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Upacreek

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Took my Firefly off the strongback the other night, didn't get a frog photo at the time. Did have the wife take a ham photo though! Loaded it on top of car to see how it looked too. Just curious how heavy other builders of the Firefly have been with just the framework? Mine weighs 27.2 lbs.. I used MDO plywood and pine siding for the stringer material. It comes already cut to the right thickness, and under $8.00 for a 8ft stick.

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Part of your weight is in the pine. Not sure the exact difference but I know pine is much heavier than cedar.

 

Looking at the photo on the car, not sure what I am seeing but the bow looks to be angled upward?  The flat on the bow should be inline with the gunwale stringer. It should make a smooth flowing line from front to back with no sudden changes.and the frames should be square with the strongback.  In the photo it looks like it leaning toward the stern of the boat.

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Depends on the sub genius to get an accurate weight on the pines, which range from the mid 20's to the mid 40's (pounds per cubic foot). It's basically divided into the hard and soft pine groups. The soft pines are a low density species with uniform grain. The usual suspects, which are very hard to distinguish from each other are: Eastern White, Western White, Sugar and Limber pine. I love eastern white and use a lot of it on small spars. This stuff can be found as low as 25 pounds, but more typically is closer to 27 - 28 pounds.

 

When you get into the hard pines, things get more complex, but generally divided into two distinct groups (which I will not get into). The easy way to tell the difference is first the weight, which can rival some hardwoods, with SYP being 35 to 45 pounds. Visually the grain will not be as uniform and the early/late wood transition will be abrupt, compaired to the gradual soft pine transitions. Shortleaf, Longleaf, Loblolly and Slash pine are the primary Southern Yellow sub genius. There are a few other notables of this sub genius: Spruce, Table Mountain, Pitch, Virginia and Pond pine. These generally are slightly lighter, in the 32 - 38 pound range.

 

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