Thread: boatbuilding woods

That's a much bigger question than perhaps you realise. Perhaps if you take a look at this page and read up on the various timbers listed you'll get an idea of just how big

Howdy,

Mostly boats are built in medium density softwoods. Some heavier hardwoods may be used in specific locations on some designs.

The most sensible approach is to decide on a boat plan and then see if it is feasible rather than a scattergun approach of finding out about every boatbuilding wood in the world. Some woods suit some styles of boatbuilding but not others.

You could go to a library if you just want to know about woods

But if you want to know about wood for boats, we had better know what sort of boat you are thinking of.

Best wishes
Michael Storer

Originally Posted by peter radclyffe

can you tell me what woods you use where on a boat & why
& how easy it is to get these woods & how much they cost, thank you

Peter,
Welcome to the forum, if you are the Peter Radclyffe I think you are your contributions will be most interesting and informative.

I take it your question relates to what Australian species that is available to local builders. We have a few pros who post here that can answer your question.

The variation in materials across Australia can be broad but a couple of sort after but unfortunately scarce species are Huon Pine and Celery Top Pine. Most of us amateurs try and scrounge up Douglas Fir, Jarrah or use Pinus Radiata epoxy coated.

I'll leave the details to those more in the know.

Cheers
Mike

thank you , & especially Mike thats more what im looking for , i have heard of , huon pine, blue gum, i have worked most of the european woods for boats but i would like to hear it from you guys how you work the timbers native to oz , i have worked jarrah & greenheart , seems to me you have some terrific longlasting timber

Howdy,

A bit more time now. The discussion about what woods really does focus around what type of boatbuilding. There are three main trends in boatbuilding. One is a reduction in weight of the boats, one is the reduction of availability of timber species (either locally grown or imported) and a movement toward glued structures.

Modern boatbuilding tends very much to focus on medium density softwoods.

Sadly, Australia seems to specialise in growing some of the most amazing higher density hardwoods on earth.

The traditional woods for early boatbuilding that would be suitable for modern boatbuilding were King Billy Pine, Australian Red Cedar and Huon Pine. Maybe Hoop Pine. Maybe there would be a few others as well.

These species are now largely unobtainable at reasonable cost, quantity or consistent quality. The exception is Hoop Pine which has become a major commercial plantation crop, and like any plantation crop there are real limitations of quality and stability of the wood.

However Hoop is the timber you are most likely to see in a home built boat. Right price and availability and epoxy coating will eliminate 99% of the lack of durability.

In previous years the timbers you were most likely to see in wooden boats were Western Red Cedar and Oregon (Douglas Fir) which were perfect density, length and cost when they were imported in bulk for the housing industry.

Now they are no longer imported in quantity for that market, so most builders of modern designs are using hoop as a substitute for oregon, sometimes paulownia as a substitute for WR cedar or whatever they can find that glues well and is not too heavy.

Jarrah, blue gum, spotted gum, karri etc are almost completely irrelevant for modern boatbuilding following modern plans (mostly talking post-war).

Talk about trad boatbuilding and the heavier species start to be of interest for workboat construction. However many quality yachts and powerboats used the oregon and Western Red Cedar to save weight in the hull skin if the King Billy etc were not available.

Around Sydney there are quite a few quality motor and sail boats with spotted gum ribs and oregon planking for example.

So the old timers also had problems keeping the weight down using indigenous species as boat design moved away from heavy workboat types.

Most of the species that were used in traditional boatbuilding are either no longer available or no longer available in the right form. For example for steam bending of ribs you need a high moisture content. Any spotted gum that can be found is likely to be either too wringing wet or too dry to be useful. Trad boatbuilding generally relied on builders having enough stock on hand of what they wanted in the state that they needed - they could not zoot down to Bunnings!

Best wishes
Michael Storer

thanks

At least in the trad boatbuilding world, apart from the ever-popular oregon (douglas fir) the other widely used planking stock on the east coast for yachts and working craft from about 1850 to somewhere about 1970 was New Zealand kauri. This wonderful timber grew in enormous trees and so planks were available in superb quality (clear heartwood) long lengths, with any thickness and amazing widths readily available. It was used for everything - floorboards, furniture joinery stock and, of course, planking boats. All the few remaining forests are protected so it's unavailable now outside NZ, and pretty hard to get there too, i.e. basically the same situation as with the Tasmanian Huon Pine.

These timbers - kauri, hoop pine, celery top pine, huon pine (and I think King Billy pine too?) are all "southern pines" of the family Araucariaceae, relics of Gondwanaland. While their properties vary, they are all lovely timbers to work with - stable, attractive, not-too-hard-and-not-too-soft...you get the idea I'm sure. The equivalent to the Port Orford cedar, Alskan yellow cedar or good quality old growth douglas fir of America, or the best of the European softwoods (which I'm less familiar with?).

The current, not-really-as-good-but-at-least-they're-available, equivalents are plantation hoop pine (which unfortunately will get rarer as many plantations are being replanted with faster growing commercial Pinus hybrids - construction lumber only - the 50-year rotation for plantation hoop pine is too long apparently), Fijian kauri and Malaysian kauri (sometimes called Damar Minyak), all of which are OK if selected stock is used.

Hi Tony,

This is one of the great things about this forum - I didn't know the aruacaria family encompassed most of the good indgenous light building timbers! How interesting.

Also a good "heads up" about the potential demise of Hoop. Wonder if the replacement will be up to that standard. The Hoop plywood is pretty wonderful from a consistency point of view - even though those smaller than everything else 2400 x 1200 sheets are mad as a meat axe!

MIK