Grant,

I like Mike's idea about using a good light to spot voids before you build with it. It seems like a great way to 'x-ray' the piece easily and with no destruction. You could even return pieces if necessary after the light 'inspection' untill you got some of the best ones available, or maybe take a high power flashlight with you to inspect them as you buy). That way you could at least start out with the best possible doorskins available (bet you could find some darn good ones this way, besides I have always thought how 'good' these pieces were for the price). Then you could expose the entire void from the back side and put in an epoxy/wood flour patch. With ALL voids minimumised by inspection and those unavaidable all patched it seems like a big part of the problem is dealt with (just make sure it has exterior glue, if they can't tell you for sure I suggest you do a test by placing a damp cloth on a section ovr night and seeing if there is any delamition or failure of the glue. Not likely, but if the glue fails with moisture it would be a problem I wouldn't like to have. As for the core of other harwood plys, I can't say I know anything. Maybe if you bought it from a place that specializes in ply or a good lumber yard and spoke with someone there who was knowlegable that they may have or could get some information about the core. I just wonder though, I was thinking that the real cheap of this was using a luan doorskin (I have bought them here for $5 US). If you go to 'other hardwood plys' I think they will probably cost closer to $20 US, but I could be wrong about this) and that would put them closer to marine ply and make the 'cheap' less cheap.

It is interesting about what 2 people just said: Their 'cheap' ply tends to have more interesting grain and one even said he thought his cheap boat was stiffer than the maring. Go figure, the longer I live the more nothing surprises me. That goes for both ways: I have done some things as 'well' as possible, spared no expense or time or effort and it ended up a mess to be fixed. On the other hand I have short cut things all the way and it comes out like a piece of cake. I have also had 'shortcuts' really suck. Go figure, each time is different. Like I just heard some guy say to me: "There IS more then one way to skin a cat, but you only get one try per cat".

Joe

: Jim: I notice from your web site that you have also built a Pygmy Tern 17.
: This is another design I am also toying with. Could you provide me with
: your impressions of the Tern regarding: volume, weather cocking,
: maneuverability, need for rudder/skeg, tracking. etc

: grant