best wood for keel

[Islands]

:roll:

OK here i am trying to deside what wood to use for the keel, and have run into a quandry, the plans say pine, fir, or other wood, I love fir but clear fir is like gold along with clear pine. So I thought why not use 2x? and surface it down with a planer, {too much of the New Yankee Workshop}, but then I relised that most 2x? is green wood and would need to air dry, so again I thinks what about reclaimed wood, it is older and more stable, (just make sure you get all of the old nails, screws, ect out of it). Another thought I had was what about voids useing the S4S that is on the shelf, OK back to the planer and a smooth surface, so what way do I go I love collecting toys (tools)

John

[capt jake]

Welcome Islands!! Well, you will get as many opinions as they are members on this topic. You are better off with laminations, as they help to stabilize the movement of the wood. Your idea of reclaimed wood is great. I always like to reuse rather than waste new, if you follow me on that.

Hemlock wold be another option. you can find it readily in lumber yards. It is used for interior trim quite a bit (thank you Arnie for refreshing my memory). I saw some really nice Southern Yellow Pine in Lowes the other day, but it was pricey. They were calling it something other than what it truly is. BTW Southern Yellow Pine is far better than White Pine (the knotty stuff that you find everywhere).

Joel built his out of laminations of plywood.

I am unclear on what you mean by voids in s4s off the shelf. If you want to buy tools, a planer is a great tool to have. I generally buy rough and plane it my self. I save some money, but that turns into a litttle time.

There is a store near here that is a building material outlet. They have a lot of Fir, Mahogany, etc at nearly 1/3 the normal retail price. See if you can find something like this in your area. This is where I bought all of my Mahogany, $3/bf.

Good luck!!

[Derek]

Jake, what place is that? I am getting ready to go buy keel lumber. Is that the second hand place downtown?

[capt jake]

Nope, they are pricey for most things. Though the money does go to a good cause, Habitat For Humanity.

This place is in Puyallup, on Main Street. Building Materials Outlet, big yellow building just East of 512 on Main. Their stock turns quickly. They had three huge slings of Honduran and African a month ago, now it is all but gone. They have a big variety, most will need planing. Derick, we can talk about the plaing if you need!! :wink:

[Derek]

cool. i'll make a note so i can buzz up there some time and check it out. thanks for the planning note. any chance to use the big boy tools, hey?

[capt jake]

any chance to use the big boy tools, hey

We can work something out.

I drive by that place, or I can drive by, on a regular basis. Let me know what you want and I can take a look. Can't haul much with the Geo (8' is the max), but I will look for you.

[Derek]

at least the pt cruiser has a roof rack! I have no problem scarfing shorter stuff either. guess i am thinking about fir, then sy pine, hemlock or similar. kind of intrigued by joel's ply keel. if you're by there, and don't go out of your way on my account, would be interested knowing if they have in stock and price. suppose i could call them too, huh?

side note - get the boat back on the cradle yet?

[capt jake]

See, "I am nearing the end". Short story, yes it is on the cradle. Took some thinking and rigging! :D

[Frank Hagan]

:roll:

OK here i am trying to deside what wood to use for the keel' date=' and have run into a quandry, the plans say pine, fir, or other wood, I love fir but clear fir is like gold along with clear pine. So I thought why not use 2x? and surface it down with a planer, {too much of the New Yankee Workshop}, but then I relised that most 2x? is green wood and would need to air dry, so again I thinks what about reclaimed wood, it is older and more stable, (just make sure you get all of the old nails, screws, ect out of it). Another thought I had was what about voids useing the S4S that is on the shelf, OK back to the planer and a smooth surface, so what way do I go I love collecting toys (tools)

John[/quote']

John, I had 2x douglas fir No.2 or better resawn to make my keel 1x's ... I detail it on my site at http://users2.ev1.net/~fshagan/weekender.htm

I wouldn't recommend going that route because resawing causes differences in thicknesses between the boards, so you have a lot of finishing work to do. But feeding a 2 x 12 x 14 through a planer does make sense.

The keel doesn't really need clear wood. No. 2 or better is fine ... its a 3 lamination construction, so even if you have a knot fall out, just fill it in with epoxy and you're set.

