kind of plywood?



We don't know what Phil is building.
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sure we do...it is right in his first post, a shallow water layout.


how many pirogues were built with ac fir and left in the swamps and survived for a while...Throw some glass and epoxy on it and keep it dry in between uses and darn near anything will last for 10 years give or take. Not like he is building a snowgoose or honker or the above mentioned Tolman
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Thanks Eric, I can read and do so carefully before I post. The "what" he is building is in relation to the specific design or technique to know what technique he would use.
 
Todd,
I do know you use the best materials and go for a high degree of finnish like Morton and many others here, and that is fine. But I feel that the same ply would work with stitch and glue or solid stock chines\frames\stringers.
John Gardner was one of the pioneers of the movement to restart the back yard boat builder and he was a big advocate of "Build it with what you can find for a reasonable price"
Use it and learn as you go.

His articles were a staple in the National Fisherman back in the 70's-80's.
They are in his books now.
He was a hell of a guy to boot.
Bob
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Yes Bob, I like my stuff to do its job well, last a long time, and look good all the while.

I also feel that crappy fir (because no good fir exists these days) would be ok for many, but it still needs to be glassed on the inside. The Tolman boats are built out of fir and they are glassed inside and out. I would not not build a boat out of fir adn glass the outside and just epoxy the inside, the barrier will be breached by checking and the water will never get out and oxygen will get in. If I had to build out of fir and not glass the inside I'd use a preservative on the inside like cuprinol.
 
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Tod,
for the 10 to 12 year lifespan requested, I disagree that any glass or epoxy is required on the inside of the boat and I am willing to bet that for the bulk of duck hunters who hunt about (X) number of days a year and then store the boat inside for the rest of the year no glass is required outside the hull either. Tape the seams if it is needed to hold the hull together or simply build with chines and nail and glue the panels to the hull.
I know it makes a working boat that will last that long because they are all over the place here in CT, MA and ME doing just that, many stored outdoors, no epoxy at all.
It is a personal choice to add epoxy but not a requirement for use, esp in the design criteria mentioned. It also adds a great deal to the cost for some builders who might not build otherwise and that is why I mention this.
No prospective builder should be discouraged from starting out because of cost or availability issues. And many boats have been built to give good service using galv. nails, glue, A\C Fir ply and solid stock.
Not Devlin Duck Yacht, but not unusable either.
Phil,
take a few pictures if you build. Always cool to see new ideas, esp inside a huge new barn.
Bob
 
No good fir exsists today? Todd maybe you didnt look hard enough! Rich
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the last how many duck boats you have built have been out of the most modern synthetics, Rich?
 
Tod,
for the 10 to 12 year lifespan requested, I disagree that any glass or epoxy is required on the inside of the boat and I am willing to bet that for the bulk of duck hunters who hunt about (X) number of days a year and then store the boat inside for the rest of the year no glass is required outside the hull either. Tape the seams if it is needed to hold the hull together or simply build with chines and nail and glue the panels to the hull.
I know it makes a working boat that will last that long because they are all over the place here in CT, MA and ME doing just that, many stored outdoors, no epoxy at all.
It is a personal choice to add epoxy but not a requirement for use, esp in the design criteria mentioned. It also adds a great deal to the cost for some builders who might not build otherwise and that is why I mention this.
No prospective builder should be discouraged from starting out because of cost or availability issues. And many boats have been built to give good service using galv. nails, glue, A\C Fir ply and solid stock.
Not Devlin Duck Yacht, but not unusable either.
Phil,
take a few pictures if you build. Always cool to see new ideas, esp inside a huge new barn.
Bob
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Bob, if you posted a few pics of the duckboat you built out of fir that can transport and hunt you, your boy and your dog I'd sure reconsider my position.

T
 
Hi Bob,

Thanks for your perspective. I think many of us get caught up in the material issues because we aren't familiar with the tradition of boat building. I have read some of John Gardner's books and certainly see where you are coming from. Horror stories abound about what will happen with 'supposedly' inferior materials but I suspect that 99% of them are just that - stories, imagined out of the normal "what's the worst that can happen" mentality that is normal for our species. Not that I am any less vulnerable than anyone else to those fears.

Thanks for bringing this discussion back to earth - few of us are experts............ except in our own minds.
 
tod,

how many boats you want pictures of? I didn't build them but there are a thousand pirogues down here all exterior plywood with just either taped or sometimes just hot coated seams. some of them are 40 yrs old and still servicable. Your house isn't epoxied is it? It sits oustide all year and occasionally gets wet? All it has is exterior paint correct? You should easily get years out of something that doesn't sit in the water, and that you don't let water sit in. Most guys hunt what 20 days a year, at most? The boats that rot either have puddles sitting in them all year or they sit on the ground or in the water.
 
tod,

how many boats you want pictures of? I didn't build them but there are a thousand pirogues down here all exterior plywood with just either taped or sometimes just hot coated seams. some of them are 40 yrs old and still servicable. Your house isn't epoxied is it? It sits oustide all year and occasionally gets wet? All it has is exterior paint correct? You should easily get years out of something that doesn't sit in the water, and that you don't let water sit in. Most guys hunt what 20 days a year, at most? The boats that rot either have puddles sitting in them all year or they sit on the ground or in the water.
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It would be nice to see any pictures you take Kris, especially any boat that you built would be great to see. I don't remember you posting many boat pictures before, so that would be new material. Spread the pirogue wealth around for all of us.

