Choosing Wood For Skin-on-Frame Kayak Building

[@matt1631-l5x]

I just found your channel and I see myself building a skin on frame canoe in the near future.

[@johnks4002]

Fantastic content Brian. Your videos are always very clear and informative.

[@Nomadboatbuilding]

Super solid advice Brian, especially on the safety recommendations. I’m a fan of the red cedar paddle myself.

[@mattdjmorris]

Love the detail and flow of this video. Great basic points that point us in the right direction.

[@TonyNegrieski]

Great site to learn the fundamentals of Kayak building. Brian what will be the common wood to be used for the kayak project in Western Australia, considering the: specific weight ( Tasmanian oak, Jarrah etc.) , available materials (local hardware stores) and the climatic conditions (arid desert, versus high salinity of Indian ocean)

[@ifell3]

Great information here, I know when i went to a timber yard and was pricing up and looking for availability here in the uk, their faces was classic. Any chances of a plywood version hahahahaha

[@johnhess351]

what about using ammonia to soften lignin in kiln dried wood to steam bend it? I am building Zimmerly's 22ft East Greenland and abandoned the kiln dried white oak ribs that just would not bend in spite of steaming. I remade the ribs with lumberyard spruce and kerfs for the curves and am preparing to install.

[@coralnerd]

Hi Brian. I live in Tasmania. We have a few very highly regarded (and expensive) native boat building timbers here, but it's very hard to find the north American species that you're talking about in this video. I believe you taught a SOF building course down here a few years back. From your experience here can you recommend suitable timbers that would be a reasonable compromise between cost and building properties? I'd love to have a kayak built from huon and king Billy pine, but it would probably cost a couple of thousand dollars.

[@capefalconkayak]

Hey Scott, my friends in Tasmania use Tasmanian Blackwood for the ribs, and they purchase Western Red Cedar which is imported. They order the fabric and the coating from the states. they have built dozens of my F1’s down there. Feel free to send me an email.

[@stephenjanssen4774]

wow! You know your stuff and helped me understand why i can never bend my kilm dried ribs without problems. Thanks

[@whitneywiggins9352]

@capefalconkayak I'm curious about using hard maple for the ribs, I have a large number of 1/8" x 1" by about 4' (originally cut for making wooden tennis rackets). My biggest concern is that I don't know how rot prone they are ( i.e. have the Red Oak issue).

[@capefalconkayak]

@@whitneywiggins9352 Maple doesn’t have the right bending characteristics for this sort of thing. it works with light bends around a form, but doesn’t free bend well. This is the kind of situation where you definitely want to spend money or the time to get decent bending oak.

[@scottrobinson8590]

Another solution to finding bending wood. Just go grab a piece of oak firewood or cut a piece of hardwood from back yard and rip it up on the table saw (screw a piece of 2x4 to the side and run it along the fence to get a relatively straight cut) . It doesn't have to be that long of a piece.

[@wadepatton2433]

Western red cedar I'm quite sure you're referring to. Might confuse some folks from down here, where red-cedar is a juniper and knotty all the time.

[@capefalconkayak]

Right! Thanks for clarifying that

[@Huntgary]

Wanting to build a LPB when I return home, want to run all 700 miles of the Cumberland river and do it in a kayak verse a canoe, being an experienced woodworker, building my own kayak is a bonus, currently in MX for a couple more months, want to get as much figured out while I'm down here,, the white oak for the ribs is easy, very plentiful in TN, even if I have to go cut a tree down myself and take a log to a sawmill, question is, can the western red cedar and Ash be kiln dried or no, Ash won't be to hard to find at a sawmill but Western Red Cedar for me would be impossible to get in its green state locally, and eastern red cedar doesn't have the long limbless trunks or the size so no clean long boards. And would poplar be a substitute for the red cedar, its very rot resistant not sure of its weight thanks

[@capefalconkayak]

It's ideal if the bending wood is green but the long wood can be dry. Pine, spruce or fir works just fine if you can't find western red, I just like it because it's light. I wouldn't use poplar.

[@JohnCooperWilliam]

Have you ever used osage orange for bending? It's extremely hard, rot resistant, and great for steam bending. I've built recurve bows and can get some pretty aggressive curves. I haven't built a kayak yet, but I'm thinking that it would work well.

[@capefalconkayak]

I'm sure it would, just hard to source.

[@JohnCooperWilliam]

@@capefalconkayak if I go that route, I'll let you know and I'll take pictures. I have several clear logs that I believe are long enough for the coaming as well. Osage is a gorgeous wood!

[@johnhess351]

Osage Orange is too prone to splitting over time. Plenty of it here in MO, tho'.

[@russelltangren6883]

I'm in nor cal, how would redwood fair for the softwood portions?

[@LukePighetti]

Anyone have recommendations for species to use from Maine? We have white ash, Atlantic white cedar, eastern spruce, and white pine. Problem is most of our woods it’s tough to get long sections without knots.

[@capefalconkayak]

When I taught classes on the East Coast, I was mostly using eastern white pine. You could use freshly sawn ash for the ribs or order bending oak. A decent amount of bending of makes it up that way because of all the Boatbuilding schools.