With either resawn or planed 2x material, you are right, it does have some moisture content left (even if it says "kiln dried"). You have two choices, you can either sticker it and allow it to air dry some more, or do what I did .... glue it up within a day of having it resawn. Flip the boards during lofting so that the growth rings go opposite directions, cut them out, and glue them up right away. The extremely wide glue line from this lamination should serve to keep the keel from cupping. Mine came out flat, just by laying on the garage floor after glue up. One builder has a keel that has a curve in it ... 1/2" or something like that ... and no one can tell while sailing it that its there.

[Denis Goyette]

:shock:

First of all Island welcome to Messing about. on your question for the wood, there is a lot of great advices on here . But please dont do like I did......DONT THINK IT TO DEATH.otherwise you will never get started.

I personally I used pine.

Good luck

Denis

[capt jake]

DONT THINK IT TO DEATH.

Now I have to take that advice!! :oops:

[John Weigandt]

I had some real nice 2x stock planed down. They charged me maybe 10 bucks to do the stack.

I'm sure that the guy did it with a tear in his eye, but I got to hand select and the lumber was cheap, by comparison.

I also went with an unglassed keel, which since I launched in '98 seems to be holding up OK.

I plan on lifting her off the trailer for detailed inspection this spring, and may have to do some googe patrol, but I felt unglassed meant self drying on the trailer, and less potential for rot.

that keel has taken a beating... including the time that I hit a submerged tree in the fog while motoring...hmm does my wife read this forum? Suffice it to say, I think another ply boat would have been holed.

John

[Islands]

Have to thank everyone for their input, Guess that goes with out saying I was not trying to think it to death LOL, but wondering what would get me the most for my buck, and an excuse to get some new toys, You all know how wives and girl friends can be :oops: . My girl friend did buy me a very nice Porter Cable saw for christmas, and is ready to go sailing, and with this 80+ degree weather we have had for the last few days she keeps looking at the Vidios and reading boat plans ( think she wants this more then me)

I have been reading this Fourm and the one on MSN for as long as I can remember, and guesed it was time to join 8)

John

[capt jake]

To add to your confusion... I don't see any reason to not cover the keel with glass and epoxy. Drying out doesn't make sense to me..what about the reast of the sheathed hull??

Anyway, mine has up to 4 layers of 6 oz cloth on the keel. the hull has 1 layer. It took a ptreety god hit during the last rollover, but only a minor dent. About the size of a quarter, after hitting a very square corner (darned welder anyway!). LOL A little bondo and all is well.. 8)

[Konrad in Lincoln]

I used plain old dirty # 2 regular pine 1x12's in the bottom of the lumberyard rack. No scarf joints or anything, I just butted it all together and kept going. That was 3 1/2 years ago, and all is well. Don't lose too much sleep over the keel material, you'll be fine with whatever you choose. (Vacationer)

[Frank Hagan]

Konrad, didn't you have the "compression cracks" on the keel when you tightened down the straps holding the boat to the trailer? I may have you confused with someone else, but I thought that was you ... it was one reason I'm not a fan of glassing the keel, especially if you've used green wood, as it will shrink as it dries, leaving voids and susceptibility to that kind of cracking.

[capt jake]

Frank, I remember the post you are talking about, but I can't find it either. I thought it was a blue colored hull, and thought it was a Weekender. My recollection was that the cracks were due to water absorbtion. Interesting!! I know that the keel on mine, once died out, had several 'openings' in the glue line. It had a life near the coast prior to when I bought it. It didn't take long for all of the parts to dry out in the shop. The mast stub wouldn't fit at all, but after about 2 weeks, it slid wight in.

[Guest guest]

You guys might be thinking of Craig and his boat the "SaraLee". He had problems with the keel on his Vacationer. It was caused by water absorption at the lower striker rod and in the stern block. It caused the keel to swell and split the fiberglass. He details the problems and his fix on his website.

http://members.cox.net/bb343/index.htm

I'm trying to figure out how to support the keel of my Vacationer when on the trailer. I would prefer having two maybe three areas of support rather than just one small area. I also fiberglassed the keel, but I also attached a sacrificial rail down the middle of the keel to avoid damage to the fiberglass.

Bob Cox

[Konrad in Lincoln]

No problems when tightening down the straps on the trailer.

I had a problem with a few pinhole leaks in my glass, causing the wood to swell behind it and break the glass apart. This happened in two places, but wasn't a result of the kind or type of wood. But it does reinforce your position about not glassing the keel. I'm rather inclined to believe that's a good route to go, now that I've been through it once. But the plans said to do it, so who was I to argue?

Once I sealed up the holes, I haven't had any problems since. But you do have to be diligent with your glassing method.