Redwood?

[BWCA66]

Anybody ever use redwood to build a canoe or have thoughts on using it? I'm in CA where I see it in the lumber yards and am contemplating buying a bunch. From what I've read though it may not be the best. My father in law built 6 redwood strippers in the early 60's and had issues with the fiberglass coming off. Not sure if that was because glass was newer and resins were not as developed as now or if redwood has issues with bonding. I have read where some have suggested that the wood is the problem.

 

[Mihun09]

Back in those days it was likely polyester resin which does not like to bond to wood, so it could just have been the glass itself, not the wood.

wysedav is building one with redwood now, so ask him.

 

[Jim Dodd]

I machined strips for a friend out of Redwood, for a tandem canoe. We mixed in some Cedar to give it variety. Turned out neat. We epoxied the hull. To my recollection, as this was years ago, it looked great, even several years later.

If I was you, and could get a reasonable deal on it, I'd latch on to a bunch. Especially long stuff, 18' or longer.
The Redwood I worked was knot free, machined great, and stripped up fine !
It's a little brittle compared to Cedar. We had no trouble bonding with the epoxy resin.

Jim

PS: Glad you survived the trip out !

 

[wysedav]

I built a kayak a canoe and in the process of another canoe out of Redwood. I've had no problems with epoxy or working the wood at all, the kayak is about 3 yrs old and is holding up fine. It is a little stiffer but no real issues, on the kayak I had some tight compound bends and I just use a hot air gun when bending them and it worked fine.

 

[stripperguy]

Redwood will be a little more difficult to strip your hull. A bit heavier too...those days of poor resin bond are gone with the old polyester resins, modern epoxy resins will have no problems.
Here's my old comp cruiser as it looked in 1984, tons of room, fast as could be, and "only" 62 lbs!! Back then, I could carry solo (with my full pack) for unlimited miles.
Even though it's not an ideal material, you can still make a really nice boat with redwood.

 

[snapper]

I have nowhere near the experience of others in this matter but the one stripper I was involved in creating was made out of redwood. We purchased 5/4 boards from a local lumber yard and then cut the strips on a table saw. It was back in the 80's and all we had access to was the poly resin; and it didn't take well. While I didn't know if I'd screwed up or not, it's a bit reassuring to learn now that poly resin and redwood didn't go well together back then. I may finally
stop beating myself up about how badly that project came out. BTW...the furnace conking out right after we glassed the interior probably didn't help either; we did this in my basement and then left for a few days so my wife & kids didn't have to put up with the fumes. It was December and we came back to a totally cold house and a disaster in the garage; which also served as our basement.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper