white oak planking

[lucky jack]

Hello -
I live in an oak forest - dozens of huge, straight gorgeous white oaks, some 4' across, many limbless for 30' or more. I could build the Constitution (not really, but almost) from solid oak. Is there any reason I should not consider oak for all the parts of a smallish cruising yacht I'm considering? (I'm thinking of Atkin's Fore an' Aft, or similar). I know oak is heavier, but is there a serious reason why I should not make use of all this wonderful, free timber for frame, hull, and deck?

I even have one perfect yellow pine for the mast. I live in a boat, it just has the roots and leaves still attached.

Thanks for any help.

[Ken Hutchins]

You are certainly LUCKY Jack, certainly use the white oak, except for the deck. Some recalculations will have to be done due to the weight of the wood. Heavier wood which you have is less balast you will have to buy. :D
The major disavantage of the white oak is the white oak will develope a lot of surface checking, this can be controlled by IMMEDIATELY protecting the surface of the wood after any work being done. A coat of thinned varnish for sealing works good.

[Paul Scheuer]

You just need to find your "opposite number", the lucky individual living in a planking stock forrest.

[lucky jack]

Ken -
I'm really impressed with the work you've done on Tally Ho 2. It's nearly identical to what I want to do myself. You give me hope! I want to make sure I understand about your comment re: checking - did you mean the planking would tend to check as it's being installed, and would need to be sealed? I assumed that if it was properly cut and well air dried, it would be pretty stable (until of course it's heated artificially or some other stress imparted to it.)

Also, would you wait the full "one year per inch of thickness" for the keel/backbone timbers to dry before you went on to the next step? How did you do it?

Thanks again.

[Bob Smalser]

Originally posted by lucky jack:
Hello -
I know oak is heavier, but is there a serious reason why I should not make use of all this wonderful, free timber for frame, hull, and deck?
No.

Likes to stain, tho, so you might have a maintenance-intensive deck if finished bright. It's also much more difficult to work than many woods.

Also likes to move seasonally, warp in drying and warp in use. Minimize all that by picking the right log for the right purpose, riftsawing your stock where possible, hiring the right sawyer to mill your logs and seasoning it properly.

1) Straight boards simply can't be made from crooked trees....or even from straight trees with a lot of lean in growing....talk to your sawyer before bucking those logs....or buck them at the bends, regardless of the length of stock you need (find another log or plan to scarf if that ain't long enough)....he can tell the leaners from looking at the rings. The worse the log, the larger and shorter the stock taken from it.

2) Riftsaw your stock. That means rip the log in half and saw each half vertically. Combines the low movement of qsawn with less tendency to both check and split from fasteners or working in use.

3) Both Lucas and Peterson portable sawmills compensate for log taper (something band mills and commercial sawmills can't do) to produce riftsawn lumber with zero or near-zero grain runout, the second principle cause of warp along with crooked trees. Baileys-online.com is right there in Tennessee to help you find him.

4) It's also not a real forgiving wood in drying....not as bad as maple, cherry and some others, but much worse than most softwoods...close bearers and monitoring and adjusting stacks to prevent kink are required. And yes, it will require one drying season per inch of thickness to stabilize....but few are able to do that with thicker timbers and either use partially seasoned stock (under no circumstances rip or resaw it) or laminate thinner stock instead....and laminating WO isn't as easy as with some other woods.

http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb. php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009419 (http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009419)

http://www.baileys-online.com/index.htm

[ 12-22-2004, 11:05 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[RonW]

I am under the impression that white oak is by far, too strong of a wood to use for planking.By that I mean due to it's strength and density, any movement by exspansion and contraction will put a lot of stress on the fasteners, which in turn will put stess on the planking, most likely causing the planks to split at the fasteners.
Using white oak for framing is one thing, but I question highly it's use as planking. It also is really a pain in the butt to use. Everything has to be predrilled just right and a lot of care with fasteners, or they literally twist off on you. Very common problem in using bronze screws, or even stainless for that matter.

