Boat Building

Water Let-er Outers














Transom Brace













Warpage

Transom

I've been experiencing a little difficulty with wood warpage of late. The 2x6's for the barn door warped every which way. Just about every one of them cupped but a couple of them twisted a bunch as well. So I scrapped that and went to plan B. The top photo shows a couple of test boards for bottom planking on the boat. I cut a 2x6 in half on the table saw, then planed the pieces down to 1/2". I put a lap joint on one side to see how things would look and they looked pretty good until about three days later. As you can see from the photo, they cupped up a bunch. Not sure what to do about all of this. I have no idea what the moisture level is in the wood. My supply of wood is either from the local lumber yard or Menard's. The local yard stores the construction lumber outside under a tarp, so the moisture level is probably higher than Menard's.

I can put plywood on the bottom instead of the traditional planking but the lumber yards don't have any type of marine lumber, just treated. That stuff is pretty ugly and heavy. There's a lumber place east of here a ways that advertises in Wooden Boat that I might call. I can run over and get some decent plywood for the bottom but I'm still in a pickle with the sides. There are a couple of outfits that advertise white cedar planking in the magazine as well but I don't have any idea what it would cost to get it here. And would it be any more dimensionally stable? I need to find someone who knows a little more about this stuff than I do. I might call the guy who used to teach the Woodshop here when I first started. He's a guy who knows his woodworking. I'm sure if I start poking around on the Internet there's probably some kind of forum for wooden boat builders that I could post a question on. I'm anxious to get going on this project and would like to have things on hand to start planking after Christmas vacation. The transom came out looking nice, though. It's made from some hardwood that has been sitting in my back room for about ten years. I'll figure it out.

The top two photos are from an aluminum Jon boat a kid in class is working on. He's replacing the transom and making the boat a little more user friendly for himself. I welded up the cracked transom brace for him as well as some rivet holes that are no longer necessary. When it comes to boat building, that's more in my line of work.

Have a good weekend.