just about anywhere. Sure, it will cost you more than "western white fir" from Home Despot, but aside from the design and craftsman's skill, there is nothing that defines the value of a finished boat more than the materials used to build her. Quality materials will increase the value of the finished product far more than the sum of their increased expense.

I would also take some time to research the hull you want to put your engine into. I am not familiar with Atkin's "Bagaduce." (Hope that's not Italian for "Douche Bag!" :eek: ) However, I would have some concern that a thirteen and a half foot "sharpie" would be the best suited hull for your little engine. At the turn of the century, there was little design attention paid to small powered hulls. There are small displacement hulls better suited to power that the hard chine sharpie style, I'd think. A small classic launch hull would be what I'd be looking for. Possibly with a bit more length than what you are thinking about. Start with the weight and horsepower of the engine and see what sort of hull should match that. There are many published plans available for such craft. You are right to look to John Atkin, who designed many of the type and whose plans are relatively available (and published free... although mostly out of print.)

Keep posting and let us know. You will find a lot of thoughts here that will be helpful.

[Ron Carter]

Bob & Bob,
The pine is exactly as you describe. Heart wood, rift cut. The plans call for White Cedar not Western Red. The Western red around here is barely fit for house trim much less boat planking. I have the molds built and set up and the stem rabbeted and transom framed so I'm prety much committed to Bagaduce. According to the Atkin literature Bagaduce is a body of water in Maine. The engine is about 150# and came with a 13 1/2" wheel that is very close to Michigan Wheel's 14 x 10 recommendation for that engine and hull. Have been looking for anyone that has built the boat or ever seen one over on the Atkin group but so far no bites. A friend has a single cylinder Atlantic in a 19' Baltimore Harbor Launch which is a real looker. I'm kind of a tug boat guy and think the sharpie in work clothes will be an interesting boat at the local wooden boat show.

[Bruce Hooke]

Your darn right the Bagaduce is a body of water in Maine! The Bagaduce River is a tidal inlet that flows into Penobscot Bay at Castine. It is a beautiful, winding, rock-studed 'river' that is great for small boat gunk-holing if you can deal with the swift tidal currents. According to this web page (http://history.rays-place.com/me/castine-me.htm) "The locality began about this time [1687] to be called Biguaduce, later, Bagaduce, from Marche-Biguatus, an Indian term supposed to mean 'no good cove,'" but it seems to me that I have also heard other explanations for the name (and "no good cove" makes absolutely no sense in an area littered with good coves of every variety). Possession of Castine was hotly contested by the British, French, Dutch and Native Americans from the time when the first whites settled there in 1613 up until the American Revolution finally settled things for good.

Before the whites arrived, the Bagaduce River was likely an important waterway for the Native Americans in their canoes because two short portages allow you to avoid the need to go around a steep, rocky, exposed headland, and if you time the tides right you can get a good lift up or down the river.

Here's a map of the Bagaduce, borrowed from the Bagaduce River Watershed Association (http://www.penbay.org/bagaduce/index.html):

http://www.penbay.org/bagaduce/bagaducemap2.jpg

[Ron Carter]

After digesting the above discussion I'm going to plank in White Cedar. Now down to whether to spend a couple hundred dollars to get it shipped in or a couple of hundred dollars to go get it from the frozen north. Option 2 allows me to see what I'm getting which is desirable. It would be nice to use locally harvested lumber but the pine has almost 50% greater change with moisture than the cedar which remains an issue in my mind.

Thanks for the geography lesson Bruce. Most interesting. I was pretty sure the Bagaduce wasn't a shallow river with her underwater gear.

Ron

[Dan McCosh]

We bought enough local Michigan cedar to do a new deck about five years ago. I seem to remember it was cut somewhere near Alpena, and sold as rough stock mainly for fence boards. Most of it would have been good planking stock.

[Bob Smalser]

White Cedar will make a significant difference in the weight of the boat.

The family used to do identical flat-bottomed skiffs of both for rental fleets, and side by side, the pine boats felt clunky.

But too light isn't good, either...the same boats made of thin plywood lack carry.

[JimD]

Lines for Bagaduce
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid195/pd51876bfdac33bd0a1d770da81ba4359/f15e6f30.jpg

[dmede]

Originally posted by Bob Cleek:
(BTW, western red cedar wouldn't be my first choice for boatbuilding at all. You want Port Orford or Alaskan yellow cedar for boats. Red cedar is for making pencils, not boats.) Does that opinion hold true for small lapstreak canoes as well? I got a lot of input while buying planking for my Fiddlehead that WRC would be an ok substitution for the W.Cedar speced in the plans. I have found it to be very brittle and am worried I made a big mistak.

