: Ok, I am defently new to the art of strip building but an old craftsman at
: heart. I am sure I can find this answer in a book somewhere but I figured
: I would ask it here to get a few opinions..

: Your next stick built is going to have complicated deck design with 2
: differant wood types that have a lot of color contrast between one
: another, allong with a 3rd type of wood that the hull and some of the deck
: would be built of.

: What type of cedar would you use for the hull?
: What 2 types of wood would you be useing for the deck details if they are to
: have lots of bends and be rather complicated?

: I guess what I am looking for here would be a list of wood types with there
: pro's and con's.

: Thanks,

: Mike

Wood Choices
Wood is expensive. Cutting strips wastes almost half of each board. Other milling processes will add up to more waste. There is no way around waste. You can keep waste to a minimum by calculating cutting lists carefully and by selecting premium wood.
Some people’s primary goal in building their own boat is to save money. This is certainly one attractive advantage to building your own boat.
However, though you are saving a lot of hard cash, you will be devoting many, many hours of your time working on this boat.
If you build it from packing crates or use strips with black water stains to save a buck, this junk will be staring back at you forever!
Poor quality wood with knots, twists and wane, is difficult to work with and creates the most waste. Poor wood will plague you at every stage of the building process.

Experienced woodworkers know a successful project starts with the best materials.

Spend the little extra to get the best wood you can, instead of being penny wise and pound foolish.
You will have this beautiful boat for many years.You’ll have an ugly piece of wood staring at you for years too if that’s what you use!
If you cannot get high quality full length boards, buy shorter boards of high quality.
Short boards can be scarfed into long ones.

Wood for Strips
The qualities needed in woods to build strip boats are, in order of importance:

Clear and Straight Grained
This wood will create a fair curve when bent. This is important to create a fair hull and deck by flowing smoothly across the stations.Vertical or quarter sawn grain is the best. The annual rings are perpendicular to the surface of the wood strips in this cut of wood. LOOK AT THE EDGES of the boards you buy. If the grain is straight and parallel to the edges this is how your strip will be as you cut slices off the board for your strips. THIS is what you want!

Wood - Lightweight and Strong
It is important to have a boat made of wood that is lightweight. A lightweight boat takes less energy to paddle and maneuvers more easily. You’ll be
happier carrying a light boat. Strong wood means a durable boat.

Woods that Mill Well
Woods that cut cleanly and won’t splinter when milled with bead and cove. Staples or brads can be applied without shattering. Hot glue will release without ripping out chunks.

Appealing Color and Grain
Choose light and dark colored woods to create graphic designs on the deck and hull. Often the dark heartwood and light colored sapwood of the same species of wood will produce a broad range of color from light to dark.

My Choices in the Northeast US

Northern white cedar for my hull bottoms and a combination of northen white and western red cedar, for the hull sides and deck strips. I will use other woods listed below for accent strips because of their high color contrast, such as basswood.

Northern white cedar is at the top of my list for strip building. It is very flexible and strong. It is very light-weight.. It bends very easily with a heat gun. My first choice for all my hull bottoms since it is so easy to strip with. The northern white cedar forest, across the northeastern US and Canada, is why canoes exist has been the wood of choice. Northern white cedar boards can be difficult to locate. Clear wood is difficult to obtain in lengths longer than 10 feet. It must be scarfed into longer boards You have the option of buying northern white cedar strips for your hull bottom from one of the kit makers and milling your own boards into strips for the sides and deck of your boat to match the wood color.

Western red cedar is an excellent strip wood. It is available in long clear lengths.
It mills wonderfully and has a great range of color from pale brown to deep chocolate. It is the best choice to use with hot glue, because hot glue sticks to it well and yet releases cleanly with a sharp blow.

Virginia or Atlantic white cedar is a good strip wood. Long clear boards are available in some lumberyards on the east coast. It is cinnamon colored and smells like ginger when milled.

Northern white spruce is commonly used in the housing construction industry in the Northeast as 2 x 4s, 2 x 6s, etc. It is white colored and strong. It is also useful in making paddles and canoe gunnels. Smaller width boards are usually full of knots, but wide boards (2x 12s) can yield long clear sections.

Sitka spruce is a strong tough strip wood. It is the traditional wood for ship spars and airplane frames. Slightly heavier than the cedars it is expensive. It is pale in color.

White pine is pale white to light brown and rose colored. Similar in character to the cedars.

Basswood is white. It makes an extremely good contrast of color for most woods. Mills, bends, and works beautifully. Only downside is it’s heavy weight compared to the cedars.

Redwood is very dark when wet out with resin. Avoid using large areas of dark woods like redwood on decks. The summer sun can cause heat damage on a kayak deck made of dark wood. Brittle, it dose not hold a cove edge well.

Cypress is available in the south eastern US and I’m told it works well for stripping, though I’ve not tried it myself.
What can you get?

Having described the woods I use, the question is what woods are available where you live? I have home builders working from my plans all over the world, so the above list may not reflect woods you can acquire. Please remember the qualities I have outlined for wood strips and;
Go to your local lumberyards first and look through the woods they have available. Six lumberyards may not have any wood useful to you and the seventh might. Don’t give up too quickly.

Look for lumber ads in magazines like Fine Woodworking and WoodenBoat.

Your goal in buying wood for strips is to find clear, straight grained, lightweight stock. Are there local woods that will work?
Take your time and select your wood carefully. Minimizing waste starts at the lumberyard by selecting good wood.
Look through stacks and stacks of lumber. The trick to going through a pile of wood is to roll the boards and lever them from one stack to the next. Never dead lift the board from the end. Leave the wood stacks neat when you're done.
Rough boards will need surface planing. If you don't have a planer, ask about this service where you buy your lumber. If they don't do it they will know someone who does.

Strip Widths
Usable strip widths range from 5/8” to 1”.

Wide strips (1”) allow quicker stripping in relatively flat areas, such as the deck and sides of hull. ‰ Narrow strips (3/4” to 3/8”) follow the curve of the hull bilge and bottom more smoothly. Narrow strips must be used along the sheer line of the deck.
I use a combination of strips for these purposes, usually 1”, 3/4” and 5/8” widths.
Steaming the strips is not necessary. The strips are quite flexible and will follow the curves of the boat. However, I’ve recently used a heat gun to help twist strips from the keel running into the stems with great success. I highly recommend trying a heat gun on any strips you have difficulties with.

I'd suggest checking out my "Shop Tips" page for more details on methods to make stripping easier- http://www.LaughingLoon.com/shop.tips.html