"Kenton Letkeman" ) writes:
Greetings,
I am a newcomer to this list and to the whole art of boat building. I am
still in the planning stages of building a prospector style canoe and have
some questions about different wood types. Most people seem to use cedar but
it is very expensive and difficult to find in this part of Canada. Other
types of wood that are available are Tamarack, Silver Birch, Diamond Willow
and Spruce. I would like to make the thwarts and seats out of the willow but
am wondering how the tamarack or birch would work for the strips.
Kenton

tamarack is called larch in the old country (europe) and was used
extenisvely in boatbuildign until it was all cut down. but as noted its
heavy for its strength.

in "stripper" construction the wood is "encapsulated" in epoxy resin
soaked fibreglass cloth making rot resistence not very important, if at
all. pretty well any kind of wood will do since the thinness of the strips
and the gentle curves of the hull minimize problems with bending the
strips (the native people who developed the canoe did nto even have the
wood cutting, bending, and fastening techiniques we use. Even so I
understand people manage to break some strips when building.

the advantage of cedar is its light weight. canoes are meant to
be picked up an carried so weight is important.

you'll see stripper canoes with strips of different coloured woods to
make them look like they have racing stripes and other decorative effects.

I would also check out some of the stripper canoe construction websites like
www.bearmountianboats.com for detailed information on woods.

You might find a boatbuilding, woodworking, or forestry book at the public
library which gives the weights of differenct kinds of wood. I use a table
photocopied from Skene's "Elements of Boatbuilding".

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