What woods have you folks used as alternatives to ash? Maybe the better ? is what is it about ash that makes it so good for gunwales?
Anyone ever tried hickory?
Thanks
Spruce
Old Town built about a quarter of a million wooden canoes. The vast majority had spruce (eastern spruce) gunwales. Chestnut Canoe Co. used plenty of spruce too.
Mahogany was used on fancier boats, but it was/is a bit brittle.
Ash is heavy, gets black and can be prone to rot.
Ash verse ?
Ash is a relatively light, strong and reselient wood, that, unfortunately, rots easily.
Oak, as used by Moore Canoe, is heavier, stronger, pretty coarse when sanded, and red oak rots as easily as ash.
Maple has been tried by Blackhawk. Slightly heavier than ash, prettier, but even more rot prone.
Mahogany is quesionably environmentally, kinda heavy and the grain so tight it’s hard to tell when cross grained, which splits.
We use cherry. About same weight and strength as ash, but more rot resistant and a beautiful, furniture grade wood.
I’d think that…
…it would be tough to beat spruce. Very rot
resistant and easy to work with.
Heart cypress would be more rot resistant, easier to
work with but wayyyyy to soft.
Maybe red cedar like they use for fences?
Mahogany and teak would look great and would last
a long time, but probably not so easy to work with.
Woods
I’ve used white oak and walnut…both of which are very rot resistant.
White oak looks like your ash gunnels but is slightly heavier.
Like Charlie mentioned, cherry works better than a lot of woods and is strikingly beautiful.
MB
More
– Last Updated: Jul-25-07 8:36 AM EST –
Sorry, chatting with eldest son after a few months, so missed some stuff.
All the above can be sand and sealed, then PU'd' or oiled. Beware oil's 4-6 X annual application requirement.
Sitka Spruce is the gold standard of light and strong. Frightfully expensive, it must not be oiled; must be varnished.
Anothr thing not mentioned before is available length. Many woods are not available beyond 16' w/o chatting with a logger, then sawyer. Tough for small shops, buying from Essex or Ed's to do.
We've samples nailed out in the sun with Watco, PU and Armada, which may be the best finish of all, but they've only been on the boatrack since last fall, so who knows?
tradition
Ash is the gunwale of choice only because canvas canoes were built with cedar frames and ash stem pieces. Ash was preferred because it was readily available and steam bent easily.
Since ash was tougher than cedar, rather than add a third wood to the shop they used ash for the gunwales.
I’ve used cedar for gunwales on a sailboat, once. It looked pretty in May, but was beat to hell and pretty ugly by September.
Clear douglas fir works great IF your boat is stored indoors. If not, IV radiation will cause it to check.
Ash
– Last Updated: Jul-25-07 7:30 AM EST –
I rarely or infrequently see ash used as gunwales on a vintage wood and canvas canoe. Sometimes I see it used for gunwales on later Chestnuts. Ash was used frequently for the stems, decks and thwarts. Spruce is far more common.
yellow pine
I use southern yellow pine. I find it in a “dense-grain structural” grade. I buy 2x8s up to 24 feet. Clear, straight grained, with a dense grain as opposed to the wide grain of yellow pine dimensional building lumber. Look for it at specialty lumber yards and places that do millwork like moulding. It is almost as heavy as ash and structurally stronger!
what about beech?
I would think beech would be too
stiff and somewhat brittle. It is a good wood for making wooden planes, but I don’t recall it being used for any tool parts that require flexibility and toughness.
ditto syp
very tough , holds fasteners very well but resinous syp does not glue as well as others. when buying wood i go through the stack carefully as i do when buying fresh produce (please leave the stack at least as neat as you found it : ). theres a huge variation from piece to piece. sometimes i come home empty handed because they dont have anything good enough to be boat wood.
Cheap Ash
The market is about to be flooded with cheap Ash. The Ash Boring Beetle has the Midwest cutting down all kinds of Ash trees in an attempt to stop the spread.
Hickory? and thanx for replies
– Last Updated: Jul-25-07 6:02 PM EST –
Still wondering about hickory.
Also I cut some cherry decks last year and they look good, good idea to use cherry for gunwales, thwarts etc. i do have access to some cherry.
Also is there a favorite form of joinnery when you can't get long enough sections? I've recently used a lap joint and it came out OK, Not great looking but functional and much cheaper than gettin 18' lengths of ash.
thanx again
Hickory? and thanx for replies
Still wondering about hickory.
Also I cut some cherry decks last year and they look good, good idea to use cherry for gunwales, thwarts etc. i do have access to some cherry.
Also is there a favorite form of joinnery when you can’t get long enough sections? I’ve recently used a lap joint and it came out OK, Not great looking but functional and much cheaper than gettin 18’ lengths of ash.
thanx again
Heard hickory is more rot prone
than ash.
I’m in Ohio’s Quarantine Zone
Nobody seems to give a rat’s hieney. A couple local lumber mill dudes claim the Ash Borer has been around for years, and can’t seem to see what the fuss is.
Hmmmm - - I’m using Ash, Beech, Butternut, and Hickory that we cut down and sent to the lumber mill when we cleared just enough space for my house. Guess what the wood work is gonna be??
wood
Sitka Spruce
and WHite Cedar both of which i use in birch bark canoe building.
Easy to bend
Strong
Handles being wet for a long time and doest rot
nm
Joint
For gunwale construction, consider a 6:1 scarf joint. I’m interested in hearing any responses you get regarding hickory. The wood is really heavy and hard and is usually used for handles that receive jarring shocks like axe, hammer, etc. Also a good wood for bateau poles but heavy. Wagon wheels used hickory for the spokes but I don’t know if they also used them for the bent parts. Personally, I’d use spruce if I were making gunwales from scratch. Lightweight, easy to work, easy to keep in good shape, less likely to rot than ash.
Hickory is somewhat brittle and rots
as easily as red oak.