As far as for decking, I fail to see the problem. If your boat is large enough to handle teak decking, which teak weighs 42lbs. a cubic foot, and white oak weighs 47-48 lbs. a cubic. When you figure up your square feet in decking and divide by the thickness to find your cubic foot of wood. You will find out you are not talking very much added weight at all.Yea lighter woods might be better, but it just isn't that big of a deal. Think using it as planking though is a problem.

[bugeye]

Hi,
White oak and Longleaf pine are the "standard" species for heavy workboats. Oak is, I think, underrated as planking stock. My boat is planked with 2" white oak and it works great. Just keep your strakes fairly narrow and if you can, stick with stock that's vertical grain or fairly close, and do be sure that it's seasoned. Definately don't use it for your deck though. What are you building?

[Ken Hutchins]

The wood should be sealed to minimize checking as soon as it is sawn from the log and after each machining operation, White oak loses most of it's moisture out thru the surfaces, not the end grain, this drying and subsequent shrinking on the outside of the surfaces puts stresses on every face, which causes the checking. Storing the wood in a cool place under cover helps also. Waiting the year per inch of thickness just isn't possible unless you have really long range plans. The biggest problem with the backbone timbers is the shrinkage and warpage that occurs during the building process on a big project. I've have had some shrinkage and warpage, just some of the things that have to be delt with by trying to predict what's gonna happen and compensating ahead of time by leaving excess finishing material, or go to;
Plan B (fix the problem) after a while I got to realise I was spending too much time on this so go to:
Plan C (don't worry about it) realign the brain, it's a boat not a precision machine tool. Oh so the rabit in the keel on the port side is slightly different from the starbard side, it's gonna be 4-1/2 feet under water. :D

[lucky jack]

Originally posted by Ken Hutchins:

Plan C (don't worry about it) realign the brain, it's a boat not a precision machine tool. Oh so the rabit in the keel on the port side is slightly different from the starbard side, it's gonna be 4-1/2 feet under water. :D [/QB]I'm a plan C guy, myself. I am planning on building "Fore an' Aft", or similar, over the next several years. I know it' a yacht, but its grandafther was a workboat and I not only think that level of work is acceptable, I think it's preferrable. Too much varnish and bronze starts to feel confining to me. I take comfort in the fact that these types of boats look quite proper built to a slightly coarser standard - galvanized hardware, simple paint, a minimum of varnish - you know what I mean.

It's a daunting task, but for some reason it seems so much more doable if I can use all my own lumber, although I think I'll always be glad if I deck it in teak.

Which leads me to my next question: over the long haul (and I mean decades) which provides better service with less maintenance: a painted canvas deck, or a classic laid teak deck, left unvarnished?

Thanks for all the amazingly helpful answers.

[lucky jack]

Originally posted by bugeye:
Hi,
White oak and Longleaf pine are the "standard" species for heavy workboats. Oak is, I think, underrated as planking stock. My boat is planked with 2" white oak and it works great. bugeye-
I haven't gotten the plans yet, but I'm sure the Atkins cutters in the 26 - 28' range used about 1" thick stock. You think 6" to be a practical maximum strake width?

Thanks much.

[Bob Cleek]

Wooden boat freaks are dreamers by nature. We all dream of having the perfect wood growing in our backyard and turning it into a great boat. It isn't always a possibility. The size of boat you are thinking about really would suffer from heavy wood. Are you willing to trade a slow, sluggish boat in return for (supposedly) cheap lumber? Then there is the reality of turning your own wood into a boat. This is a huge amount of work and time. Unless you are already an accomplished lumberjack/sawyer, forget it! Do you make your own screws? Some things are best left to the tradesmen who make a living knowing what they do. There is so much work that goes into building a boat that there is NO justification for cutting corners on materials. Ever. Now, if you have a tree that has to come down anyway and you have a sawmill handy and you find yourself with some nice stock for a keel or frames, that's one thing, but planking with oak (which is a good planking material for heavy boats, by the way) can't be justified just because you can cut it in your own woodlot. Have you ever handled wet wood? It's heavy, and then some! And it takes a long time to season, and space to store it. And how many trees will you cut down before you find a good one? I'd just buy some nice planking stock and use that. It's a lot easier and cheaper in the long run.

