So. Yellow Pine.....

[Pernicious Atavist]

Correct me if I'm wrong, 1" SYP is NOT acceptable for leeboards and rudder on a 16' skiff, I need hardwood--right?

[Kim Whitmyre]

My only experience with S. Yellow Pine was a hanging bookshelf I built for a fellow years ago. It was very hard and dense: planed, it practically shined. Seems like it would work just fine for the intended use.

[ssor]

SYP has one serious drawback; it is so waxy that it won't hold paint well. The heart wood is durable and when freshly dressed, water beads on it. If you can pick and choose you can find good stock for your needs.

[Steve Lansdowne]

My Whisp's leeboard is SYP and I trust it will last for some time. SYP is certainly affordable down here in Texas and these boat parts can be easily removed from the water when you're not sailing. Why not? At most, you're only out a few bucks and labor, which is really fun, right?

[N. Scheuer]

I was shopping for leeboard lumber in St Paul, MN back about 1987 at a quality lumber yard in the business of selling LUMBER to discerning users who knew what to do with quality lumber, NOT in the business of selling boxcar loads of glitzy Home Improvement products.

Following a salseman out to a shed full of doug fir we passed a couple of flat cars stacked with Southern Yellow Pine. I could smell the pitch ffrom some ways off. The salseman mentioned that the whole load was "clear". In answer to my question as what it would be used for he said, "scafold planks".

When I expressed interest for my leeboards, he cautioned that the pitch would get in the way of the epoxy adhesive I intended to use.

The Doug Fir I ended up with made a wonderfull pair of leeboards for my Dovekie.

Doug fir is almost as strong as the Oaks, according to an old Mechanical Engineering Handbook I have that lists the tensile and compression strengths of the common woods.

Moby Nick

[AngWood]

Close-grained SYP is wonderful stuff--tough, aromatic. If you sort through the pile at a big box store or wherever, you'll find a lot with wide growth rings, but also a few close-grained pieces. I think it would be fine stuff for a rudder and leeboards.

[Pernicious Atavist]

thanks for great responses! i get to hand pick my wood from the lumnber yard--a REAL yard complete with guys who know wood. the wood does cut and sand well. lucky for me i'm not using epoxy, just prime and paint...and paint...

[Dan Hobson]

I'm up in the pacific north west working on a boat built of Norwegian Pine, a species of long leaf yellow pine I'm told. It seems I can't get the right kind of wood around here to keep faith with the builder. And I'm told around the wood lots to use Douglas fir or Cedar in stead. Is Southern Yellow Pine the same as Long Leaf Yellow pine??

[Venchka]

Originally posted by Dan Hobson:
...Is Southern Yellow Pine the same as Long Leaf Yellow pine??No.

Wayne
In the Swamp. :D

[Dan Hobson]

Gee that was enlightening Waine. I feel so much more 'in the know' about wood! Have you ever asked someone what time it was and had them say: "Yes" and walk away??

[RonW]

There is no such species as southern yellow pine.
But it is a designation by the sawmills and lumber whole sellers. It is a group heading that comprises 4 species. These four species are sold together, mixed and sold under the heading as southern yellow pine.

The 4 species are long leaf pine, short leaf pine, loblolly pine, and slash pine.
These 4 species are close enough in weight, grain structure, rot resistance, strength and so fourth that they are all lumped under the same heading. Just the same as they do with white oak, which has a dozen or more species that are labeled and sold under the heading white oak. White pine may have as many as 2 dozen sub species in that heading.In fact anything of the pine family that is soft and whitish in color is sold as white pine.

Many boatbuilding books will tell you that yellow pine is and has been a subsitute for white oak. It is a premium boatbuilding wood, and readily available in the eastern half of the u.s.
It is not a fine grain wood like oak, ash, cherry, walnut and so forth, where you want a fine sanded smooth finish to the touch. But for everything else such as frames, stringers, decking,keels and so forth it is excellent, highly rot resistant, and in my opinion maybe as much if not more so then white oak.

The reference above by moby dick as to the lumber yard having stacks of clear straight grain yellow pine for scaffolding, is correct. He just walked by some premium boat building wood and the salesman had no clue.
Those scaffolding planks where ordered in by a commercial construction job, because they are not allowed to use white oak.White oak may be a little stronger, but when white oak has reached it's limit on weight, it will break and snap in half right now. Yellow pine won't do this, it has tougher and more elastic grain structure, and as you over load it, it will sag more and more, but not all of a sudden snap like white oak does.

I have heard of clear, straight, quarter sawned or vertical grain yellow pine selling for between $8 and $9 a board foot around the great lakes, for boatbuilding.

