Question for Beekeeper

[tx river rat]

I notice several times you have recommended boats built with chine logs and no glass. The first couple boats I built were like that.
How long do you get out of a hull with no glass and just paint if stored outside?
My boats were built out of marine ply and a year 1/2 or 2 years was just about the limit.for mine
Ron

 

[Oyster]

I am not Beekeeper but see this discussion with the premise that glass makes a boat last longer. The longivity of any and all boats are dependant on three main factors. The type of materials while a big factor does not always mean that the boat will last longer. The workmanship working in tune with how you use it and maintain it before you need to maintain it and even address issues that you see pop up is probably 99 percent of the deciding factor addressing longivity. Chines have been used in boats for more years than epoxy fillets and glass tape. Personally I have a garvey built from eight dollar luan as an experiement that is going on 18 years old now with skinned glass with tape and glue fillets.

 

[tx river rat]

I am not knocking any kind of construction, I am just curious about the way a boat is stored and the use . and how that compares to the epoxy glass combo.
The material used to build (wood) in my opion does make a world of difference,Seedtick boats are prime examples of this cypress will last a long time.I know some folks on here that built from oak ply and fir and had it check pretty bad within a year even covered in glass.
I use boats rough and they may be the reason I havent had good luck with that construction method. I can understand a boat that is used in clear water and stored inside lasting a long time .
Ron

 

[Oyster]

Your question was or I took it as does chine logs make a boat last longer. What did I miss? Chine logs as a working component does not make a boat last longer than glass tape and fillets or vice versa. Each boat is subjected to its own set of circumstances Boats built without a single piece of glass has a pretty good track record for longivity dating back 100 years or more.. Its not that simple. A wooden boat stored inland in freshwater will also need more maintainance of a different kind to the boat and areas in the actual boat, even while we also know that wooden boats stored in saltwater suffers from a different set of circumstances such as worms that love wood, in warmer waters the better for the bugs too, in normal cases.

 

[oldsparkey]

I can understand a boat that is used in clear water and stored inside lasting a long time .
Ron

Now you are talking about my boats , Spring fed streams with sand bars or muddy swamps with Cypress knees and logs in the water. None of them have any rock worries and the boats are keep inside or under cover when not in use.
Biggest problem that I have with the boats is all the dust they collect when they are not being used. :roll:

Chuck.

 

[tx river rat]

The way Chuck uses and stores his boats they should last forever with a very small amount of maintenance.
You misunderstood what I am asking.
Boats have been built for not hundred but thousand of years out of a number of things,so that isnt what I am talking about.
I am not a snob as far as boat construction goes, I have used luan, marine ply,foam,strips,alum
even cardboard . Some with glass and poly some with epoxy some with just paint and some just using tape.
My question for Bee was me wanting more info into the way he builds his boats and the longevity of them, if they were stored inside ,or like mine lived outside all there lives. Bee builds some good looking boats and does a lot of playing so I figured he was the one to ask.
My preference in boats is strip with glass inside and out , that seem to be the best balance of weight toughness and a long life for the way my boats are paddled and stored .
Ron

 

[Oyster]

The way Chuck uses and stores his boats they should last forever with a very small amount of maintenance.
You misunderstood what I am asking.
Boats have been built for not hundred but thousand of years out of a number of things,so that isnt what I am talking about.
I am not a snob as far as boat construction goes, I have used luan, marine ply,foam,strips,alum
even cardboard . Some with glass and poly some with epoxy some with just paint and some just using tape.
My question for Bee was me wanting more info into the way he builds his boats and the longevity of them, if they were stored inside ,or like mine lived outside all there lives. Bee builds some good looking boats and does a lot of playing so I figured he was the one to ask.
My preference in boats is strip with glass inside and out , that seem to be the best balance of weight toughness and a long life for the way my boats are paddled and stored .
Ron

By all means carry on, I am just an idle time lurker that probably knows just enough to be dangerous on the water.
Edited to add that my point on the old boats was that we have boats still plowing the waters edge thats over 100 years old now. So the question that I originally replied to dealt with what you wondered about, does the chines help to durability and toughness or does the glass at to the longivity of the boats thats been used and even abused? My claim and observation is that there is no real correct answer and solely depends on the particular use and how the boat is taken care of, which is a fair answer and simular content that Old Sparky also provided in his answer, how something is used after you finish the boat.

 

[oldsparkey]

Ron..

When I was a kid ( Yes , that long ago ) I had or should I say my Dad got a used row boat for me. It was around 16ft and was all wood. This was before anyone decided on glassing a boat and all of them were made out of wood.

