I’m finally gonna build one a’ them cedar strip canoes — that is, ifn I can get some cedar! I’ve tried several sources in the Northwest which seems to be about the only area that still has vertical grain clear grade in 12-foot lengths, but shipping to Central Florida adds several hundred dollars to the already-expensive lumber (about $8-$10/ BF). Anybody on Knots know of an altertnative source on the East Coast or thereabouts?
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I have been buying V/g clear cedar a lot lately. Using it for custom entrances and restoring really old houses. I paid 43.00 for 5/4 by 8 by 10 feet. They have 12 foot stock also but I don't know how you can the lumber shipped to Florida. I live in western Mass.
I've been thinking about building a cedar strip canoe for at least 25 years, and I've even gone as far as drafting up the plans for several Bear Mountain canoes. However, I fell in love with a little shiplap skiff designed by Steve Redmond called 'Whisp' and built it instead about 15 years ago. It's still a wonderful little craft, but I also know I still have the itch!I guess I'm lucky living in Ottawa! There is a local specialty wood supplier that has clear Western cedar in lengths up to 18 feet, and they will also rip it into strips and put a bead/cove on the strips as well. I'll probably prepare my own strips, but it's nice to know that an alternative is available if I get lazy or simply don't want to deal with the fine cedar dust generated by ripping that much wood!Regards,
Edited 1/5/2006 11:16 pm ET by RonInOttawa
It used to be that WRC was readily available here (Central Florida). So much so, in fact, that all of the interior trim in my house as well as all of the soffit and fascia are long lengths of clear cedar. Several architects liked to use it for the "California" or prairie look, but now it is no longer available. Something to do with the spotted owl or other "problem" in the Northwest of the US, I guess, Anyhow, there isn't any any more -- at least around here -- and I'm stumped for some to build a strip canoe. If I order it from the Northwest, the cost to get it and ship it here is about the same as buying a whole kit with the cove and bead already milled! You better start yours before Canada has the same problem.
Luckily, good red cedar is still readily available in Canada and will probably remain so at least until the softwood dispute is settled between the US and Canada. If and when that is settled, I suspect the really good stuff will once again be sent across the border and we will have to go back to using clear yellow cedar or eastern white cedar. At least we will have choices!You might want to check with Wooden Boat's website or, possibly, Mystic Seaport for advice as to sources of good wood on the East Coast. Both are available on the Internet. Wooden Boat also has a decent forum.Regards,RonA friend will bail you out of jail. A really GOOD friend will be sitting there beside you saying "Damn, that was fun!"
Thanks, Ron. I have no reservations about buying from our neighbor to the north, even if the politicians can't see to get together. You have it, we don't. What's to argue? Besides, one of my best friends is a Canadian.
And the beer's pretty good as well!
you might want to check witth this fellow - seems to know a lot about canoes
http://www.littlebearcanoes.com/pages/1/index.htm
jerry
Several east coast providers:
http://www.noahsmarine.com a Canadian company would likely be shipping from Buffalo.
Moving south into New Hampshire is http://www.newfound.com
Then in Connecticut there is http://www.whitecedar.com/Canoe.htm
I haven't made a strip canoe, just researched it quite a bit.
I appreciate all the responses to my cedar question, but I especially appreciate yours because it let me see other ways of solving my canoe-building issue. I've contacted folks at the links you provided for more information. Thanks, Steve. I guess you've been down this road before?Jim MacMahon
Check out this forum: http://www.bearmountainboats.com/phpbb2/index.php
It's on the east coast, and specializes in strip built canoes. Why vertical grain? The first thing you do with your lumber is to slice it up into strips, so the quartersawn board becomes a lot of flat sawn strips. I spent a fair amount on clear grain cedar 20' long, but it turns out to be very easy to splice shorter lengths -- and you need a lot of shorter ones too -- so the length is not even that important.
I put a webpage together describing the making of a woodstrip canoe: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~durgerian/index.html
Try clicking on the "canoe building links" tab.
Alan -- I'm a fairly competent woodworker, but a canoe beginner, so I started by following the recommendations in Mac Mc Carthy's "Featherweight Boatbuilding" book.
You definately should look at Ted Moores Canoecraft Its very comprehensive and has good info about canoe designs.
Thanks. I already have it. Then I bought McCarthy's book because of the Wee Lassie design.