As for the house analogy, I don't think it holds a drop of water.
 
Tod,

It is true I haven't built any boats, but i post on the internet so i can say whatever i want right? I did take this pic. 50+ years old taped seams and exterior paint.. I did ride it in the ocean. Leaked a little till it swelled, like the rest of the not totally glassed craft that i've ridden. My dad was a commercial fisherman, I ran an 18 ft skiff made out of exterior plywood from the time i was 5 until about ten, all it had was taped seams and a hot coat on the bottom. yes it rotten out at the transom, but it also got fished 100 days a year and left outside uncovered and slept in the water a lot. No, I don't have any pics. I don't have a damn smart phone yet, and I rarely carry a camera. Also don't get too heated over this arguement until I get all your pinninated grouse spots.

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Tod,

It is true I haven't built any boats, but i post on the internet so i can say whatever i want right? I did take this pic. 50+ years old taped seams and exterior paint.. I did ride it in the ocean. Leaked a little till it swelled, like the rest of the not totally glassed craft that i've ridden. My dad was a commercial fisherman, I ran an 18 ft skiff made out of exterior plywood from the time i was 5 until about ten, all it had was taped seams and a hot coat on the bottom. yes it rotten out at the transom, but it also got fished 100 days a year and left outside uncovered and slept in the water a lot. No, I don't have any pics. I don't have a damn smart phone yet, and I rarely carry a camera. Also don't get too heated over this arguement until I get all your pinninated grouse spots.
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I was serious about the pics and don't worry my dander doesn't get up when I'm right.
 
Hey Chris,

How far off shore do you go to make that thing legal? That's a long boat ride from LA to Canada...;-)
 
Yes Todd my last three duck boat builds were foam and glass composite construction. A while back Mike Rybovich gave me six pallets of corecell foam. A resin sales man gave me three five gallon pails of resin to try out. I had a ton of biax E glass cutoffs and the list goes on and on. Although not a duck boat this is my latest build, it is 72 feet long has 3650 caterpillar horsepower will run 50 miles per hour or so and guess what? It is a plywood boat. Yes there is probably no old growth anything available any more, if there is any left it is probably still on the stump in some forest preserve or national park. That has not stopped the custom sportfisherman indistry on the mid to lower east coast. My boat has about five thousand feet of C and better 1x8 doug fir all laminated into keel, stringers. chines longitudinals etc. The entire bottom is three layers of half inch AB marine fir plywood. The sides and the deck house are various layers of ocume and the bow deck and cabin top are one layer of ocume covered by one layer of doug fir ply. I have been building plywood boats for close to fifty years these monsters for thirty two. In the beginning they were all fir ply, in the mid 80,s we found ocume, it was so pretty and so light, naturally we made the switch. It was just about this time that we started having trouble with interior stuff coming apart because of the movement. The ocume while being much lighter was not nearly as dense or nearly as strong. We had an engineer from connecticut establish a hull sample testing procedure which by the way was almost identical to the 'Destructive hull sample test' Written about in Professional Boat Builder magazine. We found the doug fir bottom samples to be roughly fifty to sixty percend stiffer and almost seventy five percent stronger than the same layers of ocume. we immediatly went back to doug fir in all the critical impact areas. All our interior breakage immediately stopped! The boats had a much more solid feel. I have a lot of friends in the hydroplane racing world and most of their boats are ocume ply. I asked a friend in NJ whose Grand prix? hydro [ Hemi powered and runs as fast as the unlimiteds] How do they get away with the Ocume ply? He grinned and said " thats our suspension" So the ocume Is definitely pretty stuff, The doug fir marine ply while not as pretty is a lot tougher and much more durable rot wise,Decent quality AC exterior fir ply is more than sufficient for most low budget home projects and if done properly quite safe. I venture that if you did a drop/ penetration test on a piece of ocume and similar thickness ac fir ply, the ocume would fail first. I have nothing to gain in recommending the fir ply for such projects. If a beginner wants to experiment with his first build and spend 150 bucks or so on some plywood from the lumber yard it is an easy way to get his feet wet. If he spends 3 or four hundred on the big name and dollar stuff and never finishes the project or doesnt like it and decides to make firewood out of it the economic impact is not quite so bad. My advice is not from something I read on a forum or some magazine whose articles extoll the virtues of ocume ply [who are some of their major advertisers] it comes from a lifetime of working with this stuff. Rich

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By the way most of the marine fir ply I buy is Plum Creek. they are a big company and are traded on the NY stock exchange I personally cant see a lot of difference in the other brands, Its just thar Plum Creek has a better paper trail. As I stated in my earlier post I have sent tons more BS1088 ply back for major delams than my doug fir marine ply. With the delams you just pray you find them before they get laminated into the boat.
 
