Trying to decide on a wood for slat floor in sneakboat

Cody Williams

Cody Williams

Well-known member
Hey guys, I'm to the point in my sneakboat build where I'm trying to pick out a wood for the slat floor. The floor will be attatched to crossmembers and above the floor of the boat, probably 7 boards with the center and 2 edge boards permanantly attatched to the hull and the 4 boards between removable for access to the bilge. I basically have 3 choices of wood that I can get locally-clear pine, clear douglas fir, and western red cedar. I think that the cedar will be the most water resistant but most of the stock I can find is pretty knotty. The other 2 look great but I'm not sure about durability. What would you guys pick? Should I epoxy seal them, or just paint? I've heard that thicker dimensional wood can actually rot faster if it's epoxy sealed because trapped moisture can't escape. Thanks for any advice!
 
I used WRC. Planed to 1/4". Painted with FME. My BBSB is stored out of the weather. Is sponged and dried after the hunts with a box fan suspended over the coaming.
 
Cody,

For my Pole Boat I made a removeable slat floor out of Western Red Cedar. No, epoxy is not necessary IMO. I sealed the wood with multiple coats of Linseed Oil thinned with mineral spirits. If you want it to ever dry you MUST thin the Linseed Oil. Check on the can but I think it's 50/50 or maybe 60/40 with the mineral spirits being the 60%. Thinned Linseed Oil is a time honored method for sealing wood and works very, very well. It also accepts paint very well but try to use an oil based paint. I sealed and painted a dog house with this method and it NEVER peeled in the 17 years I had it.
 
Thanks for the advice guys, sounds like cedar may be the way to go. Pete, how did you make your floor removable? I was thinking T-nuts or threaded inserts set in epoxy in the ribs and a stainless carriage bolt.
 
Cody,

Like many old time skiffs, I didn't fasten the floor down. It is loose and just sits there. Three cross braces that I tapered on the ends to fit the deadrise angle of the floor. I don't remember right now but I have 5 or 6 longitudinals the full length of the cockpit. Being cedar the floor doesn't weigh much and it comes right out for cleaning, etc. I tried to find some pics of the floor but I only have a couple it seems and you can't really see much of the floor. The floor is the unpainted wood in these pics.

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Let me know if you need any more pics. I can get a pic of the floor itself but not actually IN the boat as the boat is currently undergoing surgery for a real bad owee.
 
I used a combo of red and white cedar that I had sitting around. I just painted them and they have been fine so far. I found the gaps to be too big and have filled them in with smaller rips since taking the pics.

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you can see the smaller rips in this pic.

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I used cedar for mine, very rot resistant, also make sure you use brass screws. I built mind with very small gaps between the slats and added shims to the edges so shotgun shells could not fall through or roll under the slats. The floor is in two pieces, half on the port and half on the starboard side, where the two halves meet I put two notches on one side with two keys on the other side.... This way the floor locks together Very easy to remove/install and lightweight.

The cross members you see going to the inside of the gunwales keep the floor from sliding port/starboard. It also made a convenient place to put my decoys as the keels prevent the dekes from sliding around in the boat.

Finished it off my painting with FME diluted with some thinner, so it went on as a stain and was absorbed into the wood.

View attachment floor.jpg
 
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I used door buttons from Phoenix lock conpany and WRC. The Door buttons are for the center 2 boards as hold downs.If you google them and go to other hardware you can see what I mean. When you install them you leave a little more space between the boards . When you turn them parallel with the boards you can remove the boards
 
Well, here's what I ended up doing guys. I went with WRC that I planed down to 3/4". I'm going to make the center floorboard removable, I got some brass threaded inserts and bolts to use on it. Everything else will be glued and screwed down permanently, and the 2 outermost boards are slotted to that the will overlap the knee bulkheads a bit, about 2" on the front and 1/2" on the rear. They will get filleted into place for extra strength. Thanks again for the suggestions everybody!

View to bow
Floortobow.jpg


Rear of floorboards
Floorrear.jpg


I gave the tops of the 5 centermost boards a coat of thickened epoxy and sprinkled silica sand into it for traction. Tomorrow all the boards will get a coat of FME on both sides, and be ready to install!
Floorboards.jpg

 
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