Jimma,
A group of us have been building strip canoes for ourselves now for several yrs. 5 canoes and an Adirondack guideboat so far. The thing is, as was pointed out before, flatsawn stock 3/4" thick, when ripped into 1/4 x 3/4"strips, yields a high percentage of quartersawn strips. If you rip qtrsawn boards, you'll get flatsawn strips. We set up the tablesaw and two shapers side by side, one with a 1/4" beadcutter, the other with a 1/4" fluting bit, and ran the strips back and forth over the three machines one after the other. We went by the directions in Moore and Mohr's book, made three "Hiawatha"s in western cedar, and two in redwood. Fun project.
Regards,
Ray Pine
I'm a bit puzzled by why you and Alan (above) both say it's OK to use flat sawn cedar instead of VG. I'm not arguing over this because I simply don't know, but yesterday I checked another boat-building site and they also recommend/specify vertical grain. Maybe it's an esthetic thing, not structural?
Jimma,
Here's the thing: Looking at the end grain of a flat-sawn board, the growth rings are more or less parallel to the board's faces. When you rip that board into strips, the face side of the board becomes the edge of the strip, the edge of the board is now the face of the strip, and the grain is oriented more or less perpendicular to the face of the strip, that is, vertical grain.
If you start with quartersawn boards to rip the strips from, the opposite will occur, and you'll end up with flatsawn grain on the faces of the strips.
Personally, I don't think it really makes any difference structurally, and the strips are whippy enough to bend easily over the stations they are fastened to, but the striped grain looks better to me.
Regards,
Ray Pine
I guess we're talking woodworking 101 here. That's not the issue. The issue is why some boatbulding "pros" recommend VGWRC. If all that was involved was taking any piece of cedar and resawing it, I would be perplexed. Besides, I can't find a reasonable source fort clear grades no matter how it's milled.
It really is as simple as start from flat grain to get vertical grain, and then run the bead and cove molding on the edges. If you buy pre-cut strips you want to by vertical grain, because of the ease of planing and sanding the molded finish to an uniform core. But, there is no law against using one or the other, its almost entirely an esthetic issue since the strength comes largely from the fiberglass separated by the wood core.
I looked at the idea of milling the strips, but decided that buying pre-milled strips would get the process underway a lot faster, with a lot less time wearing dust masks.
Mac is quite a character.
I met him and took his class at the woodenboat school in Maine.
I went there for 1 class and ended up there all summer.
I learned traditional boat building from lofting on up to timber bending.
I ended up in Maine working at various boatyards. I learned a lot from the craftsmen in Maine.
Try steam bending a 4" thick teak plank!
Scott[email protected]
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I can't tell you where to get cedar from. I was just wondering if you're making it out of cedar, because that's what everybody makes them with or if it's because you really like the look of the wood. I assume Redwood would also be expensive. The species of wood doesn't really matter, because it's completely resin encapsulated, and therefore doesn't rot if taken care of. So any clear grained, light weight wood will work ( Poplar or Willow maybe). At the prices that you're looking at Mahogany would be in the ballpark.
Mahogany might be a decent alternative, but it's harder to work. One reason I asked about VG WRC is that's what most canoe and kayak builders I'm aware of have used and the one recommended in Mac McCarthy's book on building the Wee Lassie design. I visited Rod Million (a retired doctor at http://www.bigwoodieboats.com) and that's what he has used in his canoes and boats. I can only guess that workability, light weight, and stability figure into it -- especially the weight factor. (Rod's strips are only 3/16s or less in thickness and the vertical grain minimizes splits and tears while conforming easily to the hull shapes.) Thanks for your response. I'll send updates...
If you are in Fla there is a lot of cedar around the panhandle and Ga. I built a 21 ' power launch and got it there. Previously, I built a strip built kayak and there is an excellent forum by Nick Schade who builds the Guillemot kayak; he is also author of the best primer on building strip kayaks. This forum (do a search on Google) has tons of info including sources for strips and everything you need. I believe there is also a canoe section in the forum as well. Definitely get the forum, great bunch of folk always willing to help the newby.
Sail -- I can't thank you enough for putting me on to the Guillemont website, especially because of the links it has. I've spent the whole morning looking at its contents, especially the link to Ross Leidy's site. It is most impressive, both for its content and the execution of the site itself with its many, many clear pictures. Wow! Also, it looks like my question about the reason for vertical grain strips may have been answered when Leidy pointed out how differently the strips can look when fairing the assembled hull. In any case, I see yet another source (Classic Boat Kits) for the cove and bead strips offers vertical grain strips in their kits and lumber. The complete kits are quite appealing, also, since it would keep you from running all over the place to get everything including the lumber and at a decent price -- plus, the kit matches the plans in McCarthy's book. This may be the way I go if something else doesn't turn out to be more competitive. As for shopping around in Northern Florida for lumber, it would be hard to do from Orlando without having input from somebody there who knows the range of options/providers. I used to have a satellite office in Panama City and it took about six hours to drive there from here and since I have no idea which are the mills to check out. But -- it's an option. Again, thanks for the website referral this morning. I'm in love!
