I went up to PT for the WB festival this weekend.  It was awesome, kayaks to ocean going tug conversions to tall ships.  I sat in on a spar making lecture, talked to several “real” boat shop owner/workers, boat owners and instructors for from the NW School of Traditional Boatbuilding.  Here’s a couple of obeservations on topics that get bantied about here all the time.

Adhesives of Choice – Epoxy and Poly.  Lots of poly used in smaller lap strake boats, canoes, hollow oars and the like.  Big boats and big structures use Epoxy.  West Systems is #1. System 3 a distant 2nd.  Nobody uses Resourcinol.

Woods – surprisingly enough to me lots of local woods I wouldn’t have associated with boats – VG fir, Spruce (esp. spars) and Larch.   The big mind blower was on a couple of big boats (60’+) they were using copious quantities of PURPLE HEART for sistering ribs.  It’s considered “forever” wood and I thought it was just humidor accent wood.

Finishes – Lots of West Systems special coating epoxy under tung oil based traditional varnish or just the varnish.  8 – 12 coats seems to be the range.  With an annual scuff sanding with 320 and a recoat it’s a 20 year finish.  Most finish failures are caused by water getting in and having no place to go – hence the epoxy undercoat.

Shop Tooling – 20″-25″ planers, 14″, 20″ and monster band saws, SCMS’s, and a few table saws. I saw (1) 6″ jointer and no big ones at all.  Lots of slicks and hand planes everywhere.