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Spindrift 10N Gunwale question


BrianM83

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I will be building the Spindrift 10N as my first boat and have gone over the plans many times, but I am still a bit confused about the gunwales. I don't see anywhere what the dimensions should be. I see that it is 3 layers laminated, but what height and thickness?

I stopped by a marine wood store yesterday and the person there suggested mahogany for all the solid stock wood. This dinghy will get painted so the look of the wood is not important. Is mahogany the best choice or is there a better option? I am concerned about bending the mahogany to shape the gunwales so I was thinking I could use the okume 1/4 ply. Any suggestions?

Thanks and I am looking forward to this build.

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You should find a page labelled  "Keel / Gunwales"  It has an accurate cross-section showing the build up of the gunwales.  Any reasonably straight grained hardwood will work for the gunwales is sealed in epoxy and painted.  Mahogany is a great choice, but beware that Mahogany is one of the most misused lables for woods and most called it are not.  Sweetenia (proper Mahogany) or Khaya (African Mahogany) would both work well.  But if painted you might find something cheaper that will work just fine. I would not use Okoume plywood.  It is too soft.

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I believe the plan sheet Dave provided is similar to what was provided for my Spindrift 10n. The laminations are 1/4", and probably need to come from a 12' board. They will be slightly longer than 10' and you need a bit of extra material to wrap around the transom.  Best way is to select a piece of flat sawn 2x stock, which if dry, will be less than 1 1/2 inches to start with. Laminations ripped from flat sawn stock will become vertical grain or quarter sawn, which is what you want to laminate with. Since you are going to paint them, the choice of wood to use opens up a lot.  Douglas Fir would work, as would yellow pine. These are relatively inexpensive, easy to work and are strong. When they dry out, both are pretty hard and durable.

 

A secondary issue is if you intent to install a bumper, such as split fire hose. Normally, bumpers are nailed on, as shown on the plan sheet Dave provided. A nail hole opens a pathway for water intrusion and thus rot. So if you were going to nail on a bumper, that eliminates a lot of rot prone wood choices such as ash, red oak, etc. The suggested material once upon a time was CCA treated yellow pine lumber. If you can get true CCA, that would be a good choice, but note that CCA is no longer available at most retail outlets. The replacements ACQ, CA and MCA may have issues with being compatible with epoxy and some of them are also corrosive to fasteners. I would not use mahogany, due to the expense and certainly not if you are going to paint it.

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My experience is a that boats like this is that the gunnels take a lot of abuse. I think mahaogany is pretty soft and a poor choice. Teak would be great, but super expensive. I have Teak on my 25 year old Sea Pearl, and it looks great and had taken a lot of abuse. What I did on my Spindrift was laminate three strips. The outside and inside were white oak, and the interior was philipine mahogony. I was going for a combo of lightweigt and style, but by the time I coated it all with epoxy, the colors don't contrast so much. White oak is a closed cell wood which some say makes it tough to epoxy and others say hogwash to all that. I am of the latter, and I have used White oak on many projects with great results, but be forwarned. It's a true hardwoood, so it's heavy.

 

On that subject, I was once buying a canoe, and I asked the salesman how much it weighed. He said 62 pounds, and it gets about 10 pounds heavier every 10 years. Now that I'm 51 I know what he meant! So lightness to me is important. If I was to build it again, I would have just used mahogony and than a 1/4" white oak strip on the outside for simplicity.  Every gram counts!

 

Take Care,

Steve

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So many retailers misuse the name Mahogany, and I would never trust a Home Depot about anything.  The only thing I find for Kahlua calls it a Maple, and I bet it is a marketing thing to promote the flooring because of the color.  It is getting to the point now that young people will be so confused by the bogus wording used these days and never understand about choosing woods based on knowing their genus and/or species and thus the characteristics of it.  It has gotten to the point where retailers have no issues calling anything in the reddish/brownish color area Mahogany.

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