Opps! Sorry about that. Too fast on the trigger. :)

Concerning your use of door skins and especially Oak: I have heard here that a few have used door skins very successfully and I can't add anything to that, however, maybe a little assistance with the Oad skins you are contemplating using. Oak is a beautiful material, and one of the reasons is the effect of the grain patterns and color. They could also give you sone grief for the same reasons. Oak is an open grained wood and a hard wood as you know, and It would concern me that these open grain pockets would hold air bubbles when resined over. You would have to use caution in applying your cloth and resin, so as to remove all the air in those pockets. I would suggest wetting out the wood first with resin or some sort of filler(clear), to insure all of these pockets are filled and the bubbles that may develope are sanded. You can get advice on materials and procedures from others on the BBS as to that end.

My other concern for using Oak veneers would be that Oak is usually cut to about half the thickness of other outer layers. It is very strong and heavy, so you may see outer layers of 1/64" on some plywoods or even the door skins. That doesn't give you much room for fairing the corners or edges. Of course, if you are merely going to paint the boat, it probably wouldn't make a difference. Also, Oak is not a sand/friendly material. What I mean by that is that oak has a very hard grain and soft wood in between. If you spend much time sanding, you will have more waves in your surface than the north Atlantic in the dead of winter. Once you've got them, with that thin veneer, you're pretty much stuck with them. Not much room to sand fair again.

Neither of these is a real problem, IF you are taking care to avoid them. Oak would be a beautiful material for one of these boats, but, consider the different drawbacks before/during your construction.

Because of it's very thin veneer, and the filler layers being the same material as other doorskins the weight difference should only be a lb. or 3 in the boat. Again, there are others who have probably researched this and can give you specifics, but, I do not see too much difficulty if care is taken.

For what it's worth.

Rehd