Which wood would you use?

Discussion in 'Wooden Boat Building and Restoration' started by Sweet Dreamer, Jul 13, 2014.

  1. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    Yes, I understand. I wasn't planning on mixing it randomly. Unfortunatley I don't have a good drawing that shows how I plan on building this but I'll try to explain.

    Here's my hull crudely drawn in Delftship:

    [​IMG]

    My idea here is to build a frame and sides out of white oak. In other words the sides of the barges will be solid white oak. I can make them quite thick actually. I was also thinking of running several internal ribs running the full length of the barge. These ribs would be the same as the sides only thinner. They would be vertical ribs just like the sides are vertical.

    I also plan to include some vertical cross members inside the barges too. All this would be done in white oak and be the frame upon which the pine is then attached.

    The pine boards would then run horizontally across the beam of the boat, not in the direction of motion. Most expansion and contraction of the pine and the oak occurs across the width of the boards. And so I'm thinking that the shouldn't be interfering with each other since they are prone to expand and contract in different dimensions.

    In other word the oak will mainly be expanding and contracting in the vertical height of the hull, whilst the pine boards will be expanding and contracting over the length of the hull.

    Two things I'm thinking here.

    1. Most of the expansion and contraction of the pine boards will basically be taken up in the seams between them. I'm actually planning on making joints that will allow for this motion. The idea is to also only fasten the pine planks on at their center-lines allowing the boards to expand or contract width-wise freely. This will of course require that these planks are kept to a small width, but if they are quarter-sawn boards that will be an automatic anyway.

    2. I can also design in some freedom for potential lengthwise expansion and contraction of the white oak framing. I'm not sure if that will really be necessary though, but it's certainly doable.

    So anyway, that's the plan. I'm thinking that this oak frame would give these barges far more strength overall. And this plan shouldn't cause expansion conflicts because of the way it is designed.

    That's my standard procedure for all my trees actually.

    I store lumber in using A-frames. Every board it standing up vertical. Water runs right off and they dry much faster. There is also the added advantage that every board is on the "top" of the pile so-to-speak. No boards are buried under other boards. They all stand next to each other vertically side-by-side. This is the way I stack all my lumber. I discovered this method of stacking lumber some years ago and I have never looked back. I will never stack boards by laying them on top of each other again (even with stickers). The A-frame method of stacking lumber is the only way to go in my book. Like I say, every board is on the top of the stack. You never have to go digging through a pile looking for the board you want. Plus I found that they actually dry and cure far faster in this configuration. ;)

    Understood. That makes sense for pine. I wouldn't have thought of that though so thanks for bringing my attention to it.

    These boats will be out of the water most of the time. Not likely to be in the river for more than two weeks at a time at most, and even that will be rare. Most trips to the river will only be for a few days at a clip.

    I suppose I could make the frames and sides out of thick pine. But I was actually thinking that the oak frame would give me something more solid two screw the pine covering too. I really like the idea of the white oak framing.

    Where in the USA are you?

    Western Pennsylvania

    What sort of mill do you have?

    Woodmizer bandsaw mill.

    Can you afford to be really choosy and only use 20% of what you mill for the boats?

    Yes. In fact, I'm always cutting lumber for other things too, so yes, I can pick the cream of the crop for these boats.

    Are the trees plantation grown.

    No, they are native trees in a forest.

    Note. Some pines are forest pine (i.e. very tall with no limbs and therefore no knots) Others are field pines that have a short stubby trunk and then quickly split into four or five main branches than they grow straight up. It's almost like having four or five trees on one fat trunk.

    Actually those, those upper limbs usually produce pretty nice clear white pine.

    But yes, I have lots of trees to choose from. So I can pretty much choose top grade timber.

    In fact, I consider all my lumber to be far better than what I can buy at the lumber yard.

    I just made lumber from a pristine cherry tree. This whole tree produced beautiful veneer grade lumber. Of course that's for another project entirely, but I'm just saying. The trees here are really nice. ;)

    ~~~

    But yeah, I really like the idea of the using white oak for the sides and framing. What do you think on that point? It's not like I'm mixing lumber randomly. I think this design will work with these two woods, but not having experience building boats I certainly can't say for sure.

