What about Yellow Pine?

[Sea Hair]

I have found some clean #2 Yellow Pine 1X12's at a local lumber store,

and I'm thinking about using them for planking.

Or skin if you will.

This will be a Lake and River boat. What about warping?

[PAR]

Any wide plank will warp or cup if it's flat sawn, which these likely are. Yellow pine is a fine wood, but a bit heavy as planking on a small boat. What type of build is it and what design?

[Greg Luckett]

I have seen the yellow pine used for boat framing and ribs and it did well there, but not for hull planking.

[Sea Hair]

It's an original design, about an eleven foot skiff, flat bottomed, or a slight 'V'.

A few years ago I built an eight foot skiff, it's fun, but its just too small.

I'm thinking about stretching it a little.

Those yellow pine boards do have a little weight to 'em, I noticed when I was

shifting them a round. But plywood has some weight too. I noticed that, on my

8 Footer, the heaviest thing was the quarter inch plywood bottom.

I was looking for clear 1X12 spruce, But so far I've come up empty.

(Oh, and a Sea Hair, is an underwater bunny-rabbit, look'n thing.)

[PAR]

SYP can be used for planking, but alter the scantlings so you don't have a heavy boat. Also cut the boards down, as the 12" wide stock will very likely have pith and heart wood, which wouldn't be desirable in planking. An 11' boat wouldn't need anything near 1x12 planking. half this thickness would be sufficient, with reasonably plank widths.

[Sea Hair]

You are so right, Running them through a planer would be the way to go.

Thanks for your help.

I've been cutting up downed trees and fixing my power line. Looks like I'll have to wait on my project for a little while.

By the way, I had a lot of trouble with the question, on the sign-up, "Is a boat used on water or land?".

[CutterBuild]

Hi there Sea Hair,

I haven't had the best experience with #2 Yellow Pine and warping. Last year I used it to laminate the 20' keel on my cutter. Even with 6 layers of 2x8s laminated with epoxy, the keel piece had noticeably warped by the end of the summer! I ended up have to reshape the entire thing with a power planer. See here: http://www.buildingluna.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html

I went with rift sawn white oak purchased from a sawmill for about 1.50 bf from there on out and it the tiny amount more I paid for it has been worth it!

[PAR]

If you attempt to laminate (with the usual marine epoxies) any stock over 1" thick, you'll usually have enough internal stress built up in the stock, to cause warping. This is especially true of hardwoods, such as your oak. Softwoods, particularly if they are light weight can exceed this 1" limit, but not by much. On hardwoods I don't recommend anything more than 3/4" thick laminates.

[CutterBuild]

PAR-- I didn't know this! I figured it was just the quality of wood I used. Good to know for The Next Boat.

[PAR]

Wide relatively thin stock tends to cup. If you find a 1x12, it'll have heart wood, pith, and all sorts of stuff in it that can cause issues. The best thing you can do with a 1x12, is rip it down the middle, making two 1x6's. These can be edge glued, after spinning one of them around so the majority of the defects and internal stresses get "released" by the cut. Quarter and rift sawn stock is less prone to this, but it still can occur. The wood will want to "relax" toward the outside of the tree. Using alternating or opposing grain orientation in the laminate can help this, but laminate thicknesses and count (number of layers in the laminate) are the real keys.