[lucky jack]

I am a dreamer, but I also know what I'm doing. I have lots of experience with wet wood, cutting it, sawing it, stacking it, etc. I've got over 100 massive, perfect oaks on my land, many more than 3' thick and as straight as strings for 40 feet or more. I wasn't joking when I said they could build another Constitution from my woodlot. I felt compelled to look into the possibility of using it for more than the framing, and wondered if it might make suitable planking.

Thanks for the input re: oak for planking on a smallish yacht - that's what I needed to know. It might not be the best option after all even though it would only cost me the sawyer's bill. But I wonder since it's only slightly heavier than teak, and teak seems to work pretty well, if it might not be a suitable, if unconventional, choice after all?

Many thanks.

[Bob Smalser]

USDA Wood Handbook (http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/techmenu.html)

Once you find that sawyer, perhaps you can simply trade some of that nice oak for other stock....stock more suitable for planking in climate where you can expect a lot of wood movement. Once you enter their world, you may find all sorts of wood available no one will ever see in a big box store.

I don't believe Tennessee has Atlantic White Cedar, but you certainly have Eastern Red, which has a modulus of elasticity (ease of bending) similar to AW and Northern White with the added benefit of being a tad harder at the same time. Knotty....but when it's green and cheap you can afford to have enough of it on hand to highgrade around the knots, and any loose knots are easily stabilized using epoxy.

Cedars are favorites because they are stable seasonally and forgive a wide variety of mistakes in drying and joinery...oak is neither.

http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/Sof twoodNA/htmlDocs/junipevirgin.html (http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/SoftwoodNA/htmlDocs/junipevirgin.html)

You also have Eastern White Pine...not quite as bendable or light but a traditional planking stock whose heartwood is fairly durable, given modern treatments and coatings, which it takes handily.

http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/Sof twoodNA/htmlDocs/pinusstrobus.html (http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/SoftwoodNA/htmlDocs/pinusstrobus.html)

You also have Sassafras...harder and heavier than softwoods but hardly in the class with your oaks...a commonly-used planking stock in small boats.

http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/Ha rdwoodNA/htmlDocs/sassafrasalbi.html (http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/HardwoodNA/htmlDocs/sassafrasalbi.html)

And Tulip Poplar. Although not generally considered durable, it has been used successfully for generations in water troughs on farms...troughs full of water setting on the ground that last decades. It's your largest local tree, it comes in long clear lengths easily riftsawn, and it's dirt cheap. Robb White in rot-prone Georgia has successfully built lightweight boats of it for decades using thin, airdried, riftsawn stock saturated with epoxy.

White uses it for the same reason I use Doug Fir and Western Red and the same reason you are asking about oak....he has it close at hand and it is free for the labor.

http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/Hardwo odNA/htmlDocs/liriodend.html (http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/HardwoodNA/htmlDocs/liriodend.html)

Make yourself a chart to compare potential local planking woods. Compare weight, elasticity, strength at maximum load and in shear, and impact stength.

Then for a given boat design that calls for, say cedar planking, find the thickness of all available woods that meets or exceeds the design planking strength and run the numbers on just how heavier the hull will be.

You can also use heavier woods below the waterline and lighter woods above without damaging the boat's handling qualities.

I think you'll find strength isn't the issue, but how thin you can get away with and still have caulking seams and bunged screws....but do it anyway as it's a good precurser for making those decisions later.

Different climate, but folks might be surprised at how many commercial work boats out here all the way up into Alaska were successfully made of good old rot-prone Western Hemlock, probably the worst wood imaginable in a boat, but marvelous and strong bending stock. Don't even think about hemlock in Tennessee...

...but don't rule out your local possibilities, either.

