: Thanks for the info. I'll check out the Home Depot stock of red cedar and see
: what they've got. Home Depot also has "premium" pine, that is
: completely clear, and comes in lengths up to 8'. I'm not sure of the
: species, but the sticker on it says the company is in New Zealand. I'm
: guessing Radiata based on some googling. It isn't cheap, but there would
: be little waste.

: Is there a reason you limit things to one scarf joint? I'd like to make an
: 18' boat, so I'd need to scarf together three boards to get the necessary
: length. My understanding is that if done properly, the joints should be
: stronger than the wood.

Couple things: The ideal wood and the wood you can easily get are two different things. Unless you live in a large boat building area, getting air dried lumber is nearly impossible and it takes easily 2 years for the wood to dry if you try to do it yourself and it has to be well oversize to do it as 1" stock will twist really bad air dried, specially softwoods.

I've built a bunch of kayaks from kiln dried wood for the long pieces, bends just fine and holds up with little problems. For rib stock it's not the ideal, but you need hardwood for that and local lumber sawers usually will have access to green wood so that's not a problem.

I prefer clear lumber as it's enough work building a boat and having parts break because you tried to use wood with knots to me isn't worth it. The pine from Home Depot works, it's definately not the ideal as it's usually flat cut, but it still works. It's kinda heavy though, we built the kayak for last year's class using it and after a year of fairly heavy use it's held up fine.

For a traditional 18' kayak you don't need 18' lumber. Look carefully at the pictures in the books you've got, the long wood pieces end well short of the ends of the boat. Also look around at the Home Depot stores, they sell that clear pine in lengths longer than 8', depending on the store. Around here we can get up to 12 footers, so one scarf will easily work.

Bill H.