    One reason I want the oak frames also is because these boats are going to be joined together with other boats (or barges). And so having solid oak framing will be a lot stronger. The pine would be weaker where the boats are tied together.

    I definitely want the oak frames. So much so that I think I would rather go to solid oak than solid pine.

    But it would be great if I could use both. The pine would go much faster for covering the bulk of the underside of the hulls, and maybe for the decking too. But I really like the idea of a solid oak framing holding the whole thing together and the side walls made of oak too.

    Just think. All those pine boards on the bottom could then be screwed to the oak framing. Much more solid fastening. ;)

    Nothing would actually be screwed into pine. The screws would just go through the pine into the oak.
     
  2. LP
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: 26 36.9 N, 82 07.3 W

    LP Flying Boatman

    It's a matter of calculating the mass(weights) of all of the components and their CG's to find out what displacement you need and getting the total CG to coincide with your center of buoyance. Delphship will give you displacement and COB based on certain parameters that you set and it's up to you to apply these correctly to your design. You can also assign material properties in the layers dialog and the software will produce a weight and balance computation for you. Again, it's up to you to apply these abilities in such a way that you get useful and relevant information back. In the material properties dialog you can assign thickness and specific weights to layers based on the actual material properties of the materials that you are using. You will need a different layer for each component that has different material properties. For equipment, people and stowage, I make one foot squares (12" thick non-symmetric or 6" thick symmetric) and assign the specific weigh at the desired weigh. The center of mass of these squares are placed in their proper locations and Delphship will return a calculation of total mass(weight) and center of gravity. It's up to you to make sure these agree with COB and displacement.

    That's my Waterline 101 and how it applies to Delpfship.

    I've attached a cut-away of my current design so you can see the components that I've developed. Each layer is assign the appropriate material properties. You can see one of my "mass squares" up in the bow where I've assigned a weigh value for the items stowed in the chain locker.
     

    Attached Files:

  3. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    What version of Delftship are you running? Do you have the professional version? I'm just running the free version so I may not have access to those detailed capabilities.

    I'm also just starting out with Delftship so I have a lot to learn in terms of exactly how to draw things. I have used Autocad quite extensively in my career before I retired though so I have a lot of experience working in 3-D.

    I'm catching on to Delftship pretty quick.

    I like the way you did your cross-members in green on a separate layer. I didn't put my framing in yet. Unlike yours my framing members will actually run from back to front. There will be vertical cross-members too but those will fit between the main framing that runs stern to bow. Then my actual hull sheeting will run horizontally across the bottom of the barge side-to-side.

    I can draw all those elements up in the free version of Delftship, but I may not have access to the advanced weight distribution features you are using.

    ~~~~~

    Just to get started I actually uploaded a drawing of a powered barge. So I was starting off with someone else's drawing. They were clearly just drawing the basic shape using faces to just fill in the areas. There is no detail concerning framing, etc.

    I should probably start over from scratch with my own drawing.

    Is it possible to just delete everything and start from scratch with a clean slate?

    I'm not quite clear on exactly how Delftship works. It has a "Control Net" that shows up as a thick red line. But there are also other lines that are not part of the control net. I'm not clear on the difference between these. Especially when modifying things. I notice sometime I'll move a point and other points move too that I didn't' want to move. And I'm not clear on exactly how to take full control of the drawing.

    Also, is there only one "Control Net"? And does it need to be continuous?

    In other words, when I go to design the paddle wheel, for example. Can I have a control net associated with the Paddle wheel as an assembly that is totally separate from the rest of the boat? In Autocad this was very easily done. I could draw up a bunch of independent parts and treat each part as a completely independent entity.

    I'd like to do that with the cabin too. Whoever drew this powered barge up has the cabin protruding up out of the ship and it appears to be firmly attached to the ship. It's not a separate entity that can be independently moved around.

    Ironically I started this in Delftship because I wanted the buoyancy information, but my free version doesn't appear to have that anyway.

    So maybe I should just go back over to Autocad and draw it up there. I have a better understanding of how Autocad works. Then I can just do all my buoyancy calculations in a spreadsheet or a write up a visual basic program to do that. If I do it in visual basic I could have a real-time picture of the boat sitting in water and Visual Basic could emulated exactly how it would sit in the water. I might do that.

