: I wonder why none of the northern white shows up in the W. coast lumberyards.
: Probably because it would cut the price they could 'gouge' for the Sitka.

: The stuff I've seen generally has very tiny knots, so I can often flip strips
: over and put the knot on the inside of the boat.

: You're fortunate enough to live close to good sources of Atlantic white
: cedar. Around here, white cedar means sapwood off of red cedar boards!!
: ..or big shipping costs. Alaskan yellow is heavier than spruce.

: Shawn

That IS amazing! There are two specialty stores here in the Fresno area that have ALL the exotics you can imagine, either in full size boards or small block or planks, but...... I have yet to find any W. Red Cedar, Any Spruce, with the exception of Aircraft ply., and as a matter of fact, even Redwood is difficult to find other than fence boards and posts. There is one place in town that has clear redwood in about every length and width, but I can buy Walnut cheaper. I mentioned once that I went to look at paddle material and saw some 2" x 6" x 8' boards of clear redwood and they ran around $64.00 each. And this with much of the countries Redwood supply coming from areas just north of here. There are NO stores where one can get marine plywood and I had to order it through one of the specialty stores who in turn ordered it from a Boat manufacturer's stock up north and I ended up paying around $50.00 a sheet. In the San Fransisco area I can get it for around $34.00 a sheet( Okoume ), but transporting costs would pretty much even it out again at $50.00. The problem here is that there are NO boat builders within 150 to 200 miles so there is no call for any of that material. We do have a couple of boat builders, but they build nothing but the larger power boats and use totally different material.

Now... Pine, we have plenty of as well as fir. Pine will be my choice for most boats as fir is way to heavy and brittle. Even salvaging is difficult as there isn't much use of wooden siding around here. It's all aluminum or the old asbestos(?) siding.

Maybe at R2K2 I'll drive up with a flatbed and make a big haul of some real boat-building materials. Hmmmmm????

Rehd