This is a much overlooked wood (by ameatures) for frames and so forth in a boat, due to wives tales and other rot gut such as- old growth, new growth, kilned, air dried, plantation grown and everything else that you can imagine.

Wood is wood, you can get clear or knotty, over dried or under dried, large ring growth or tight ring growth and so forth in any species, and it does not have to pre-date christ and been cut and dried by noah to be more then suitable for a boat.

If you pay attention you will see more then one reference to boats that are over 70 years old and the yellow pine, is still in excellent condition.

[Venchka]

Originally posted by Dan Hobson:
Gee that was enlightening Waine. I feel so much more 'in the know' about wood! Have you ever asked someone what time it was and had them say: "Yes" and walk away??I'm sorry. One of the drawbacks of answering from the office. I had to run and hit send by mistake.

Seriously, the answer is still "No!". There is no similarity between lumber yard SYP and original long leaf pine. As far as boatbuilding lumber is concerned. Never was. Never will be. Salvage companies sometimes get old long leaf pine from old buildings.

As RonW pointed out, that doesn't mean you can't find suitable lumber from the SYP stacks. Watch for close grain, small tight knots, all the usual attributes. My guess is that you'll do better in the SYP bins than the SPF bins. That's a whole other can of worms.

If you're on the west coast, get some nice yellow cedar or douglas-fir. Nothing wrong with either. Perhaps a slight nod to the yellow (Port Orford) cedar but that's just my personal opinion.

Wayne
In the Swamp. :D

[ 08-23-2005, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: Venchka ]

[RonW]

The big problem I see with lumber, is not only people understanding what species to use for what. But also grading, it seems as if everyone wants to go to home depot and rummage through the grade #2 construction grade, that is graded for rough framing and then complain about what krapty lumber it is.

Try finding little lumber yards that still deals in grade #1 and clear, you will be surprised as to the difference in quality in the same species.

But the price will start climbing, you get what you pay for. If you are lucky and keep a eye on them.

[Pernicious Atavist]

all that beind said, so far i've had excellent results with the syp i've gotten from the (real) lumber yard i'm using. it's cheap, too!

i reckon i'll use it for my rudder and leeboards, as i have for framing.

[ssor]

Quite often a plank will grade out as #2 because of a couple of knots but that doesn't mean the whole plank is inferior to # 1. If you only need short pieces you can often cut around the knots and other flaws and have premimum stock.

[Dan Hobson]

Funny you should mention seventy year old boats. Mine is drying out beside my house with about seven planks in need of replacement and the deck is coming off as well. I would love to spend the money for the right lumber, but nine out of ten surveyors would agree that one really can't rebuild this one. One could only build a copy of it board by board the hard way. At least that was the story when she came out of the water last May.

www.spidsgatter.com (http://www.spidsgatter.com) has the pictures of the boat as it came out of the water.

So, we are looking at various alternative methods of repair. I'm looking very strongly at the possibility of a ferro sheath for the boat. The process looks cheap enough that and fast enough that we could have a boat to sail next year. It would allow us to work on the woods inside the boat with chemicals that might stabilize them for the longer run. And it seems to be a process that would be reversable unlike epoxy saturation or cold molding new wood on the outside. As to weight, she was floating inches above her water lines as she sat completely water logged at the dock. The guy who sold me the boat said he had about 500 pounds of keel iron removed, and there's a large piece of deadwood that seems to bear whitness to that. Replacing the wood that has to be removed immediately with planks that will perform in the new composit configuration is the order of the day. They won't quite be called upon to do the same job as the old ones. And they don't have to be beautiful either. In fact I think in this case, #2 will serve.

Any thoughts on treatments for wood to be near the concrete skin? Chemicals or species selection advice wanted.

[SandMaster]

The 4 species are long leaf pine, short leaf pine, loblolly pine, and slash pine.
You forgot to include pond pine. pinus serotina

Logging pond pine Craven County NC, 1940

http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/photo/usfs/africanamerican/jpegs/usfs395030.jpg

[ 08-23-2005, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: SandMaster ]

[RonW]

No I didn't forget to include pond pine, it is not one of the species that is sold under the heading of southern yellow pine.

I didn't make up the list of the 4 above, but rather the sawmill associations of america did.
Why they didn't include pone pine, beats me, but it must be not strong enough, or too heavy or too light or something. But any how when you go to your lumber yard and buy southern yellow pine, it is suppose to be one of the 4 above, and nothing else.

[SandMaster]

What about shortleaf pine?