[Bob Smalser]

Originally posted by dmede:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bob Cleek:
(BTW, western red cedar wouldn't be my first choice for boatbuilding at all. You want Port Orford or Alaskan yellow cedar for boats. Red cedar is for making pencils, not boats.) Does that opinion hold true for small lapstreak canoes as well? I got a lot of input while buying planking for my Fiddlehead that WRC would be an ok substitution for the W.Cedar speced in the plans. I have found it to be very brittle and am worried I made a big mistak.</font>[/QUOTE]If you're having trouble with your bending stock, changing to a significantly stiffer species won't help much, will it?

Well over half the boats you saw recently at the PT Festival were likely planked with WRC, so any notion that it ain't a good planking wood is one of those yacht club myths we keep hearing repeated.

POC and AYC are relatively rare, very expensive, and more suitable for larger boats. Both are almost as heavy as Doug Fir, and neither are anywhere near as flexible as WRC. MOE's (modulus of elasticity - how many psi it takes to bend it in a standard USDA test) of 1.70 and 1.42 to 1.11m psi respectively.

Stiff DF in comparison has an MOE of 1.95. It's eastern NWC and AWC that WRC compares unfavorably to in bending, with MOE's of .80 and .93....and that's where the poormouthing likely started. Stock shipped east is usually kilned to 19% M/C, and as WRC varies dramatically in M/C from log to log, a lot of it gets overcooked in kilning. Doesn't matter for fencing and siding, but add a higher MOE to that to begin with, and you can hear the results in complaints from boatbuilders of it being brittle.

If your WRC stock is straight-grained and airdried....you can bend it into just about any boat I can think of. And while WRC is softer than AY and PO, it's just as hard as AY, and harder than the NW of boatbuilding idolatry.

A typical problem WRC does share with all trees of great taper is that 50% of the boards milled from the lowest (and clearest) log have grain runout if milled on any mill that has to make a cant to mill boards...and that's most of them. When evaluating bending stock, straight grain is more important than pin knots. Find a sawyer using a mill that compensates for log taper, and use his boards fairly green (the wood is so stable when riftsawn that you can build with it greener than most), and you can steam those boards to fit any shape you need short of a bow tie.

PS: In spite of Katrina, WRC is down in price now to $300/1000 Scribner BF in the log. Was $1200 last time I sold any logs. Time to stock up.

[ 11-21-2005, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[dmede]

My stock is clear straight-grained. Over the phone they said it was air-dried but I was later told it was kiln-dried.

It's a nice strong wood, and flexible even when kiln-dried but it seems very weak when bent along the grain (cupped). I managed to crack the center plank at the lap in several spots while clinching. The cracks were right along the line where the clinch nails were going and seemed to be from the above plank cupping the lower plank right at the lap (where it had been beveled and drilled for nails, so at its weakest). Some clear epoxy injected into the cracks got it taken care of (drilled 1/16” holes at the crack ends to stop it from migrating down the grain line).

My concern now is that the sprung boards, in particular the garboard where its got some reverse bend at the ends, will pop open at the first slight bang they get. The planks are 5/16”. Perhaps I should have upped the scantlings to a full 3/8”?

Was clear straight grained the right choice or should I have looked for mixed grain WRC instead?

Note: this pic is not of the crack but of the same area where I had cracks.
http://static.flickr.com/34/65582122_55d1a09d0f.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/26/65582125_8e561a1cfe.jpg?v=0
edited to add: Ron, I hope this will be pertinent to your original question, if not, sorry for hijacking the post smile.gif

[ 11-21-2005, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: dmede ]

[Bob Cleek]

Again, what Smalser said. There is a tremendous variation within any given species, particularly dependent upon the sawyer, as Bob says. I still think, however, that obtaining the best wood you can find is worth the extra expense, given the size of the boat. You can do the arithmetic, but I'd guess you aren't talking more than a few hundred bucks at most. That's surely worth having wood that's a joy to work. Maybe Bob can put you in touch with a good sawyer in his neck of the woods. Somebody using a Lucas mill that will account for the log taper should be able to turn out just what you are looking for. On the other hand, if you google the Lucas mill owners in your area, you may find somebody with what you are needing, or who can cut it for you.

[Bruce Hooke]

Originally posted by Bob Smalser:
Stiff DF in comparison has an MOE of 1.95. It's eastern NWC and AWC that WRC compares unfavorably to in bending, with MOE's of .80 and .93....and that's where the poormouthing likely started. Stock shipped east is usually kilned to 19% M/C, and as WRC varies dramatically in M/C from log to log, a lot of it gets overcooked in kilning. Doesn't matter for fencing and siding, but add a higher MOE to that to begin with, and you can hear the results in complaints from boatbuilders of it being brittle.

