> White oak would be the most readily available in the nearby woods, and I
> guess that would be pretty easily steam bent? How durable is it when
> sliced into thin strips?

Nearby woods? You planning to cut down the trees yourself? If so, be prepared for lots of additional labor, and several more months of aging the materials before you build with them. E-mail me and I'll give forth with my current efforts to turn two trees (donated by a neighbor doing some remodeling) into strips. I was thinking of what wood is currently available and reasonably priced at your nearby lumberyards. If you have lumber mills that are working with the local oak and turning out boards and planks then this is a reasonable choice. Cedar or pine are probably available, too, and you should be able to get them in longer lengths than you can find with oak.

Oak is good and sturdy. There is a Viking long boat (replica) made before the turn of the last century, made of oak and iron nails, which is being restored near Chicago. The outside of the hull was tarred, but there is no other paint or varnish on the wood, and it has lasted all these years in an outside pavillion. (the biggest problem was bird droppings) It is a tough wood to work with, so keep your tools sharp and take small cuts. When cutting strips use a slower feed and a very sharp blade.

> You'll have to explain "cove and bead" strips... ::watching it
> go over his head::

OK. Try to follow this idea: Imagine being at the beach, sitting on the flat sand. You take your finger and draw a line in the sand. the shape you have made in the sand is a hollowed out `u' shape. This is a cove. Now look at your finger. The tip of your finger is rounded, not square, across the tip. If you had a strip of wood and shaped the edge so that it had the rounded profile of your finger tip it would have a beaded (rounded) edge. If you made a cove on the opposite edge of this strip you would have a bead and cove strip. make several of these and you can stack the bead from one into the cove of the other. Instead of having a square joint between the strips you now have a rounded edge joint which permits some flexibility in positioning the pieces.

The usual way to make the bead and cove edges on wood strips is with a router or a shaper. There are several woodworking supply dealers who handle special cutters for routers for cutting the bead and cove shapes commonly used in kayak and canoe building.

Now, if you do not use bead and cove strips your strips will have straight, square edges. Nothing wrong with that, but this works best if you are trying to edge glue your strips to make a flat sheet -- and you aren't. You want something that has lots of curves, and those curves are going to cause lots of opportunities for creative joinery.

> On the issue of attaching the planks... would a strong wood glue be
> durable enough to do the job in place of nails?

I don't think so, but there are plenty of modern adhesives to play with. I had considered the idea of a monocoque hull made only of wood strips (no fiberglass covering), but put that idea aside after considering some of the posts on this board concerning the distribution of stresses and the strengths of fiberglass over the wood core. That core is pretty soft by itself and a lot of the strength comes from the fiberglass that sandwiches it. On the other hand Thomas Hill is making his boats from 1/8 inch and 3/32 inch plywood (3 mm and 4 mm) with no glass sheathing, so I may rethink this idea again.

> How long would the boat
> last that way ?

Anywhere from an hour to several decades. Since this is not the usual way of doing things, there is a limited history from which to draw conclusions. You are going to have to do some experimenting here. If you use the wrong glue this thing will fall apart as soon as the glue gets wet.

An analogous process would be creating plywood out of two layers of thin strips, with the outside layer running lengthwise, and the inside layer running widthwise. usa a suitable glue and it should be fine for years. With this idea in mind, consider that if you skip 3 out of every 4 widthwise strips you'll have a boat constructed with wood strips glued to narrowly spaced ribs. Every seam is a potential source for leaks. Having the interior filled with wood strips ( the plywood idea) reduces the size of these potential leaks. So, the answer really boils down to how good your glue is, and how accurately you can make your joints fit together.

> Thanks again for everyone's help...

Show us how it works out. Send pictures.

Best of luck

Paul Jacobson