[ 12-22-2004, 11:01 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[Scott Rosen]

Oak and teak aren't comparable. Teak is much more dimensionally stable than oak.

I like Bob's idea of trading the oak for something more suitable for planking. The best use for the oak would be to save some for framing, keel, timbers, etc., and sell or trade some for the planking stock of your choice. Maybe even teak.

[ 12-22-2004, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Scott Rosen ]

[RonW]

Hey Lucky Jack- I will make a friendly suggestion.
Since you are setting on all this beautifull white oak, why not put it to better use and turn it into top dollar wood. If you do some research on this board, you will find plenty of guys building boats with steam bent white oak ribs, and some of the boats using steam bent ribs can exceed 30 feet in length easily.

But a lot of them of haveing problems with ribs breaking and cracking. This is due to grain runout in the ribs.They are forced to use sawed lumber. What is the best for bent ribs is, green, split white oak that has perfectly flat grain running from one end of the rib to the other end of the rib.The best way in the world to derive this is by hand splitting out the ribs. So if you are inclined, you could split and sell ribs for absolutely top premium dollars. I would think you could not only sell to individuals but also small boat yards that still build some boats
with bent frames.You could sell 2x2 or 2x3 staves 6 or 8 feet long and then the buyer could run them through a bandsaw and plannner to have what they want. I would think a lot of people would be very glad to buy them and you could get top dollar. Just a suggestion on putting the white oak to better use.

[Lulworth]

This may be my memory playing tricks on me but knock-me-down if I don't recall from a WB article that this swedish boat (now in Nova Scotia), built in the late 1800's and still sailing, isn't made with oak planking. Proves nothing but there it is ... an exception to the oak-is-too-this-and-that for small boat planking.

David -- waiting to be told 'yer-wrong, it's made of elm.

http://www.banner-tribune.com/ftos/elly/mvc-002f.jpg

[lucky jack]

Thanks! I had also considered trading or selling. I would love to plank it in Southern yellow pine, and deck it too, for that matter, but I have heard that real SY pine is practically extinct, and often what you get under that name is Virginia pine or other scrubbier species. I have one perfect SY pine on my place, just right for a mast in the 45' range, but only one. The only other one I had is now the summer beam in my cabin, a hand hewn 8" x 10" beam 30' long. That was a job of work. :eek:

Hadn't thought of poplar - that is an intriguing idea. I built my log cabin out of Virginia Pine and poplar logs and loved working with poplar - it worked like butter when it was wet but hardened up amazingly when dry, even more (it seemed) than other woods did.

Thanks for all the suggestions, including splitting out ribs. I'll look into that.

[ 12-22-2004, 02:42 PM: Message edited by: lucky jack ]

[RonW]

Up here, white oak sells for about $5. a board foot, SY pine sells for about $2.50 a board foot, and that is clear. What the lumber yards are selling for southern yellow pine, is actually a mixture of 4 pines,-short leaf pine-long leaf pine-slash pine- & loblolly pine. These 4 species make up the heading or grouping that is classified and sold as southern yellow pine.
My next boat, which I am starting on now, will be all southern yellow pine, frames- planking and decking, maybe a little eastern red cedar to line the interior of the cabin.

[Scott Rosen]

I wouldn't recommend poplar. It's not stable and has poor decay resistance.

If you were going to saturate it in epoxy, then I suppose it would be okay, but why cut corners when you don't have to.

[Paul Pless]

Hell, if you have over 100 White Oak trees clear for the first 40 feet ("enough to build Constitution")... SAVE THE FOR CONSTITUTION!!! Just to dispel any myths, the Constitution was framed and planked in Live Oak (not white oak) utilizing more than 2000 trees. Copper fastened, BTW. More info available from the Constitution website.

