cyprus or?

[qm]

Hey, just in passing, what is my boat planked with?! I have been puzzling over it for ten years. Finally I just leapted to the Forum! I'm a slow learner.
First I thought it was white oak, but all the paint fell off as it lay upside down in a field near the Canadien border for 20 years(that's where I bought it).Not a scrap of paint left! And after all that time, I cannot make a dent in a plank with my finger nail-very hard!(looks like oak). Boat was built before WWII at the very latest. Planks are about 3" wide. Shear and Gar are full length. Stem in natural knee. Brass fastenings. Boat is 16 feet,skegged, sailing hull. QMBob

[seayou77]

cypress would get fuzzy left to weather. Silvery. If it is hard as you describe, I can see why the paint fell off.

[ssor]

Put a hand plane to it and see what it looks like under its weathered skin. After twenty years paint falls off almost everything. fingernail hard covers a lot of wood, but not cypress.

[Jay Greer]

If you can expose the end grain of a plank, say at the transom, if the planks run by full. A book called "Wood Identification" will give you all the info you need to ID your planking as well as most all other woods.