If your WRC stock is straight-grained and airdried....you can bend it into just about any boat I can think of. And while WRC is softer than AY and PO, it's just as hard as AY, and harder than the NW of boatbuilding idolatry.So it sounds to me like what this comes down to is that the Western Red Cedar typically available outside the Pacific Northwest is NOT that suitable for boatbuilding.

[ishmael]

How much traditional boat building is going on in Michigan? Southern Michigan has always struck me as a great place to build a boat. You've got fantastic white oak in Ohio and Indiana, and oodles of cedar north of Lansing. But, talking to brother on Bois Blanc Island, it seems small sawyers sawing cedar are scarce. No market?

I don't know, it's been a long decade since I spent much time out that way. But what a great environs, as far as the trees thereabouts, to build small plank on frame boats, even if it meant buying a portable saw and hunting.

Hm...I think Detroit is in need of a boat building program for inner city kids. Last I read Detroit was a wasteland, one of the most decrepit cities in the States. There it sits, in one of the richest neighborhoods for boatbuilding wood on the continent.

[Bob Smalser]

Originally posted by dmede:
My stock is clear straight-grained. Over the phone they said it was air-dried but I was later told it was kiln-dried.

It's a nice strong wood, and flexible even when kiln-dried but it seems very weak when bent along the grain (cupped). I managed to crack the center plank at the lap in several spots while clinching. The cracks were right along the line where the clinch nails were going and seemed to be from the above plank cupping the lower plank right at the lap (where it had been beveled and drilled for nails, so at its weakest). Some clear epoxy injected into the cracks got it taken care of (drilled 1/16” holes at the crack ends to stop it from migrating down the grain line).

My concern now is that the sprung boards, in particular the garboard where its got some reverse bend at the ends, will pop open at the first slight bang they get. The planks are 5/16”. Perhaps I should have upped the scantlings to a full 3/8”?

Was clear straight grained the right choice or should I have looked for mixed grain WRC instead?

The wood will take a set after a few weeks and planks popping loose won't be a problem.

Looks like lovely stock, but almost pure qsawn...

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/3075040/40075419.jpg

...instead of riftsawn which withstands cupping and fasteners better (and kilning didn't help either):

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/3075040/40075413.jpg

I've had them split lengthwise, too....and simply removed the split plank, epoxied it back together, and remounted it. WRC glues as well as any wood, and if you use dyed epoxy, you can hide the repairs beneath varnish.

But thin planks, dead qsawn, combined with a fastener line running all in one growth ring, is a recipe for trouble with any wood. Offset your fasteners as best you can. That's why riftsawn is more forgiving.

[ 11-21-2005, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Bob Smalser]

Originally posted by Bruce Hooke:
So it sounds to me like what this comes down to is that the Western Red Cedar typically available outside the Pacific Northwest is NOT that suitable for boatbuilding.Plenty of folks have built with it. What they can't explain is the relatively high percentage of otherwise-identical, straight-grained boards that crack compared to their local cedars. "Brittleness".

I'm almost certain it's from overcooking in the kiln, as boards from one log will be close to 100% MC and another one 30%, yet they all go in the kiln together on a set schedule designed for the wettest boards. Vacuum kilning is kindest, but that's used for small amounts of music wood, not the flatcar loads of fencing and siding you are picking boatwood from...they went through the heated kilns.

[ 11-21-2005, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Keith Wilson]

FYI, here is Atkin's Bagaduce, or you can look here. (http://www.boat-links.com/Atkinco/Utilities/Bagaduce.html) Very cool boat.

http://www.boat-links.com/Atkinco/Utilities/images/Bagaduce-1.gif

http://www.boat-links.com/Atkinco/Utilities/images/Bagaduce-2.gif

[Bruce Hooke]

Bob,

That makes sense to me, but I guess what I still take away from it is that if you cannot get air-dried Western Red Cedar then other woods might be a better way to go. Of course the difficult thing is that many of the other good choices (like Northern White Cedar) may well be just as hard to find in many places as air-dried Western Red Cedar is outside the Pacific Northwest...

[dmede]

Originally posted by Bruce Hooke:
Bob,

That makes sense to me, but I guess what I still take away from it is that if you cannot get air-dried Western Red Cedar then other woods might be a better way to go. Of course the difficult thing is that many of the other good choices (like Northern White Cedar) may well be just as hard to find in many places as air-dried Western Red Cedar is outside the Pacific Northwest...Thats what it came down to to for me. I didn't have the space to sticker a bunch of green wood (assuming I found a local sawyer with green WRC). And nothing else was readily available. The guys I got my WRC from had air-dried POC that might have been an ok choice but it was all old growth and way too expensive ($12/ bd ft). I have found guys locally with full green WRC timbers (6x6, 8x8 & 10x10) but they wouldn't mill it and I have no bandsaw (soon to be remedied).