Rich, trust me your efforts are completely wasted on him. Beautiful work, my father and Eric have both commented that you construct one of the finest custom sportfishing boats in the world. I hope you had a great duck season. We are actually coming down South to do some offshore fishing with my dad in April. Hope the dolphins are around. Take care,
 
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Yes Todd my last three duck boat builds were foam and glass composite construction. A while back Mike Rybovich gave me six pallets of corecell foam. A resin sales man gave me three five gallon pails of resin to try out. I had a ton of biax E glass cutoffs and the list goes on and on. Although not a duck boat this is my latest build, it is 72 feet long has 3650 caterpillar horsepower will run 50 miles per hour or so and guess what? It is a plywood boat. Yes there is probably no old growth anything available any more, if there is any left it is probably still on the stump in some forest preserve or national park. That has not stopped the custom sportfisherman indistry on the mid to lower east coast. My boat has about five thousand feet of C and better 1x8 doug fir all laminated into keel, stringers. chines longitudinals etc. The entire bottom is three layers of half inch AB marine fir plywood. The sides and the deck house are various layers of ocume and the bow deck and cabin top are one layer of ocume covered by one layer of doug fir ply. I have been building plywood boats for close to fifty years these monsters for thirty two. In the beginning they were all fir ply, in the mid 80,s we found ocume, it was so pretty and so light, naturally we made the switch. It was just about this time that we started having trouble with interior stuff coming apart because of the movement. The ocume while being much lighter was not nearly as dense or nearly as strong. We had an engineer from connecticut establish a hull sample testing procedure which by the way was almost identical to the 'Destructive hull sample test' Written about in Professional Boat Builder magazine. We found the doug fir bottom samples to be roughly fifty to sixty percend stiffer and almost seventy five percent stronger than the same layers of ocume. we immediatly went back to doug fir in all the critical impact areas. All our interior breakage immediately stopped! The boats had a much more solid feel. I have a lot of friends in the hydroplane racing world and most of their boats are ocume ply. I asked a friend in NJ whose Grand prix? hydro [ Hemi powered and runs as fast as the unlimiteds] How do they get away with the Ocume ply? He grinned and said " thats our suspension" So the ocume Is definitely pretty stuff, The doug fir marine ply while not as pretty is a lot tougher and much more durable rot wise,Decent quality AC exterior fir ply is more than sufficient for most low budget home projects and if done properly quite safe. I venture that if you did a drop/ penetration test on a piece of ocume and similar thickness ac fir ply, the ocume would fail first. I have nothing to gain in recommending the fir ply for such projects. If a beginner wants to experiment with his first build and spend 150 bucks or so on some plywood from the lumber yard it is an easy way to get his feet wet. If he spends 3 or four hundred on the big name and dollar stuff and never finishes the project or doesnt like it and decides to make firewood out of it the economic impact is not quite so bad. My advice is not from something I read on a forum or some magazine whose articles extoll the virtues of ocume ply [who are some of their major advertisers] it comes from a lifetime of working with this stuff. Rich
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So you build your personal duckboats out of 100% synthetic materials and your big boats out of marine fir (buried in layer upon layer of more fir and glass), but AC fir (even partly unglassed) is fine for the beginner to "get his feet wet", as you say. Your synthetic duckboats won't ever degrade due to water intrusion and basically would never need maintenance on the hull. Your big boats are built by experts guided by expert consultants in material selection and maintained by for their entire lifetime by a team of experts trained to spot and fix any troubles. Your suggestion to the amateur builder, which by definition means not a pro, is to buy a grade of material that is below what you personally use for yourself (as an aside, this is ¼” plywood you are talking about not a lot of bulk between you and the water). It would seem that the builder and boat owner that needs to select better materials is the amateur builder. The amateur doesn’t have a lifetime of experience building, a naval architect and expert consultants to guide the build and he will not have a trained team to continuously inspect and maintain his boat.

The two boat builders that have shaped my view on stitch and glue and wood choice are Sam Devlin and Renn Tolman, both of which design and build smaller boats of stitch and glue (or modified S&G). Sam says without exception to never to use fir plywood in his designs, but Renn suggested and used fir. Renn completely encapsulated his hulls in multiple layers of very heavy glass, both inside and out, far more glass than what Devlin uses in similar boats. The tiny bit of fir marine ply and ac fir that I’ve not glassed checked quickly. The tiny bit more of meranti and okoume I’ve used has never checked. The experience of the community here is that fir checks if not glassed, but that meranti or okoume does not. There has never been a report of checking here in dozens and dozens of boats built by amateurs of meranti or okoume. What is the better choice in a small boat? Given your advice, I guess we should let our wallets decide what is better and go with ac fir since it is good ‘nuff for us.

T
 
Brian, the pictures Rich posts don't come close to showing how beautiful that boat is. The finish and detail is amazing. You should see the engine compartment.
 
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