Lumber needs??? Fir vs ???? CS 20 104

[Maria CS20 104]

I have been trying like heck to get some Douglas Fir and had little luck with some dimensional stock but nothing of significant size and not much quantity.  Obviously need some long material for stringer etc.  I am at the point of getting ready to put butterfly together, all but one joint to finish for a side of the boat.  What alternatives in lumber would be suitable in strength and durability?  Cyprus?  No spruce available that isn't pieced 2 x 6's.  What are others doing.  Will take pictures of the parts and pieces and the garage setup we have established as "Boat Central" for the time being and get them into the system this week.  Wife is amazing lady, I can't seem to ask for some item to use and she has no objection, she say's she can see this boat in my eyes and she is excited to see it form up and come together.  Any ideas on lumber substitute for fir????

Jim A

[Cricket]

Hi Jim,

I don't know what your location is, but I have had good luck at my local Lowes with dimensioned 1x4 and 1x6 clear fir. 12 footers are the longest I find, but I just scarf up a 12 and an 8, straight-line one edge with a router, then rip out the strips. If they do carry the fir, you may have to make periodic visits to snatch the best stuff. There is a supplier of boat quality timber just upstate from me in NYC, but the prices are shocking. To think I used to buy clear sitka spruce from them for $4 a board foot!

As for cypress, I used some for glued up hiking rails on a sailing canoe, and though pretty, I found it kind of wanky and twisty. Buying anything in long (20') clear lengths is hard nowadays, and very pricey. Some folks like to buy air dried structural fir in 2x or 3x thicknesses which is cheap, and rip out around the knots. I've found this to be a good solution for heftier chunks, like stem aprons and skegs on more trad. boats, but this won't apply to the Core Sound types.

I wouldn't discount the box stores, as they sometimes have what you need and have the buying clout to provide it pretty cheap.

Jim Luton

[Maria CS20 104]

I am in North Central Louisiana halfway between Shreveport LA. and Vicksburg MS.  I will keep looking, there is a specialty lumber guy here but he has had dimensional lumber only 3/4 in thickness which will work for deck frames, and might be planed for other uses.  Maybe he can order me some 4 x 4 's in 12 to 16 foot length, I'll have to call today and find out.  If I have to order fromo elsewhere I will have to check with Ray F or Graham for potential locations close by.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Jim

[Charlie Jones]

I'm sorry- I don't understand- WHAT do you want with 4 x 4'S???

[Maria CS20 104]

My plan was to cut them down to exact dimensions and scarf as necessary, I am new at this what would you recommend?  Help

Jim

[Charlie Jones]

on both the 17 and the 20 I built I don't recall needing anything over 3/4 thick, even for the mast staves, with the exception of the keels and center boards, which can be gotten out of 2 x stock quite easily by resawing.

The Princess 22 did need a healthy chunk of timber for the keelson aft of the lead ballast, but that's the ONLY large bock of wood I can recall in any of them.

This off the top of my head without checking with the plans- remember- I'm an old guy and sometimes forget things ;D

By the way- ask your local lumber yard- the GOOD one, if they can and will order fir for you. Mine used to do so as long as I got several boards and paid for it on arrival. Now I drive down to Rockport, Tx to get it. 50 miles each way.

[Maria CS20 104]

Thanks Charlie, I was most concerned about the keel plank and the keel itself.  I figured I could get quite a bit of very straight material from 4 x 4's.  I've build a few cabinets and several pieces of furniture in the past, including some elaborate night stands.  Several kitchen roll around cabinets and I used 4 x 4 ;s for legs, I found that long lengths of douglas fir were usually very straight, being a bit more spendy the yards usually kept them in a secure dry area.  Nice thing was no warp, cracks and fir I have used had no knots or sap pockets.  I had little waste as I cut these down and all the left over material was perfect on weight and strength for side and bottom framing on these units.  I used to get them in New Orleans, but that is four and a half hours away.  I had to go there for my plywood and I should have gotten the fir then, but my old brain is fairly single tracked and takes one thing at a time.  I am headed over to the fellow on I-165 here in a minunte to see what we can come up with.  Thanks again for the feedback.  Keep ya posted.

