Dumb question?

[maa. melee]

I've been known to do things in a somewhat alternative way, and I was inspired today to ask a question. After seeing this 48' Diesel Duck (http://dieselducks.com/Wood-constructionphotos.html) planked and framed with off-the-shelf kiln dried 2x4's, I thought to myself, 'why not?'.

This boat (http://www.boat-links.com/Atkinco/Oar/RussellR.html) calls for cedar planking on oak frames. No epoxy. Would it be so bad if I skipped the cedar and went with some pine? Pine is really easy to find around here. My thoughts are that although not as rot resistant as cedar, pine is cheaper, the boat will live on a trailer, and I will maintain it extremely well. Plus I've worked extensively with pine for everything from construction to brightwork. The weights are close...24lbs/cubic ft for red cedar as opposed to 34 lbs/cubic ft for yellow pine.

What about pressure treated stuff? I'm not a huge fan and only use it when I absolutely have to, and to this day, it hasn't been in any boat of mine. But why not? I'm well aware that PT lumber (using arsenic) has some problems with holding alot of paints and maintaining a smooth finish. Any thoughts, comments?

--Melee

[RonW]

Melee- I think your question is if you can build THIS BOAT- meaning Atkin's Russel R. out of common lumberyard materials as Buehler advocates doing for his diesel ducks. YES- you do not have to use marine plywood- epoxy- fiberglass cloth and all the other things that drive the building cost of a small boat way up. But instead build a old fashioned boat the old fashion way.

First off, yellow pine weighs 40 lbs a cubic foot, white pine is 34 lbs a cubic foot, do not use white pine unless it is eastern white pine.Two different species. If yellow pine is readily avialable to you, it is a premium boat building wood and is often subsituted for white oak. Do not use pressure treated wood, unless you have a source for a premium grade, which you will probably not find at your local lumber yard.
To put it simply you can use all yellow pine, frames and planking- a excellent long lived very rot resistant wood that is tough. Use P.L.premium construction adhesive -$3. a tube, stainless steel square drive screws available at all hardware stores from 1 & 3/8th. to 3 inches long, and then paint with a oil based porch and deck paint. You can get no simpler or cheaper with readily available materials and actually have a very well built boat that with proper care can long outlast you.

I would also suggest that on Atkin's website you flip into the inboard cruisers and look at the Little Effort, a slightly larger version of the russel r. and it uses a inboard engine instead of a outboard. Excellent place to put your engine and prop to good use. This beats the hell out of bolger's box boat. I hope your little engine will produce about 20 to 30 horses and you will be turning heads.
A couple more points, Keep your bottom planking less then or no more then 4 inches wide, wider stuff will swell and shrink too much causing the seams to open up.You wil need to run your 1 by material through a planner to thin it down for the side planking so as to not have the boat off balance or top heavy. Good luck - have fun.

[sdowney717]

I have done some framing using PT yellow pine but I have been careful to use wood with no knots or very few. The fine sanded mill glazed and too wet wood surface can also reject glues and ought to be roughed up and dried up somewhat for gluing.
The knots and the warping are the only real negatives. Deal with this and it is fine. Some of the treated wood you will see is absolutely terrible and some is perfectly good for a boat. If you look at a wet PT board and see a wavyness or twist devloping or see that heartwood mixed in the center just dont use it. large knots weasken the wood and hit it hard across the knot and it may break in half. It just takes some common sense here to know what will work and what is bad. I like to pick up drier pieces that have some weight to them. I have noticed different pieces will have different densities. Cant tell this easily if the board is soaking wet. Denser ring count is probably stronger but not always needed if the scantlings are decent. But then of course if the boat is too heavy, but I am fixing or making dingys. The SYP is a very good boat building wood. I know some dont like it because until it dries up it is unstable, but you can work around this by letting it dry and recutting problem pieces.

[Jack Heinlen]

Hm. This brings up an interesting question. My understanding is that old growth yellow pine is, essentially, commercially extinct due to clear cutting in the first half of the last century. Many a floor and trim in houses east of the Mississippi are this wood, and much of it was also shipped overseas. In Europe it is called pitch pine. Well named. Doing remodeling I'd work with it occasionally, and cutting into it is a sensory experience. Dense, hard, and resinous. An all around boat wood that can be used for almost anything, it has a well deserved reputation as a primo material.

A mini industry has sprung up in the last thirty years resawing the timber frames of old mills built with it, but the new yellow pine I'm aware of is a different material--even if the same species. It's fast grown, with very wide ring spacing. I'd be curious if the real stuff is still available in any quantity right off the stump.

Just west of you you should be able to find a sawyer that will saw some Eastern White Pine. Using only heartwood, with good mainenance the boat should last well. Or spring for the cedar that is also available nearby. Either would be a better choice than what I've seen called yellow pine at the lumber yards. When you figure the time and effort involved, the materials costs tend to fade.

[John Bell]

Jack is right. What's called SYP in lumber stores today is not true yellow longleaf pine. The old growth longleaf is amazing stuff, dense and resinous. It won't rot, nor will any manner of critter ever eat it. It does light easy and burn fast, so keep it away from flame. If you can find some of the real deal, it will be very expensive.