[@LukePighetti]

@@capefalconkayak I can definitely get green ash, clear up to about 8 feet. I can also get clear spruce and white pine up to about 16 feet but it will take months because the sawyer has to go through hundreds of logs before he will find clear lengths like that. What’s your take on green ash for every bent part? Any thoughts on scarf joints on the 16 foot lengths?

[@Pali65]

I wonder what would be the choice for boat building in Europe, some of the mentioned American woods may not be available or could be much more expensive.

[@capefalconkayak]

Any softwood that you can find in longer clear lengths is fine. Spruce, pine, and fir all work for the long wood. For ribs you'll need to see what is available, talk to boatbuilders and tell them what you are doing. I've had people in Europe use ash but I'm sure there are other options. I also occasionally ship ribs to in my kits to European builders.

[@Pali65]

@@capefalconkayak thank you! I think I could use common oak (quercus robur) for ribs which is recommended for boat building just I have to find some source for green wood. I have also ash directly on our ground and some trees should be taken out soon as they are too dense growing but they are not wider than 8-10 inches. I would have to figure out how to make cuts to get appropriate material.

[@DrMoe.Lester]

Ceder is grown in Europe. I'm looking at an ash and ceder construction. Edit: also because of ash dieback there is lots of green ash available right now. Steaming it would likely kill any residual fungus, but I need to find more information on that.

[@danielalala-s6i]

in england they use oak for steam bent ribs. In France boatbuilders use Robinia pseudoacacia commonly called robinier faux-acacia. green of course.

[@adamhulu6171]

If all you have is cedar but you need it to be strong like ash, cant you just increase the scantlings by 10-15%? On second thought, wouldnt this be as good and as light?

[@capefalconkayak]

It depends on the piece, you could probably do something like that for anything on deck but the ribs would need to be a bendable hardwood.

[@TIGA]

Struggling to design a lightweight 16 foot LOA, SOF sailing & rowing canoe (possibly single paddle- at a push, conditions) that is mega-stable, can carry 2 people + gear (600 lbs. +), and has reasonable upwind capability under sail (possibly main+mizzen), max., draft of 4-5 inches (600 lbs. load +) with a min freeboard of 16 inches, optimal tracking and turning, in wind speeds of up to 25 mph. Form follows function is the rule I follow so aesthetics take second place while I like my eyes to be pleased. Not too concerned with speed but a 'reasonable' (45 degrees off the wind, upwind ability is essential). Worst sailing conditions: 4 foot waves, 8 feet crest to crest, wind speed 25 mph. Is there any such thing in the SOF canoe range that can take a battering? I'm thinking of olde-style, partially decked sea canoes with beams of 44 inchesto 50 inches or more. Some folks seem to be too preoccupied with max. speed rather than optimal abilities in reasonable wind and wave conditions. Tuning designs for one or two un-challenging conditions out of many doesn't produce optimal design. Lovin' the practical designs and methods...so far BUT see above.

[@capefalconkayak]

I understand the dream of the do-everything boat, but speaking from real (and often terrifying) experience, all small boats sail poorly in those conditions. The sea state makes the hull shape almost irrellevant, and the boundary layer between the waves and the wind is so disturbed that it spoils the sail. Small boats really do best in winds from 7-15 knots, although you can go a bit higher in very protected waters. In these circumstances, an open boat does just fine and is reasonable safe if handled properly. When you get into rough waters though, now it's time for watertight bulkheads and decks, neither of which are well suited to skin on frame. Upwind sailing is poorly suited to skin on frame in general because by the time you've put all the work in to make it work well, you've invested an equal amount of time and money as just building a plywood boat, which is better suited to the task and barely heavier. Your specs really just indicate a standard 17' canoe, maybe with a deck cover, and a lot of flotation. The sailing part is hard though, it's doable, but canoe sailing is always twitchy and expensive and makes your canoe useless otherwise, at least if it's set up for upwind sailing. If you are serious about doing it, you'd need to devise a way to quickly recover from and dewater after a capsize, which will happen. Too many compromises, and probably not the right medium to build it in.

[@MrPanchoak]

For those who have trouble finding good bending wood, a good solution may possibly be heat flattened PVC pipe. It should last forever.

[@JustinCasey216]

All wood can bend if you know what you are doing

[@paulbriggs3072]

Red oak can be easily pressure treated and some day, someone should do that for commercial sale. It would sell for decks as a superior lumber. Boat builders of all kinds would use it. Its common, and equal to white oak in strength.

[@capefalconkayak]

Yeah I guess the pore structure would lend itself to that wouldn’t it?

[@andrewdouglas6325]

Can those models float on water too

[@ColinPittendrigh]

PVC?

[@kevinmencer3782]

I'm thinking of building a skin on frame canoe. How big can a canoe like that be, realistically?

[@capefalconkayak]

Really as big as you want to make it I feel like my system works a little bit better with smaller canoes but there’s no technical issues with scaling things up.

[@kmonnier]

1/2 scale models makes you look 2x huge

[@АлександрПеньков-х8о]

You BEST!

[@nakcarringob6322]

💗