[bugeye]

Hi again,
I would guess that the people who are suggesting that you sell the oak and buy something else don't realize that white oak sells for less than $2/bf in areas that have any of it growing. When I started my boat rebuild, in 2000, and we were on the eastern shore of MD, I bought very, very nice W oak for under a dollar. I absolutely understand you wanting to use your own trees, it adds sentimental value to your boat. You should know that if you plan to haul the boat every winter, you'll never have the fairest topsides ever, but who cares. If it stays in the water year round, you won't have this trouble. White pine makes a very nice laid deck and is pretty cheap and easy to get. lots cheaper than teak. I think that if you stayed under 6" strakes, you'd do very well. The first two broadstrakes on mine are as much as 11" in her midsection, and flatsawn. They really do move around a bit more than I like when the boat is hauled out. Sounds really nice where you live.

[kc8pql]

Don't use poplar. It rots while you watch. Sassafras on the other hand could be a very good idea. By the way, yellow pine is pretty heavy for a mast.

[ 12-22-2004, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: kc8pql ]

[Bob Smalser]

Nobody likes Robb White poplar boats?

I agree Tulip Poplar is a questionable planking choice....however....

....nobody nowhere has ever adequately explained to me how bare poplar lasts so long in a water trough setting on the ground....or how the Studebaker Wagon Company used millions of BF of it to build Conestoga and other wagons still fully functional after a century of outdoor use.

[kc8pql]

Originally posted by Bob Smalser:

....nobody nowhere has ever adequately explained to me how bare poplar lasts so long in a water trough setting on the ground....I have nothing to back this up, but the Amish sawyer that I buy wood from once and a while says that there is Tulip poplar, which is very common, and Yellow poplar which is rather scarce. I always thought that the were the same thing but he says no, yellow poplar is much more rot resistant. We got into this conversation because I was looking for something inexpencive to make raised panels and doors for the interior of my boat, which are painted. He wouldn't sell me tulip poplar but said he had some nice yellow poplar logs that he would saw and dry for me, which he did. It did look a little different than normal poplar. It is a light yellow color with no green or purple streaks, but I don't know. If anyone has any hard information about this, it would be interesting to find out if there really are two species.

Ken

[RonW]

There is, or was a yellow popular, or at least that is what I was taught by old time carpenters that are dead now. It was suppose to be a very rot resistant and tough wood , yellowish in color and not really related to the soft whiteish popular that most of us are familar with today. I was told long time ago that it is basically extinct. The ohio valley was suppose to be filled with it in the 1800's.The subfloor in the house I own is yellow popular with red oak flooring over that. The house was built in 1895.But I have also done remodeling on old houses out of the 1800's where the framing was walnut. I never heard before that water troughs and conestoga wagons where built out of poplar, thats interesting, it would almost have to be yellow popular, white popular would never last, or at least I wouldn't think so.

[kc8pql]

That's very interesting Ron. Apparently there must still be some yellow poplar growing in Holmes county at least. Around here (a bit east of Columbus) a lot of old barns have poplar timber frames that have held up very well. They may be yellow too.

addendum: I just Googled yellow poplar and got a bunch of hits, all to liriodendron tulipifera, common name yellow poplar or tulip poplar. Same species, different common names. That's what I learned years ago. I don't know. Still not to the bottom of this I don't think.

[ 12-22-2004, 11:17 PM: Message edited by: kc8pql ]

[RonW]

Yea I also have been going through some of my wood encyclopedias, and also found yellow popular listed with nicknames as tulip popular. I don't buy it either, that is not what I was taught, also your mention of old post and beam barns bring back memories of yellow popular. Your amish sawyer sure knew, think you need to ask him, and while you are it, ask him about water troughs and wagons. As you reach back into history with some of the small local sawyers, the names they used then may not exactly coincide with the lumberyard names of today.

The old guy that I learned the construction business from, and about yellow popular, died 2 years ago, at the age of 92, he was born in 1910. So just as with your amish sawyer, this could be old language. As this country started being able to ship more lumber around the country, the lumber distributors created a uniformity and common names, so as to do away with all the slang names used by all the small local sawyers. This could be a big part of the puzzle.

[ 12-22-2004, 11:49 PM: Message edited by: RonW ]