I said it was a small one, but I wasn't even ranting about the price. If you can find a 20' long piece of cherry which is 12" wide without a knot for the whole length, I expect you would be willing to pay a lot more for it. Besides, in it's own way cedar is every bit as nice as "furniture grade" hardwoods and harder to come by. Given the amount of labor going into the boat, I don't consider the price of the wood to be a big issue.

If you are looking for a hardwood which is low density, take a look at butternut. It has nice color, is light weight and not being in high demand is probably quite cheap. I've seen one kayak built with butternut and it really looked nice.

But any straight-grained, low density, relatively soft wood is suitable it doesn't even need to be a softwood. Fir, southern yellow pine, basswood or poplar should work just fine. Harder woods will be harder to work and heavier, but they will work.

: Wah! I get select furniture grade cherry and walnut for that price.
: Dimensional redwood is actually cheaper than that here (near Chicago).
: Oak, ash, hickory, maple, are 1/2 to 2/3's that price.

: Maybe I'll rethink this cedar stuff. I did some quick estimating at Menard's
: when I first got the notion to do this, and started with a figure of
: <$50 for the strips. (It wasn't until later that the other materials
: edged into my consciousness as more serious concerns... but that's a
: different story.)

: What other woods are suitable? The criteria that come to mind are: straight
: clear grain, good color, hand workable, light weight, resilient in
: bending. Douglas fir or southern yellow pine come to mind as usable woods,
: but are light colored. Will epoxy stick to oiled, dyed, or stained
: finishes? Walnut is a bit heavy. White oak is a bit hard to work by hand.
: Bird's-eye maple doesn't plane well.

: The $5+ bf is really sticking in my craw right this moment. Might as well cut
: it from cherry and french polish for that kind of money. The 20 bf that
: ends up as chips from ripping and beading is starting to hurt now, too.
: Poplar and paint sounds pretty good right now...

: Mike.