Jim

[Howard]

Jim:

I live in central Missouri, and no where near any source of "marine grade" lumber. So you have to scrounge for it.

Forget Lowes and Home Depot. As a general rule, they will have a poor selection of high priced stuff. Stick to the local yards. Where I live, we have two large privately owned lumber yards, and a couple smaller "local chains". They have what you want. What I did was go to the local lumber yards and look for construction grade doug fir in 2x12 dimensions. (Do not let them talk you into hem fir. Not the same thing at all).

First, a primer on what you will find:

http://www.tuktupaddles.com/lumber.htm

In most cases folks will talk about wanting quarter sawn lumber to get the orientation of the rings right. You won't find that in local yards. It will ALL be flat or plain sawn. So the goal is to make quarter sawn from plain sawn.

When I was looking for lumber, I picked through a newly opened bundle of 2" x 12" x 12'. Came home with these three:

All plain sawn. Bottom board has a core of pith wood....to be cutout and tossed. You also don't want the light colored sap wood on the sides. Trying to get good stuff from the outside pieces. Note the orientation and spacing of the growth rings. The bottom looks like it was in a thick stand that was thinned, then the tree took off growing until it was cut. Middle board was very old....top board a much bigger tree, and it might have weighted 25% more than the other two. Very solid stuff. If you started ripping this board down, you could get a lot of clear cleat stock at any thickness you wanted. Plain sawn like it is will warp.

A look at the plain sawn top board. Really clear all the way down.

These pieces were gotten out of the bottom board and are clear. The pith core twisted in a spiral when it was freed up from the rest of the board, but these outside pieces stayed flat and didn't warp.

This is how I would go about looking for decent doug fir in an area that doest have high quality, quarter sawn stock for the marine building trades. There was some waste, but my net cost was way less than if I were to drive 100 miles to KC to a lumber yard that stocks clear Select doug fir for the furniture trades.

[Howard]

Thanks Charlie, I was most concerned about the keel plank and the keel itself.  I figured I could get quite a bit of very straight material from 4 x 4's.  I've build a few cabinets and several pieces of furniture in the past, including some elaborate night stands.  Several kitchen roll around cabinets and I used 4 x 4 ;s for legs, I found that long lengths of douglas fir were usually very straight, being a bit more spendy the yards usually kept them in a secure dry area.  Nice thing was no warp, cracks and fir I have used had no knots or sap pockets.  I had little waste as I cut these down and all the left over material was perfect on weight and strength for side and bottom framing on these units.  I used to get them in New Orleans, but that is four and a half hours away.  I had to go there for my plywood and I should have gotten the fir then, but my old brain is fairly single tracked and takes one thing at a time.  I am headed over to the fellow on I-165 here in a minunte to see what we can come up with.  Thanks again for the feedback.  Keep ya posted.

Jim

Huh? You don't sound new at this at all. 

[Maria CS20 104]

I am new to serious boat buildig, built a pram 42 years ago.  This adventure reminds me of serious funiture work but I have several uncertianties that hopefully with the guide of you fine folks will become resloved during this adventure.  The pictures of the fir were awesome and will help me explain this "wood working" stuff to my 23 year old son who happens to be my partner in this crime.  I have a full wood shop, except lathe, and the equipment does not get used nearly as much as it should, embarrassing to say the least.  I also have a bride of 26 years who has been known on occassion to cut frozen fish with my radial arm saw (until I made her usse the band saw), again embarrassing to say the least.  :

Jim

[Tom Lathrop]

It depends on what you want the wood for as to whether "high quality" stuff is needed. In a S&G boat like the CS, there are precious few places where high quality is called for.  Most will be used in making blind joints between plywood panels.  No need for long clear stuff here.  All that is required is adequate gluing surface and an integrity strong enough to transfer stress from one member to the other.  If good doug fir is on hand, then by all means use it, but it would be a waste of the material and money to speed a lot of effort to search for it.  Construction grade spruce, cedars, cypress, sugar pine, poplar or even the hem-fir that Howard mentions is OK.  Such wood as yellow pine or any of the heavier and stronger sycamores, oaks, birches, etc, are good enough but over kill in both strength and, especially, weight for corner joints of plywood panels. 

