strip build canoe ?

Hi new to boat building and are going to have go at a strip build canoe but have no idea of what wood to use any help would be very helpful:U

Most of the strength in a strip built canoe or kayak is in the fibreglass skin on both sides of the timber. The fibreglass skin also keeps the timber from making contact with the water.

Both those factors mean that you don't have to look at more expensive, traditional boat building timbers.

Some of the important considerations are the weight, the appearance, the weight, the availability, the weight, how well it bends, the weight, how well it planes and sands, and the weight. You can probably see that I think weight is an important factor. There are canoes and kayaks that don't get used as much as they should simply because the owners find it such a struggle to lift on and off the car and carry to the water.

The most common timber probably used to be Western Red Cedar, but a lot of people are now building canoes and kayaks with Paulownia often with a bit of WRC used as accent strips. A canoe built from WRC will be a couple of kgs heavier than one built from Paulownia. Those few kgs don't really matter on the water, but they matter at the end of the day when it is time to lift the canoe up onto the roof racks.

Don't imagine that you need to find timber as long as the canoe. A lot of people prefer to use shorter strips and they built very tidy looking canoes and kayaks.

A timber with a fairly straight grain makes some parts of the construction easier and a timber with not much difference between the hardness of different parts of the growth rings makes sanding easier.

I have built most of my kayaks from Paulownia and there are a few photos on this forum if you need to see what it looks like.

Yep, have to support everything Allan said, although I'm not sure if he stressed the most important thing - weight :U.
(You can see there's a commoon theme here)

I recall there were some Paulownia plantations in WA a few years back. Have a good look around as you may have a source close by and if so it should help keep costs down as you won't be up for freight.

Hey there, I'm currently building a 16ft prospector from WRC, I was able to obtain 50mm x150mm x 5.7m planks from Mitre 10, took them to a local joinery and asked them to run the strips through their mill and spindle molder with power feed. I ended up with a bundle of 80 or so 6mm x 21mm strips with bead and cove. more than the full length of the boat. Paulowina was just too difficult to get hold of.