Jim, glad that helped. I just remembered that I got my strips from Classic. I think they are in Canada; they did a nice job. There are a lot of helpful folk on that forum and that truly helped me a lot when I did my first boat.
If you really get into boat building after the canoe, talk to me and I will get you started on the 21' boat I did. :) I am just getting ready to start a 17' sail boat designed in 1888; this stuff can get to you. Good luck!! Holler if I can help further!
I think my wife and I are going to meet another couple in Charleston this spring. If so, can I invite myself to see your boat?
Be more than happy to show you what we have. I didn't take any pictures of the strip built kayak (my first project) but I put together a sequential pictorial of the building of the 21' boat and it is posted on a Sony Imagestation website. I will attempt to attach instructions to this note on how to get there. No charge to join, just a few Sony ads every month or so.
Alex -- That's some project, alright. I checked out your pictures and noted that you had a partner. From the looks of the completed boat, it looks like iit's at least a two-man project! Nice work and a lot more ambitious that I'm interested in. By the way, I heard from Mac McCarthy's son this morning and he said his dad recommends one of the sites you sent me for bead &cove VG cedar.
Thanks Jim. It was a big project, actually took about 3 years. I didn't think it would be that long but heck I am retired and as long as I could finish it before they put me in the box, I say okay. Fair warning, it all started with the strip built :)
Atlantic White Cedar is an alternative you should be able to find in your area.
My understanding is that the choice of wood is almost entirely an issue of weight and cosmetics. Once you have glassed the hull, you have a fiberglass boat, not a wood boat. The glass is providing the strength. The wood does nothing but separate the layers of glass.
I think this has been made clear already, but if you cut a plainsawn board into strips, you will get strips that are quartersawn (vertical grain) on the wide side. If you start with the more expensive and harder to find quarter sawn boards, you will be turning them into plainsawn strips.
Well, if you follow some of the links suggested by the boat builders above, you will learn that there's an esthetic element in the decision to use vertical grain vs other sawn lumber. I'm not a boat expert, but I am a furniture maker. The choice of vertical grain for strips has more to do with a uniform look to the finished layup than to any structural or procedural reason. In the next few weeks I'll report in on my progress. Right now, thanks to folks above, I'm leaning toward ordering VG WRC already resawn and milled with cove and bead edges ready to assemble. Unfortunately, the US softwood lumber lobby has all but stopped distribution of WRC from Canada and other sources. As for other species, the accent strips offer an opportunity to incorporate whatever wood suits the design and I'll probably spend some time selecting species by color for that application. Do you have boat building experience?
What is Vertical grain cedar? is it then the grain is at 90 degrees to the surface?
Which is precisely antitheme to what most wood is cut (for effieciency), so if you need thin strips, you may be able to rip them out of the cheaper material, beit 4/4 or 8/4 provide yu can find it clear enuf. (boats, like roofs, don't like holes.....)
Probably.
Methinks from the tone of yer post, yer in the NW, where cedar grows wild and free...
So.... You go into the lumber yard, and look at the cedar, I dunno what kinda dimension you is looking fir (no pun intended) for yer strips, but if you look at the 12" stuff, ( probably cut out of the sufff closest to the center of the tree , you may find that 80% of it might be able to be classified as VG cedar ONCE YOU RIP IT UP.
Hey, you may even have to look at 2" rough stuff if you need wider strips.
A lot of this "specific material: stuff specified by wwing tomes and rags relies on the WWr's abilitity to viualize cuttings from rough stock AND the ability to pay for someone else to do it for them.
Visualize., if you will.... (take a carpenters pencil with ya to the lumber yard if ya need to....) Take yer time, don't panic, and when you see what you want in the end grain of the piece, and when you are sure that is what you want, why, grasshopper , you will know it.
Eric
in Cowtown
It all depends on the look you want ...
Cut your boards into 13/16 x 13/16 squares and then cut into strips to get the orientation you want.
I get clear Northern White Cedar 8/4 from a little place in CT - Wood, Glass, and Steele.
I get clear Western Red Cedar 4"x6"x10' from a place in Montana. $8/bdft delivered in lots of 5.
I get crotch Mahogany from Canada - $12-15/cdft.
It is not hard to find wood.
Thanks for the tips. At the moment, strips already cut with cove and bead milled are looking like a good move since I'm only planning to make one boat. Can you tell the location and name of the cedar source in Montana?
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