Al ) writes:

...It made the Cedar out to be a rather brittle material,
although easy to work, although no precise mechanical properties are
available in my edition (1957 reprinted '60).

Appearance is a secondary consideration to strength in this
application and ease of working.

eastern white cedar is actually durable and easy to work. that's why
natives used it for the ribs and lining of birchbark canoes over all the
other native woods avaiable to them. clear, staight grained cedar was
split into 1/8 thick lining planks by hand. I owned a 22 year old cedar
skiff from www.cedarboats.com as a boy. Whenever my grandfather wanted to
whittle anything he'd pick out a piece of cedar from the wood pile.
Easiest wood to split to kindle a fire. I assume western red cedar would
have similar qualities. I use the red cedar in the framing on my small
cheap plywood boats along with lumberyard spruce.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
warning: non-freenet email must have "notspam" in subject or it's returned