    I was actually hoping to find an applet online that would do that. I would think with all the boat designers around an applet like that would be fairly common. But I can't find one.
     
  4. LP
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: 26 36.9 N, 82 07.3 W

    LP Flying Boatman

    I'm actually using Freeship which is the precursor to Delphship. Freeship is an open source program. The guy that wrote Freeship also wrote Delphship and rolled it back a little bit when he made it commercial software. As far as I know, Delphship free has all of the capabilities that I mentioned in my earlier post.

    It's best to sit down with the manual and work through a tutorial, if it has one. At least, start a hull from scratch and work the the various functions. The software has it's limits and it's really not in the same realm as AutoCAD. It's strength is in it's hydrostatic abilities. It's fairly versatile, but takes some sit down time to get your head wrapped around it.
     
  5. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    I would love to do that but I haven't been able to find a good manual or tutorial that makes any sense. Especially in terms of starting from scratch.

    I think I'll just go back to AutoCAD. :D
     
  6. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    Ok, here's the problem I'm having, and I don't have any manuals to help me figure this out.

    In the following screen shot I've started from complete scratch and I drew four rectangles. I drew them by creating four points and then selecting those point to add a new face.

    But then what I get when I turn on the shading are these oval shaped faces.

    I was expecting to just get rectangular faces. Why the ovals?

    Do I need to change some settings somewhere.

    I wish they had a nice little manual that explains how to set things up from complete scratch. If I could get off the ground I could soar like an eagle. ;)

    As it is right now I just don't understand how to control what's going on.

    [​IMG]
     
  7. LP
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: 26 36.9 N, 82 07.3 W

    LP Flying Boatman

    He is a Freeship manual.
     

    Attached Files:

  8. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    Thank you. Maybe I'll just download Freeship and see how that program works. ;)
     
  9. LP
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: 26 36.9 N, 82 07.3 W

    LP Flying Boatman

    The Freeship manual should work for most aspects of Delphship. There should be a Delphship manual on their site.
     
  10. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    I've made major progress in learning how to use Delftship today.

    The Freeship manual has been quite helpful.

    I've learned how to control all the surfaces so everything is now well-behaved. I also learned how to group things on layers and move parts from one layer to another which is really helpful. Finally, I also learned how to save various parts as parts which is really nice. Now I can confidently design individual parts and export or import them as needed.

    So now I can move forward with confidence.

    I love to build everything in modules, and that includes my drawings. ;)

    So I'm cool to go now. :cool:
     
  11. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    Ok, here we go.

    I have five upright ribs or joists running the length of the barge. There's probably a better boating term for these?

    These are 20 feet long by 2 feet tall. These ribs, or joists will be made of white oak boards standing on edge. Probably four boards each 6 inches in width. They will be about 1 inch thick, maybe 5/4 inch thick.

    There will also be some white oak braces running sideways between these for added strength but I didn't draw them in yet.

    I could hollow out the center three to lighten the weight. But I'm not sure if that would really be necessary. I'm also thinking that if I keep them solid these can act like compartments kind of like the Titanic was supposed to have. In other words it's almost like having four wooden pontoons mounted together. This way in case of a major accident maybe only one pontoon would be ruptured and the other four would keep the thing from sinking.

    Anyway here's the crude drawing.

    [​IMG]

    A 3/4 inch thick white pine bottom would then be attached to the bottom of these (running horizontally). That would serve as the bottom of the hull. Then topside there will also be a white pine deck. I would actually prefer a cherry deck. I wonder if that would be ok? People will be walking on the top of this barge, not down inside it like a regular boat.

    So it really will be like a floating dock. It should be super strong.

    ~~~~~

    On the top side I was originally thinking about just placing a white picket railing, in fancy riverboat style. Partly as "gingerbread show" but also to function as a useable safety railing.

    Now I'm thinking of maybe including an actually wall about a foot high first and then the railing above that.

    Anyway, this is the idea I have in mind thus far.

    I still have a lot more to draw up obviously. But at least I'm off to a good start. These ribs are made as importable "parts" so I can easily modify them any time and replace them with newly modified ribs.

    I'm going to make the whole drawing up like this so I can easily change any parts on it as individual parts.

