red oak

[DBlue]

Can red oak lumber be used as cockpit trim??

[Mrleft8]

Can red oak lumber be used as cockpit trim??
Sure. It won't last as long as White Oak though.

[David G]

What kills red oak is exposure to water. It likes water, and water likes it. Together they're very good at breeding rot. The cell structure is such that it's like a bundle of hollow drinking straws (larger in diameter than most woods). These wick up moisture into the wood, promoting rot.

You can use red oak for something like a coaming, especially if you're crazy-careful about eliminating moisture intrusion in every way you can. I had a student once who gifted me with an Adirondack chair he'd made from red oak (against my advice). I really liked the chair, and appreciated the gesture, so I wanted that chair to last. Here's what I did: First I broke it down into its component pieces and removed all the Titebond glue. Then I modified all the fastener locations (and substituted stainless fasteners everywhere) by oversizing all locations. The places where the fastener attached were oversized a lot - using West Systems recommendations for an annulus of epoxy. Other locations were o'sized slightly and soaked in 3 -4 coats (hotcoating) of epoxy. All red oak components were also hotcoated with 3 coats of epoxy. The feet were glassed first, several inches up the legs. Overall the bottom 6" or so of the legs got 6 coats of epoxy, IIRC. I scraped & sanded to remove sags and such, then 4 coats of good spar varnish - to which I added 2 more coats the next year and 2 the year after. The chair was stored indoors except during the summer. It held up fine for the 5 years I owned it. No signs of rot or of the unsightly black-speck encroachment of mold - which is what I was expecting to see.

Now, the real question is: is it worth all that demented fussing, or should you just buy an appropriate wood to start with?

"A bad beginning makes a bad ending" -- Euripides

[pcford]

I had a student once who gifted me with an Adirondack chair......


One prays that you don't let your students write like that.

John Gardner once wrote in one of the first issues of WB that one could use the porosity of red oak to soak up preservative.

[Tom Hunter]

I have four peices of red oak in my row boat, they are all high up, well ventilated, dry and painted. They have been there since 1997 and show no sign of rot at all.

All the comments above are correct, but if you keep the water out with a combination of paint and good constrution you can get away with some red oak in a boat.

[StevenBauer]

Cut a piece of red oak about 3/4" x 3/4" x 6". Stick one end in a cup of water and blow into the other end. As you watch the stream of bubbles coming out of the end of the red oak think about using it in your boat. :eek:


Steven

[Woxbox]

The thing of it is, that cockpit coaming shows more on the boat than just about any other piece of varnished wood. Why not spend a few more dollars for wood that will look good naturally?

[boylesboats]

you might well use balsa wood if you want to use red oak. Balsa may float good, but it'll soak up water

[alkorn]

It seems to me that if you're looking for a cheaper, more readily available substitute for white oak the thing to use is yellow pine. It's a little softer, a little lighter, and a little less rot-resistant than white oak, but it's pretty close in all three categories. It's been the poor-man's substitute for white oak since the old days. And it has one advantage over white oak - it has no adhesion issues with epoxy glue.

[Plumbtex]

Just this weekend I pulled some wood cockpit trim of a boat that has been sitting for about 10 years. The red oak pieces crumbled to dust as I removed them, I wasn't even able to use them for patterns. The mahogany thwart that had been on the boat twice as long was in desperate need of sanding and refinishing but was otherwise sound.

Your results may vary,
Chris

[merlinron]

when i was 15 or 16, i "restored" an old shell lake 15" runabout. new mahogany deck, built a small aft deck of sorts and a motor well into the transom new coaming and seats. not knowing about the issues with red oak, i used it for all of the framing of the motor well structure and coaming. i still had the boat when i got married at 27 and the red oak pieces looked just as good as when installed. it was only varnished.

[Thorne]

Remember that there are a gazillion subspecies of white, intermediate, and red oak -- so much can depend on the exact tree type as well as the way the wood is milled.

Overall, not a good idea to use red oak in boats just due to the poor reputation if nothing else. Price difference between the two is minor at most locations.

[S.V. Airlie]

On going debate..

White oak and West system.. not a good match.
Red Oak and west system a better match.

If applied correctly, epoxied red oak would, I suspect be as good as White Oak.