What we now call SYP is usually plantation grown loblolly. It's not very rot resistant, nor is it very stable. They cut the trees very young and therefore the boards tend to be knotty, prone to checking, and have widely spaced rings. I would only use this stuff on the the most disposable boat. Lumberyard spruce or fir would be a better, if less than perfect choice.

There is one forum member who knows a lot about real longleaf yellow pine. Maybe he'll log on from his gulf island outpost and regale us with his knowlege of such things.

[AngWood]

I confess to using "modern" SYP (non-pressure-treated) for framing and stems. If you choose carefully, you'll find it is tough and holds fasteners well. The stuff I find at the orange store (another confession) is not very knotty. Grain orientation varies, so you have to think about that. Ring spacing also varies. I just cut a stem for a skiff from a 98 cent SYP stake that had the closest rings I'd ever seen. That wood was tough, dense, and fragrant.

I'm not sure it would make the best planking stock. I can't say much about long-range rot resistance, but so far (four years in another skiff--dry-sailed but stored outside).

[Keith Wilson]

If I were going to build that boat on the cheap, (and I've been thinking about precisely that) I'd use MDO plywood for planking - at least on the bottom, and whatever was handy for frames. If it was softwood, I'd increase the frame thickness considerably. In fact, you could frame in the inimitable Buehler fashion with raw 2x4s (NOT Hemlock), and laminate a chine log from 1xs. If you REALLY wanted to be cheap, use ordinary AC fir or BC yellow pine plywood for the planking. Yes, it will check and look ugly and have voids and eventually rot, but it will keep the water out in the meantime. PL adhesive and Chinese stainless steel deck screws are just the ticket. Don't sand too much, just enough so you don't get splinters. ;) Paint with cheerful colors of latex porch and floor enamel, slap on another coat or two every year, keep her on the trailer and don't let water stand in her, and you may be surprised at how long it'll last. It won't last as long as a boat made with better materials, but it'll be fun while it lasts.

Another, perhaps a better alternative would be to see if there's a local sawyer who can cut you some better wood.

[ 11-23-2004, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: Keith Wilson ]

[maa. melee]

Excellent comments. All of them are considered. On another note, I just recieved my Prop Handbook and Dory Book and both renewed my craving for the ocean. The other day I saw a FG motor launch with a sheerstrake made from poplar. It was painted deep black and I'm curious to know how well poplar holds up on a boat. The owner said that he changes that plank out every year because the sheer gets battered by chains, ropes, and pots.

[RonW]

S.Y.P.- Southern Yellow Pine - I can shed a little light onto this subject. The truth of the matter is that actually, there is no such species, but in reality southern yellow pine is a group heading that has been devised by the lumber distributors.They group together 4 species under this heading. They are short leaf pine- long leaf pine- loblolly pine - & slash pine. These 4 species are almost identical as to weight- rot resistance- strength- flexibility - grain- fastener holding ability and so forth. So when you buy southern yellow pine, it can be any one or any combination of the above,and you would have to be one primo lumber man to know the difference.

They do the same thing with other species as well, such as white pine, and white oak, they are many species that are combined to actually make up one of these groups which are sold under one heading.

Most if not all of your pressure treated lumber started life out as southen yellow pine before it was treated.

SYP is considered a slightly heavy hard wood, very strong, good flexibility and shock resistant, very high rot resistant, and excellent fastener holding ability. In weight it averages 40 lbs. a cubic foot, in comparison douglas fir and most mahoganys averages 36 lbs. a cubic foot, white oak averages 48 lbs a cubic foot.

SYP seems to be most readily available in the southern and eastern half of the U.S. At least around here almost all of your lumber yard 2by material such as 2x8 -2x10- 2x12's are syp, in other parts of the country it usually is douglas fir or hemlock.Most of it is a grade #2 which is considered construction grade.

As for pricing, At least here I can buy clear 1x6's for $1.15 a lineal foot or approx. $2.50cents a board foot. 2x10's -#2 are approx. $1. a foot. You can pick out good enough lumber though to cut frames from. Just 250 miles north of me at Lake Erie, clear -straight vertical grain yellow pine sells for $8. a board foot. Very exspensive.

Buehler-This is getting right back to what Buehler is saying,you can build a perfectly good wooden boat from lumber yard lumber at reasonable prices, if you understand your species of wood, grading and grain orientation and are willing to sort through the stacks of lumber to pick out what you need.

Very few lumber yards will even carry clear straight vertical grain lumber as per say, and the price would be bad to say the least. But it is there if you look. And if you want to throw in on top of that the fact that it has to be old growth air dried, those that know will tell you, yea right we sold the last of that just before world war 11. As for ring growth, most of what I buy averages from 12 to 14 rings per inch.Ocassionally more and some times down to 10 or even 8 rings per inch, don't buy the 8 or 10 ring stuff. Yes it is plantation grown, so what.

My last boat was built from syp and my next one will be. Hopefully availability and price will not change, but since it is used in the construction business and plantation grown, I do not see any problems.It is too heavy for planking on small boats. But for the little effort it would work fine, you would just need to run the planking through a planner and plane it down to 5/8 or 9/16 for side planking. Bottom plankin 3/4.
I hope this added a little food for thought.

[ 11-24-2004, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: RonW ]