I dont know about that list, but I seriously doubt that any mill that is taking in upward of 25 trucks of logs a day ( which I have seen) and produce an average of 350,000 to 500,000 bf of finished lumber a day, are checking species all that closely. Take a look at a pile of southern pine logs ( particularly on the coastal plain) and everything we have mentioned are intermixed when cut from a typical small land holders woodlot.

Lableing the majority of lumber, unless plantation grown, SYP, is nothing more than salesmen trying to put a product contents label on something that can not be labeled with any accuracy above about 80%.

[ 08-24-2005, 11:22 PM: Message edited by: SandMaster ]

[Venchka]

$$$$s to donuts, SYP is 90%+ loblolly pine and < 1% long leaf pine. AND it's 90%+ plantation grown. I recall Rob White and/or Tom Lathrop giving chapter and verse on SE forest practices in the 20th century. Loblolly pine is favored by the plantation folks.

If you look hard enough, useful stock can be found. Alas, the old time lumber yards are going fast or becoming Big Box clones.

These are the good old days.

Back to the orginal question: I reckon if you get some decent SYP, cut the best parts into 1"x2" pieces, flip to offset the grain, glue it back together in odd numbers, you ought to get decent leeboards and rudder.

Wayne
In the Swamp. :D

[ 08-24-2005, 11:34 PM: Message edited by: Venchka ]

[RonW]

What about short leaf?????

O.K. let's do this again...

Long Leaf - Short leaf - loblolly - Slash pine....

Salesman, I have never seen a lumber salesman yet that can label anything with any accuracy above 10% let alone anything close to 80%.

It has nothing to with a lumber salesman...
It has to do with the wholesellers..the ones that buy from hundreds of sawmills all over the u.s. and abroad. They have designated classes that certain species will fall under for purchase and resell...

How many species do you think are sold under the heading of WHITE OAK ?

Without some kind of designations, you have KAOS.
And no one knows what they are buying or what they are selling, and that would be just the place for the government to step in and regulate. But they have already regulated themselves, and the problem is solved.

edit-wayne you are probably dead on....

[ 08-24-2005, 11:46 PM: Message edited by: RonW ]

[Pernicious Atavist]

wayne--cut, turn and glue? like making it quarter sawn?

[SandMaster]

I think what this means is that when a person asks if they should be using syp for any part of a boat the answer should be a resounding no, unless you know that syp to be one of the more durable varieties ( ie longleaf and preferably a shadde grown tree at that consisting of heartwood). Loblolly pine is not durable in its natural state. I know of loblolly that was only 14 years old that was over 16 inches across at the base of the trunk. Tell me that would be good for anything but pulpwood. A loblolly cut on the coastal plain of the lower mid atlantic now and left upon the ground will be infested with a multitude of bugs and active rot by this time next year. If you are going to take a chance on such a venture it would in my opinion be better to set your sights on a specific species such as longleaf, even if you pay a premium price at a mom and pop mill.

[Venchka]

Originally posted by Pernicious Atavist:
wayne--cut, turn and glue? like making it quarter sawn?Kinda. Sorta. I always have to look in a book to figure out the grain thing. You know what I mean, Vern?

If you won't build with anything but longleaf pine, hunt up a salvage company. With practice, luck, an arborist friend and a WoodMizer nearby, 30"-36" non-plantation loblolly pines can be found and the lumber runs $0.75/BF. White oak and sweetgum run $1.25/BF from the same mill. For trailer boats, it works.

Wayne
In the Swamp. :D

[Seth Wood]

You can get off-the-shelf "SYP" at higher-end yards here in VA that, if you pick through it, has some good stuff. Yellow. Resinous. Dense end-grain like black locust. I have a few pieces with over a dozen rings to the inch, the rings as fine as hairs.

The trick is, it's extremely rare to find big pieces of that quality. More often, as noted above, you end up making a high-quality small piece from a larger #2 board.

[Pernicious Atavist]

that's what i'm considering--buying good 2x stock and milling it to 5/4

[George Roberts]

SandMaster ---

Those lumber people also have a specie combination - Mixed Southern Pine.

Mixed Southern Pine inludes the 4 "southern Pines" and pond pine and Virginia Pine.

[RonW]

Here is a little tidbit.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/nvic/7_95/n7-95.htm

These coast guard people on wooden boats, seem to be under the impression that S.Y.P. (southern yellow pine) is a good boatbuilding lumber.
Can you imagine that, now where in the world did they come up with that idea.
Scroll down the page to the illustrations.

[George Roberts]

RonW ---

What ever gave you the impression that we on the forum were right?