For corner joins of ply panels, no strength is lost in using separate shorter pieces with set-in-place butt joints.  Only in spots where beam strength is important will you need either long pieces or scarf joints.  This would be deck beams, hull bottom or seat stiffeners and mast sections. 

If we are building a plank on frame boat, all the above goes out the window but why make the job more difficult or complicated that is needs to be?  The rest can be from the scrap pile and the boat will not suffer.  This does not mean that the boat will turn out to be "quick and dirty" and it can be just as much a show piece as any other.  I, for one, am extremely pleased when I can make some use of the ever growing pile of wood off cuts that seem on the verge of crowding me out of my shop space.

[Cricket]

I don't think you're going to build your spars from the "scrap pile", unless your pile is pretty select. There is a lot of work that goes into a birdsmouth mast and boom, for example, and I wouldn't want anything but clear doug fir or spruce. And in defense of my choice of Lowes, I bought all the fir for the mast and boom for Cricket there, and paid $18 for a clear 1x6 vg fir. That's $3 a board foot. In this day and time, not a bad price. In my experience, the big structural stuff is grown so fast, that the growth rings are are too widely spaced for spar work. Great for thicker pieces where needed (and there's always aluminum). But Tom is certainly right about the interior structural components of a composite structure like the Core Sounds.

I buy lumber from a very many sources; ply ,veneer, exotics, and I choose what is appropriate for the task.

Jim Luton

[paul_stewart]

I am new to serious boat buildig  ... built a pram 42 years ago ...  my 23 year old son who happens to be my partner in this crime. .... bride of 26 years who has been known on occassion to cut frozen fish with my radial arm saw ....  :

Jim A

Jim,

Good luck with #104.  Sounds like you and I might have a few things in common.  One of the very best experiences in my life was building and sailing CS20 #103  with my 22 year old son  --who was the expert one explaining this "wood working" stuff to me--  and with my wife who put in long hours on the priming and painting efforts.  A CS20 is a great project for the family.   Talk about "quality time";  this is the best!   Plus, your wife is already up to speed on the radial arm saw!

--Paul 

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http://www.messing-about.com/forums/index.php?topic=5825.0.   

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http://www.messing-about.com/forums/index.php?topic=5825.60 

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[Howard]

And in defense of my choice of Lowes, I bought all the fir for the mast and boom for Cricket there, and paid $18 for a clear 1x6 vg fir. That's $3 a board foot. In this day and time, not a bad price.

Jim Luton

Jim:

Sounds like you have a better grade of Lowe's than I do. Our's is a big store, but they only have part of one isle devoted to lumber. I asked about their doug fir and was told "We don't have any. We are not that kind of store". You need to go to a real lumber yard for that. Slightly better selection at HD, but no doug fir. I have seen some halfway decent 2x6 framing studs that looked like fir hiding out in the spf pile (all picked over btw), that a person could use as Tom mentions.

At the lumber yard, I told them what I was up to and they left me alone out in the yard for about an hour, allowing me to pick through an entire pile to find stuff without knots.

BTW, I also recently scored some perfectly clear 2" x 8" x 10' rough western red cedar for $8 per board at a salvage lumber place. New boards. Was shocked when the local yard priced the same thing to me at $27 per board. Was told there is currently a shortage of western red cedar. It was about the same price, or more, than redwood.

[Tom Lathrop]

This is the centerboard and rudder blade for Lapwing.  All made from stuff found in the scrap stacks.  Wood is spruce, fir, yellow pine and cherry.  I'd never make a spar from such short scrap but happy to have found a use for it.  The piece of epoxy saturated line on the leading edge of the CB is of unknown origin, also found in the scrap rope box.

[Cricket]

Howard,

Go back and buy every stick of cedar he's got at that price! That's a real find. I think you are right that there is much variation in product inventory from store to store in the same chain. Why my particular Lowes carries the fir I don't know. Also, it's halfway between my house and my shop, so very convenient.

Tom suggested poplar, which remains one of the great deals in domestic lumber. It's a staple in my cabinet shop for paint grade work, and I've bought hundreds of board feet of it. I can order rough 4/4 and 5/4 in long lengths for well under $2 a board foot, and always have a pile on the rack.

