I’m going to take a moment to talk about the lumber I will be using.
Cedar- The kit’s lumber (or planks as we call it in the boat building business) is primarily made up of clear (knot and blemish-free and very straight), premium Western Red and Alaskan Yellow cedar. After I placed the order for the boat, I talked with CLC, sent them a couple of pictures for design ideas and they came up with the ratio of dark to light wood. It was suggested that I buy an extra bundle of Red cedar because of my design. More intricate and specialized designs can cause waste so I wanted to make sure I would have enough to finish.
Walnut- You can get bead-and-cove walnut from CLC. But considering the weight (walnut can weigh 30% more than cedar) I did not order any. My design would only be using small 1/8″ feature strips so milled strips would not be economical. Instead, I used a piece of 3/4″ lumber left over from a previous project ( my daughters wedding candle “shelf”). I ripped 1/8″ strips about 5′ long.
Ash- If you recall from a previous post, I decided to use a little ash as feature lines. Ash, like walnut can weight 30% more so judicious use is called for. Ash, Green ash in this case is very strong and bends well. That’s why it’s used in some furniture construction. For the boat, I wanted a very white feature strip and ash holds it’s color better than cedar. The yellow cedar looks white unfinished but turns yellow when epoxied and glassed.
The ash is from a tree that was planted in my front yard in 2002. Green ash were all the landscaping rage in the 80’s and 90’s but started to become a problem about 8-10 years ago with the Emerald Ash borer. And those little bugers got my tree real good.
I had a service cut down the tree and dig out the stump but kept two trunk sections. A trip to a local sawyer produced 1″ thick boards that have been stacked and drying in the basement. I knew I’d eventually build something with the lumber but certainly not a kayak. I still have quite a bit so maybe a coffee table is still in the future