Not being plugged into a local source of air-dried lumber is a big problem for sure. Sometimes you gotta make do.

[ishmael]

The WRC we see here in the East is kilned till it squeaks.

[Rick Tyler]

My father has a big stack of stickered WRC 1-inch-thick boards at his place in Oregon. The trees were cut on his land and a friend milled them out for him. Sounds like it's time to visit dad...

[Ron Carter]

Ishmael,
I sold my 42" belsaw mill a couple of years ago because It wasn't geting enough use to justify keeping it. You are correct that I live in the middle of a smorgasbord of boat buillding lumber. At the time I was making canoe paddles and still have a couple hundred feet of basswood stickered in the yard. It isn't that Northern White Cedar is unavailable but one has to go to the mills in the northern lower peninsula or the eastern upper peninsula and literally sort through the cants on hand to find stock for resawing. I still have a 14" band saw and have a friend with a Kasco band mill so resawing isn't a major issue. The mills are all sawing for fence posts, landscaping timbers, and cedar outdoor furniture. The wooden canoe guy's use a lot of short stock for ribs and then WRC for planking. Whatever I get will undoubtedly requiring scarfing to get usable langths of planking. I have not been to Detroit since I retired 9 years ago but your opinion of the area matches mine.

[ishmael]

Hi Ron,

Remind me about the Belsaw mill.

Is the cedar you see nice? It doesn't have to be clear, some tight knots make a tougher plank, and a few loose ones can be bunged.

I used to spend a lot of time around Cheboygan, and remember wandering large cedar forests. I'd be genuinely suprised if no one is sawing long, wide live-edge flitches for the boat builder. But I wonder how much has been going to the rich resorts, where they seem hell-bent on insecurity palaces. Fence posts! tongue.gif :rolleyes:

Good luck. I look forward to watching this lovely little boat go together. How big is the motor? Weight?

Jack

[Ron Carter]

Jack,
The Belsaw was a factory built carriage and set works and a factory saw arbor mounted on a 32' truck frame to make it portable. I set it up as a stationary and powered it with an Allis Chalmers WD-45 on a 5" wide flat belt. Did a nice job but the carriage was the smallest they built which limited me to a 14" maximum cut or about an 18" log. A friend wanted it and mede me one of those can't pass up offers so it is gone. The engine weighs in the 150# range and is probably in the 2-21/2 horse power range. It is a 3 1/2" stroke and about a 3" bore. Have had no reason to pull the jug to get an exact bore measurement. Runs well on the floor but dances around enough to cause a bit of concern about how quickly it will shake the boat apart. I'm told in the Canadian Maritimes some of these engines are on their 4th hull so they're durable.
Will get up some pictuers as things develop.
Ron

[ishmael]

Ron,

Put a strong bottom, with beefy engine logs, in her. At least 1/2 maybe a 3/4 inch plywood bottom would be in order, from what you say; dunk and go. And the motor will settle down a bit once it's turning a prop in the water.

Great project. Best of luck.

Jack

[dmede]

Ron, I'm a big fan of Atkins inboard designs. I have his Maud & Emeline plans that I hope to build to someday. Please keep us posted on your progress... and take lots of pictures! :D

dave

[emichaels]

I came in on this thread late and blowing thru it I saw a discussion concerning rift sawn vs quater sawn vs plain sawn. So lets make sure we are talking about the same thing the sawyers are talking about. Quater sawn, the most stable, is sawn so the grain is 90 degrees to the face. It is done by first quartering the log, thus the name, and sawing a plank off of one face then flipping the quater cant so to saw another plank off of the opposing face till its gone. It does not produce more waste just take a while longer and a little more skill with the saw.

Rift sawn lumber is lumber sawn with the growth rings oriented between 30 -60 degrees to the face of the board.

Flat sawn is all else left. Where the growth rings are less that 30 degrees to the face. By far the least stable cut at least 50 % less stable depending on species, ie hardwood or softwood.

As a note if one saws a log "thru and thru" you will get all of the above from the same log.

A thru and thru log air dried as a group of boards in the order they came off the log is the most valuable log to a furniture maker. As a pc of furniture made with only QS lumber or all FS lumber looks wrong. It takes a little thought.

As for planking , obviously the QS lumber is by far the best choice and as Bob Smalser said earlier, an extra dollar spent today is gonna save many dollars down the road.
sawyering (http://www.hardwood.org/display_article.asp?ID=357)

Do things as right as you can, it's what your leaving behind......... There is enough crap in the world we should not add to it.........

My .02 worth.

Eric

[ 11-23-2005, 08:07 PM: Message edited by: emichaels ]