: I am looking at starting to build my first kayak. I have a design picked out
: and am trying to decide what kind of wood to use. I am wondering if it is
: possible to use Eastern white Pine, while I understand other woods might
: be better, I have a free source of planed 1" pine boards. With money
: being tight I would rather use the pine if possible.

consider using strips that are a little thinner than 1/4 inch. some people go down to as thin as 1/8th inch, but I think you can save some weight, and get a few more strips out of each piece of lumber if you shoot for strips that are 3/16 or just a tad thicker. When you go down from 1/4 inch to 3/16 you shave 25% off of the weight of the wood strips and sacrifice almost nothing in strength. In fact, the thinner strips are sightly more flexible. Tests on cedar strips in the 1/4 and 3/16th sizes show the thinner ones will likely flex, rather than break when subjected to stress. I suspect the same outcome for pine strips.

PGJ