Priscilla
Super Anarchist
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Coolboats to admire
- Thread starter Sailbydate
- Start date
MauiPunter
Will sail for food
Willow trees are house-crushing time bombs. I loved them as a kid swinging from the vines but I have seen what happens when they finally get hollowed out over time and fall on a house.
Diarmuid
Super Anarchist
That was my question about dimensional stability. As a general rule -- not always, but usually -- the denser & harder a wood is, the greater its rate of movement with internal moisture content. Teak may be more naturally stable than the locusts, even tho it is only 10% less dense. Might be structural quirks, too: wise to avoid white oak in unfinished exterior use, because its large medullary rays + case-hardening during the drying process may lead to internal checking (honeycomb).
Never worked with locust, so I can't speak to all its behaviors.
Bull City
A fine fellow
Sexy, but a waste of electricity IMO.
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Looks like the discussion about teak, a few pages back, missed the key idea that old growth teak is orders of magnitude better for boat lumber than quickie “farm raised” teak. Same as old growth spruce and fir, old growth teak trees exhibit many hundreds to thousands of extremely thin and uniform growth rings. This makes the grain tight and consistent - allowing long planks and exceptionally even distribution of stress and strength. Second growth usually offers none of these desirable characteristics, due to rapid , short growing conditions that result in fewer, wider annual growth rings.
Also old growth forests were extremely effective in creating optimal, large scale growing environments - balanced and evenly distributed nutrient, soil, and water sources, with lots of beneficial fungi in the soil to promote healthily root systems, optimum nutrient and moisture uptakes, etc…. Once you clear cut the forest, you destroy that entire ecosystem, and end up with inferior quality second growth lumber growing conditions.
BTW, a big issue with second growth teak is actual uptake of sand and fines from the unfiltered soil by the root system into the trunk of the tree. Teak draws a profuse amount of water into the trunk and branches. teak roots actually draws fines and small sand granules out of the soil, if the soil isn’t filtered and protected by old growth understory - mosses,small plant matts etc. This unfiltered uptake results in the random dark streaks you will see in farm raised teak lumber. The streaks are basically concentrations of dirty water - sand and silt actually, that has been carried up the Cambrian on each tree ring till it gets deposited somewhere along the nutrient route. these dark streaks are weak longitudinal strakes in the wood, often the cause of splitting in milled planks.
so lots of imperfections and substandard conditions in second growth teak that you wont find in the old growth stuff. In many teak growing countries - mostly south east Asia- the remaining old growth stands are considered an endangered specie. usually the few stands that still survive are protected as national treasures. Honduran Mahogany has a similar status… and level of unobtainability.
end result is farm raised teak has a lot of random variability in growth rings and deadwood. You have to go through a lot of poor quality timber to find consistent, high grade wood. So the cost for usable, good looking Board feet of material is often very high.
Also old growth forests were extremely effective in creating optimal, large scale growing environments - balanced and evenly distributed nutrient, soil, and water sources, with lots of beneficial fungi in the soil to promote healthily root systems, optimum nutrient and moisture uptakes, etc…. Once you clear cut the forest, you destroy that entire ecosystem, and end up with inferior quality second growth lumber growing conditions.
BTW, a big issue with second growth teak is actual uptake of sand and fines from the unfiltered soil by the root system into the trunk of the tree. Teak draws a profuse amount of water into the trunk and branches. teak roots actually draws fines and small sand granules out of the soil, if the soil isn’t filtered and protected by old growth understory - mosses,small plant matts etc. This unfiltered uptake results in the random dark streaks you will see in farm raised teak lumber. The streaks are basically concentrations of dirty water - sand and silt actually, that has been carried up the Cambrian on each tree ring till it gets deposited somewhere along the nutrient route. these dark streaks are weak longitudinal strakes in the wood, often the cause of splitting in milled planks.
so lots of imperfections and substandard conditions in second growth teak that you wont find in the old growth stuff. In many teak growing countries - mostly south east Asia- the remaining old growth stands are considered an endangered specie. usually the few stands that still survive are protected as national treasures. Honduran Mahogany has a similar status… and level of unobtainability.
end result is farm raised teak has a lot of random variability in growth rings and deadwood. You have to go through a lot of poor quality timber to find consistent, high grade wood. So the cost for usable, good looking Board feet of material is often very high.
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Russell Brown
Super Anarchist
One crushed my skull and I'm not joking. Willow trees give me the eebie jeebies.
Jud - s/v Sputnik
Super Anarchist
Cool boat, or more shit on the oceans? Maybe both. I mean, I’m super happy for Angus Rowboats, who’ve designed and built some very cool boats (and done some very cool things: first entirely human powered circumnavigation of Earth, I believe), but I guess more and more drones are an inevitable development of humans’ expansion of their reach to invade the far corners of the world…”we’re actually a data company…”
Diarmuid
Super Anarchist
"Uncrewed vessel: stay clear". I, for one, give way to our new robot/AI overlords.
I guess it does count as a vessel not under command per COLREGs. Better fly ball/diamond/ball on that biotch, if they want to avoid liability in an admiralty court.
I guess it does count as a vessel not under command per COLREGs. Better fly ball/diamond/ball on that biotch, if they want to avoid liability in an admiralty court.
Good work on the guy using Photoshop in a way to make it look like sun can actually penetrate down to Morlaix harbour!
One of the odd things about Black locust is that it will rot when it’s alive…. But it’s essentially impervious to rot once harvested.That's what I meant about locust being a weed tree. It grows everywhere, whether you want it to or not.
Honey locust:
Leeroy Jenkins
Super Anarchist
Diarmuid
Super Anarchist
You are right! Sorry. Google lied to me.
Google lies to us all.What's really sad is that I had to look that up. (But then, the whole reason for this sailing thing is the vast block of things I don't know & will need to learn. Like day shapes. Flag alphabet. Radio protocol. Tides. Spanish.
)
Sail4beer
Starboard!
Just go sailing first!
Diarmuid
Super Anarchist
Building rudder now. That seems important.
Sail4beer
Starboard!
That’s what us ignorant ‘muricuns call it, Damn others call it a rutter.
Diarmuid
Super Anarchist
It is going to be a glorious mixture of metric and imperial components. (Just like the rest of the boat.) It shall deter European rudder thieves, as manual transmissions in small cars baffle joyriders.
Steam Flyer
Sophisticated Yet Humble
Make sure you use a mix of Allen heads, Robertson, and Phillips. And on exposed ones, use slots and clock them... then polish inside the slots with a dremel and Wenol.
SloopJonB
Super Anarchist
Don't miss the opportunity to include some BSW fasteners.
Diarmuid
Super Anarchist
Left-hand thread everywhere.
Fleetwood
Member
In NZ ATM, they love their Robertson screws here!
(Note to self, do NOT lose the Robertson screwdriver...)