A question for Tom. Did you publish a manual on composite construction of the Windmill? I bought this a few years ago and found it exceptional. I don't have it at my fingertips, so I can't check the title, but will look when I get home. Have you enjoyed the glued lap construction? I have built a few myself, and found it to be a great way to build. I'd love to see a Lapwing type in the size range of the CS 17 and 20!

Good luck on your lumber search Jim, and happy boat building.

Jim Luton

[Maria CS20 104]

Hey folks I'm back from the lumber yard, you won't believe what I found and bought.  Douglas fir, a regular gold mine of 25 year old material the fellow bought in the early 1980's found and bought 2 2x12x16 foot clear sraight monsters for $80 each, picked up 4 more 1x8x7 footers for $5 each, total bill with delivery of 16 footers $195.  UNREAL, he is no longer ordering any and told me to come out this next week and weekend a dig though his older barn for as much as I can fine at the same cost level.  All good tight grained stuff, he has some hemlock but that stuff shatters when really dry.  This has a 1/16 inch of dust on places, looks like my work is cut out for me.  Wife says get out the credit card and get what I want, won't find this kind of material again, certianlynot in this area of the country, or maybe anywhere else.  I did buy 5 of the 1x8x7 footers from him a few weeks ago and he said he didn'e have anymore but 1by materials, some of which I will gather, saw several 1x12x16 ers in another part of the shed when I got the 5 boards but really wanted 2by material.  Called him yesterday and he remembered some stuff he thought he had in an out of the way corner, unfortuneatly no 4x4 material, lots of cyprus and no spruce.  He has a really good pile of exotics and some teak, tempting but scary, I'll check out the price.  Some of his material, according to him is 30 plus years old, including mahogany in 2by with significant lengths of 10 feet or more, it sure would look good for accent pieces.  Keep ya posted.  All side pieces and bottom pieces together, need to make and install stringers and it is then wire up time.  For intalling the stringers, ideas on best method????  Already marked on sides, measured and marked before cutout.  Thanks for the input  8)

Jim

[ulpilotrmh]

Maria CS20 104, where are you located?

Russ

[Tom Lathrop]

Jim, I did do a bit of redesign of the Windmill to convert it to female mold-built composite construction.  The manuals are now with the pictures in color in which the details are far more visible than the old Xerox ones.  These boats are doing well in competition with the fiberglass ones.  A Windmill was my first, and still my favorite, racing sailboat.

Charlie Jones sharpie was designed by John Harris, a former Windmill sailor, which may explain why it is so lively and tippy.  By converting it to a trimaran, Charlie seems to have made it into a more comfortable but still lively craft.

For everyone else, the photo is of the first composite Windmill as it won the Southern Championships at Grand Lagoon, FL in 1995.  Son Mark is the skipper and the old man is crewing.

Edited to add that although the Lapwing is only 2" longer than the Windmill, it's a much bigger boat and should carry several adults comfortably. 

Like many boatbuilders and woodworkers, I buy or accept lumber when I find it, whether I need it right away or not.  If you wait until you need a specific piece,  it's often difficult to impossible to find just what you want. 

[Maria CS20 104]

Hey all, I went to the specialty lumber yard yesterday after calling him up and discussing the wood issues.  A couple of weeks ago I got 5 1x8x7 foot fir boards for $5 each, a steal and when I bought them I questioned his pricing, but he said that was the price.  He also told me at that time that he had limited amounts of 1-by but didn't remember any other fir material in storage.  Yesterday, he said he thought he might have some 2-by stuff in the back dark corner of the 2nd barn and I was welcome to come look.  I went out and found 2 2x12x16 footers clear and straight as an arrow, pretty tight rings as well.  He apparently bought these in 1981 and these went unsold.  I got them for $80 each.  I looked a little further and didn't find any more but I had to get going.  He told me to come back today or tommorrow and we could go through all the storage areas and another barn to see if he might have more.  We spotted two 1x12x16 footers on the way out, they are holdibng them for me, $40 each.  Mom said to get out the card and get all we can find, I agree this stuff has been stored well and although some have as much as a 1/16th dust cover, the wood is clear and straight.  I think I found a wood mine and just hit pay dirt.

Jim