    In the upper left drawing the blue is supposed to be the waterline. But I have no clue how meaningful that is right now. I don't know where the program is getting that number. I'll have to figure that out later.

    But it would be nice if it would float that high on the water.

    Anyway, I'm finally off to a good start on my drawing.
     
  12. peterjoki
    Joined: Sep 2008
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    Location: Turku, Finland

    peterjoki Junior Member

    Scots pine is a traditional planking material in Finland. Almost all historical boats in Finland, Sweden and Norway have made use of it due to its local abundance. I don't know how White pine compares. If it is as full of resin as scots pine it'll do nicely.

    Pine should always be treated. Tar or a mixture of boiled linseed oil and tar is use over here if it is a historical boat.

    White oak has been popular over here as well on larger vessels. I have worked on an old trawler from begin 1900 that was built using 4-5" white oak planking. Still had most of its original wood. Large displacement, weight is desired.

    Given the choices available I would probably go with pine.

    As for construction method and whether or not to glue that depends on if the boat is intended to stay in the water throughout the season or sit on a trailer when not is use.

    Either wood you go for yearly maintenance will keep it in good shape, or coating her with glass will help some ways in minimizing upkeep.
     
  13. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    I'm not sure what the future of these boats will be. I'm thinking they will most likely spend most of their time on trailers. Most likely being in the water only for only a day at time, or a weekend at most. It's hard to say for sure.

    When is it better to glue or not to glue?

    I'm thinking of building these with removable cabins so they can be turned upside down for winter storage. Moving heavy objects like this is no problem as I have tractors with cranes. So flipping them over for winter storage wouldn't be a big deal. This is probably a good idea since they will be stored outside over winter.

    Here are some crude drawings I've made of these boats:

    They are 8' by 20' barges basically. There will be four of them total.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    The hope is to use all four together as shown in the last picture as a single modular riverboat. But often times I'll be taking just one tug out by itself, or maybe a single tug and barge. So they'll be in and out of the water. Mostly out. Most trips will be day trips or weekends. I don't plan on docking them in the river for extended periods of time. But I suppose that could happen if they become popular. I won't be the only person using them.
     
  14. peterjoki
    Joined: Sep 2008
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    Location: Turku, Finland

    peterjoki Junior Member

    If the boats are in and out of water the wood will live a lot.
    Virtually all wooden boats built with traditional seams leak when put into water at the beginning of the season. After a few days the wood expands and the boat becomes watertight. The only way around this is to use glue (I recommend epoxy) and preferably even cover the hull with epoxy (polyester is also ok) and a layer of fiberglass. This will seal the wood and you wont have to worry about expansion and contraction, resulting leakage.

    What are you intending to use these barges for? Looks like a fun project.

    I took a look at your designs. Are you going to have easy access to the compartments? If not I would (and have done so) seal all the surfaces inside the hull with epoxy.
     

  15. Sweet Dreamer
    Joined: Jul 2014
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    Location: USA

    Sweet Dreamer Junior Member

    A lot of my friends are musicians. We are thinking of playing music on these barges. We used to go down the river in canoes playing acoustical instruments and small hand drums like bongos or djembes. We basically had two musicians in each canoe along with someone to paddle the canoe. And we had three canoes. So this was three people per canoe. It actually worked out pretty well.

    In this project we're hoping to go for a full set of drums, and electric guitars, etc. All done with wireless connections of course. So no shock hazards to worry about. Allowing for only 3 people per barge or tug we can have a total of 12 people on board comfortably. Four of those will be the captains or pilots. The remaining 8 will be musicians.

    Anyway, that's the basic idea.

    We also decided to go with paddle wheel tugs so when the whole thing is all tied together it will emulate a larger riverboat 16' wide by 40' long. ;)

    We are excited about this project.

    I'm planning on making large sections of the deck easily removable to allow easy access to the inside of the hull if needed. This can also aid in drying the hulls out by allowing a lot of air flow for evaporation of any water and moisture that may get inside the hulls.

    We're not planning on starting construction on these for at least a year. Partly because we're cutting lumber from trees and need to wait for it to cure. But also because we want to take some time to draw up detailed plans, and even build a few scale models first.

    I'm actually looking forward to building the models. I enjoy building models. :)
     
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