green wood for floors

[floatingkiwi]

I have read that green wood is the best for steaming. What about floors?
Say a living oak tree was to lose a limb, you went out and chopped a bit off it and shaped it into a floor and installed the thing in ya floaty girl. How would this go?

[chainyank]

I too await an answer from thems whos knows............ (but in my uninformed opinion, i think they would work good - if you let them dry and stabilize. Rough them out and bury them in damp sawdust for some amount of time. Put them in completly green and they will split up) (or I could be talkin' whoee)

[The Bigfella]

I did a thread on this a few years back. All the images were on Imagestation (don't buy Sony)....

We felled and milled a couple of Spotted Gums, which we used for rib replacements (steamed), floors and whatever the deadwood is called where the prop struts are bolted to. It was most definitely green....

I'll stick a couple of photos up in a minute or two....

[RFNK]

Well, I'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong but ..... it's a bad idea. The floors in your Folkboat are wedged tightly against the planking and have the keel bolts running through them. They need to be fitted very well to serve their clamping purpose without distorting the planking. You also want to be able to remove the keel bolts again at some time in the future. If you put green floors in, you could distort the planks if the green wood warps at all, which it will, and it will shrink away from its tight fit with the planking as it dries. Its warping will jam your keel bolts and this could even split the floor if you're unlucky, I suspect. Use good, seasoned hardwood for your floors and shape them accurately to the shape you want them to keep. Rick

[The Bigfella]

Getting:

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/DSC_0040.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/DSC_0029.jpg

Milling

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/DSC_0078.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/DSC_0088.jpg

That big one was about 6" x 5 1/2" IIRC.

The steaming:
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/DSC_0039.jpg

Barry installing (my wife was the slave - she extracted from the steamer and passed the ribs through the portholes)

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/DSC_0038.jpg

[The Bigfella]

Finally, a shot of the old floors coming out. I don't have one that I can find easily of the new floors....

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/DSC_0044.jpg

That was 3rd week December 2003 (milling) and mid January 2004(installing).

No splitting or any other issues of any significance. I nipped the keel bolts a bit tighter some months later. The floors are well below the waterline - which is about where the painted stringer is.

Yeah - we did about four planks at the same time - but using Kauri. I think we did 13 or so ribs - including the couple you can see here that we sistered, but most were a complete replacement and IIRC, four floors.

Some silly bastard got over-tired at one stage and drilled a hole in the exhaust pipe.... (shh, don't tell anyone...)

[Bob Cleek]

Definitely no way, no how. As mentioned above, your floor timbers should be well seasoned to ensure a good fit. A good fit is essential in floor timbers perhaps more than anywhere else in a boat. You don't want your floors moving. That said, if it's good oak, season it (a year per inch is the rule of thumb) and enjoy!

[The Bigfella]

Here's the other bit that I mentioned - not a good shot of it, but visible... the deadwood with the struts bolted through it. This shot was taken April 2004 - and at a guess, the timber was installed some time in 2002... another piece of green Spotted Gum. I've got some old images somewhere from a video of it being shaped - with a chainsaw to within about 1/8" of its final shape....

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff112/igatenby/iansecond/tanks.jpg

It is two pieces and some very slight shrinkage is visible at the join. It is no wider than that 5 years later. I sure as hell aren't worried about that...

The unpainted piece that the tanks are sitting on (since painted) is part of the large piece we milled.

[rufustr]

I think Spotted Gum may perform differently than American Oak.

Love the photos Ian, can smell the sawdust.:D

Do you have any of the new interior for the EBS?:rolleyes:

[RFNK]

Actually, I was informed only a few weeks ago that Spotted Gum is not such a stable timber - it swells and shrinks quite a lot, not only as it dries out initially but as it is wet and dried during use. A more stable timber is Fllooded Gum. Either way, I'd only use seasoned timber with a high degree of stability for floors, especially in a tight, critical application like a Folkboat. Rick

[The Bigfella]

Actually, I was informed only a few weeks ago that Spotted Gum is not such a stable timber - it swells and shrinks quite a lot, not only as it dries out initially but as it is wet and dried during use.


There's an awful lot of Aussie boats built with it....

[RFNK]

There sure are. Its relative instability doesn't mean it's not a good boatbuilding timber, it just means you need to be careful what you put it with. Rick

[floatingkiwi]

A clean tight seasoned fit makes the most sense to me. Besides, the green way is too easy and from experience, the easy way is almost always the wrong way.
That garboard plank is a big old wide plank that could use all the constant stability it can get.
Would it be OK to laminate seasoned oak to the old floors to strengthen them, as a couple have failed through the bent grain in the natural crook?

[Jay Greer]

Shrinkage would be a deterring factor. Once fully seasoned, if installed green, the drifts will be loose. Like wise, fastenings into the frames will distort and possibly crack the floors.
Jay

[floatingkiwi]

Jay, explain drifts.
And, contrary to what I would think proper, there are no fastenings that bind the frames to the floors in my folkboat.
Never have been.

[RFNK]

Yes, new `wings' of the floors can be laminated onto the old floor timber if it's in good condition. Just create a curved surface on the top of the old floor and then laminate new strips (thin, with epoxy) to the shape you want. You'll need to remove the floor to do this and then shape it all to fit back in. The laminated floor will be very strong as long as you have a good bond between the new laminated section and the old timber. If there's any oil etc. soaked into the old timber, then you'll need to build a whole new floor. I found fitting these to be a real headache so seek advice better than mine for this! Use only dry, seasoned hardwood for the floor and laminated strips. Rick

[floatingkiwi]

Yeah I am getting some together as you described. Some dowels epoxied vertically in the things would not hurt or would the elasticity or spring strengh be jeopardized?

[Peerie Maa]

Jay, explain drifts.
And, contrary to what I would think proper, there are no fastenings that bind the frames to the floors in my folkboat.
Never have been.

A drift is a thickish, 12 cm or above bar, used for a nail to secure two pieces where a bolt cannot be used. The leading end is tapered on the anvil, and when driven it is often headed up over a washer.

[Bruce Hooke]

Say a living oak tree was to lose a limb...

Limbs often contain a lot of what is called "reaction wood" that results from the uneven loading on a limb (tension on top and compression on the bottom) as opposed to the more uniform loading on the trunk. So, limb wood is commonly less stable than wood from the trunk. Of course if the limb was pretty much vertical than it can be thought of as a trunk...