Substitute for Oregon

[Wood Boat]

I am looking for a suitable softwood or hardwood substitute to Oregon for the extention of my keel and stringers as this is what they are already constructed from and it seems to be rather hard to get and fairly expensive in my neck of the woods. Im after anyones thoughts on substituting it for any readily available Pine derivative.
Also the possibility of using Meranti as this is readily available and cheap as chips and available in a multitude of sizes as it's used for triming in houses

Cheers Alister

[Raggi_Thor]

In Norway we would use Norwegian Pine or Scotch Pine (pinus sylvestris).
Americans would maybe use Douglas fur?

I think Meranti comes in many qualities, you should check the density and stiffness. Make a simple bending test and estimate the modulus of elasticy, complare with table values for Oregon pine.

[hansp77]

Hello Alister,
What are the dimensions of the timber that you need?

Last year I spent a whole day driving around desperately trying to buy some oregan for deck beams, with money to burn, but to no avail.
As we headed back to the boatyard, we noticed a suburb was having 'hard rubbish collection'.
We stopped at a couple of places, and within fifteen minutes had the boot of the car filled with piles of great-old oregan, salvaged from discarded bed frames- some of it really nice old growth stuff- all for free- for stuff that good money couldn't buy (it was a saturday).
(EDIT- I have since noticed that this is a really common practice- remembering your boat, I doubt you would get the length for a whole stringer this way, but certainly you would get enough to extend your keel)

I used meranti marine ply replacing my deck. I don't know about the timber they sell as meranti here- as far as I know, meranti is a generic term for a wide range of pacific hardwood species, some suited to marine use, some not so.

If only you were a bit closer... I have piles of oregan (all salvaged), with some really big long beams (I have cut a few masts for a small gaff rig out of one). Often the case with this old stuff, it is of better quality (old growth- finer grain and no grain run-out) than the stuff they sell now.

as far as finding some oregan goes, or finding something to replace it with (available in your neck of the woods), give this forum a go.
It is an Aussie woodwork forum, I have found it really really helpfull, it is really big and good forum, and gets a huge amount of activity/responses- there are also quite a few wooden boat owners on there with more than a few in your area.
Introduce yourself, hang around a bit, and someone will give you more help (and/or wood) than you need.

Good Luck.

Hans.

[Wood Boat]

Thanx for the info Hans very much appreciated
Al