Just my opinion.

[Todd D]

The local builders I have spoken to here on Mount Desert Island, Maine use red oak for framing. Their products are very well thought of and have stood the test of time.

[merlinron]

i think red oak is minimumly ok ..IF...and that's a big IF...it is well cared for and properly prep'd. i think the idea that it is a no-no has it's roots in the level of maintenance it recieves. it's bad rep comes from the fact that it won't stand up to being left un-sealed or poorly maintaned in a wet environment(sp?) as well as white oak. most boats we talk about and own here on this site are built to last many years and the criteria is to use a wood that will last forever when properly taken care of. on a boat it is inevitable that moisture will eventually get the best of your maintenance efforts. with that said, red oak is one of the woods that rots with the least moisture invasion, so it is looked upon as taboo.

[Bob Smalser]

Notice that the guys from cold climates often report success using Red Oak and that the guys from warm climates often report disaster. Rot and temperature are closely related. That's not a bad guide as to how, where or whether it should be used in your boat.

Getcha a 10X hand lens to look at a cleanly-sliced section of end grain. If the large, earlywood vessels (pores) are all clogged up with flecks of white snot called tyloses, your stock is in the White Oak group. If the earlywood pores are clear and dark, your stock is in the Red Oak group like the RO image in the FPL slide show at the below link.

http://www.swst.org/teach/teach1/woodid1.pdf

White Oak end grain in turn, looks like this:

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/oak,%20white/oak,%20white%202%20end%20grain%202%20s25%20q60%20p lh.jpg
http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/oak,%20white/oak,%20white%20oregon%201%20end%20grain%20closeup% 20s25%20q60%20plh.jpg

I'd also be real careful not to sell RO represented as WO, "Gray" Oak or Bending Oak at any level in the boatbuilding business. Oaks aren't like the White Pine Group where a well-equipped laboratory is required to differentiate between the single species less prone to rot from its half dozen groupmates. Differentiating between the ROG and the WOG in turn, are seen as simple skills a court of law might expect a professional boatbuilder to know....especially when these days anybody can send samples to the Forest Product Lab for irrefutable ID....even dissatisfied customers.

[merlinron]

good observation about climates and responces, bob! boats up here spend allot less time in the right temp.

[Jay Greer]

I often so am so often confronted with the "What if?" question concerning the use of materials that have no place being used in a proper boat or yacht, if you will, that I am a bit weary of making the comment: Use what is known to work! In other words, RED OAK HAS NO PLACE IN A WELL FOUND YACHT, BOAT OR KAYAK!
Jay

[jstemwedel]

Wouldn't a short piece of red oak be fairly rot resistant if its ends had been immersed in, and its sides coated with, CPES? I'm counting on that theory, because I did this with two 2 ft x 1" x 1" red oak transom braces. Incidently, white oak is not available at lumber yards in the South, and must be ordered on-line at great expense.

[Bob Smalser]

Wouldn't a short piece of red oak be fairly rot resistant if its ends had been immersed in, and its sides coated with, CPES?

Sorry, no. It takes pressure treatment to infuse any preservative into all the pores and vessels it needs to be to be effective.

Unlike poisons like copper or lead, epoxy sealants work by slowing down the transmission of water vapor sufficiently during the wet season so the wood reaches the next dry season without reaching the 20% MC threshold required for rot when the wood is exposed to air. And dense woods like oak easily reach 20% or higher in outdoor use.

Unlike plywood and softer woods where CPES may penetrate deeply enough to have some effect, RO has a hard surface even CPES won't penetrate. I doubt it will slow water vapor transmission sufficiently. As some parts of the South don't have much of a "dry" season at all, you'll may have to replace those pieces sooner than expected.

[Bob Smalser]

My red oak frames on my Dory where fine after 20 years of abuse. The CPES failed when I lapsed on the maintenance (S.F. Bay area climate), but there was no structural issues with the lumber.



See my earlier post. San Fransisco Bay and South Carolina are worlds apart regarding the longevity of woods prone to rot. Epoxy infusion worked in Georgia for Tulip or Yellow Poplar...at least to date....but Tulip is softer and more absorbent than even H. Mahog.....and almost three times as soft as most oaks.