It was along the lines of a skiff with the pointed bow and wide transom , a bow seat and stern seat with the middle seat doubling as a live well plus it has a 7 1/2 H.P. Martin motor on it. The boat was outside all the time , either on the lake or pulled up on the shore and still in the weather. It never , really , never got a break , it was out fishing after school and during summer vacation it was on the water all the time.
The only weather proofing it had was a coat of dark green paint and one time a year ( if it was lucky ) it was flipped over to get the bottom scraped and repainted.

I had that boat for several years and when we moved from the lake to a different address the boat stayed with the house since the new place was not on a lake. It is my understanding that it continued to give a lot more years of enjoyment to the new owner.

Mr. Courtney made the boat and if memory serves me correctly it was made from Plywood but I can not swear to it since every boat he made was painted Dark Green. That was the best and most versital boat I have ever had but it was also the 1st boat so that might have a lot in making me feel that way.

Chuck.

 

[jdupre']

Oyster, to be fair, Ron asked "How long do YOU get out of a hull with no glass and just paint if stored outside? " I didn't take it as a loaded question, just asking for curiosity's sake.

Joey

 

[Oyster]

Oyster, to be fair, Ron asked "How long do YOU get out of a hull with no glass and just paint if stored outside? " I didn't take it as a loaded question, just asking for curiosity's sake.

Joey

Sorry that I responded, but each and everyone of us sometimes interprete questions and view any and all infrances differently. If you look at the original comment and even question:

notice several times you have recommended boats built with chine logs and no glass. The first couple boats I built were like that.
How long do you get out of a hull with no glass and just paint if stored outside?
My boats were built out of marine ply and a year 1/2 or 2 years was just about the limit.for mine
Ron

and then the follow up infrance which was that even with his boats being built using marine plywood they only lasted two years tops. Whether the boat is built using chine logs with or without glass on the outside or you incorporate glass as a matrix, most everyone I know gets more than two years from their boats unless they abuse them or feel the need to neglect them in some harsh elements. But anyway if the standard life of homebuilds amounts to two years tops frankly there are other reasons for the decline in such a short period past the natural denegration of any and all hulls in the industry and hobby of building your own boat, IMHO.

For me and my experiences of dealing with one of the so called crude hull designs, the Simmons Sea Skiffs, there are some that are still plowing the waters in North Carolina and even in the great lakes that were built without glass, without any glues and used fir plywood. You can witness this on this site.
http://www.simmonsseaskiff.com/
If you look at the particular hull featured on the front page, its from the 1960s and has had little to nothing done on it except paint when he feels the need to do so , still sea worthy too.

For myself right now I have two 12 footers built using marine grade plywood and they sit on trailers in the four seasons weather with a simple cover on them, one being seven years old. I take one of them in the inlets of open water without fear of the boat failing me. So i will say one more time that many variables are in play when you want to solely look at a boat's lifespand.

Over and out.....

 

[tx river rat]

Oyster
Where did the crude boat design come from?
Ok I am sure there are a lot of boats out there that are years old and built with no glass. No one on here can find one post that puts down the chine log construction from me. I just ask a legit question.
My statement about the 2 year lifespan for a log chined boat is accurate. What you consider harsh treatment may differ from my interpretation . Where i paddle 90 % of the time is in the Brazos ,that means rocks concrete steel in places gravel sand bars . Now if I just paddled open water I would never put the boat in the water or be paddling around in a circle in a deep hole.
My boats are made to use and if they want hold up to that I need a different kind of boat. Oh and since you seem not to believe what I said ask Chuck he has paddle down here with me.
My boats are not under a cover or tarp they get flipped upside down if there lucky last year they went through 115 degree heat down to 7 degrees of cold and in full sun. .
This was posted not to be criticle but to gather info.
Ron

 

[Oyster]

Oyster
Where did the crude boat design come from?
Ok I am sure there are a lot of boats out there that are years old and built with no glass. No one on here can find one post that puts down the chine log construction from me. I just ask a legit question.
My statement about the 2 year lifespan for a log chined boat is accurate. What you consider harsh treatment may differ from my interpretation . Where i paddle 90 % of the time is in the Brazos ,that means rocks concrete steel in places gravel sand bars . Now if I just paddled open water I would never put the boat in the water or be paddling around in a circle in a deep hole.
My boats are made to use and if they want hold up to that I need a different kind of boat. Oh and since you seem not to believe what I said ask Chuck he has paddle down here with me.
My boats are not under a cover or tarp they get flipped upside down if there lucky last year they went through 115 degree heat down to 7 degrees of cold and in full sun. .
This was posted not to be criticle but to gather info.
Ron

Well any and all materials in the form of wood that we build boats with have been cut down and looses it life at that point. So its a matter of time before the wood finally gives up the ghost. We slow or retard the death by coating the wood and dealing with dings as they happen. We also know that there are many species of wood and the life can vary depending on the grains and the actual age of the wood when it was cut down. We know that plantation pine has little to no rot resistance to the wood because it lacks the proper resins for the lack of any scientific name. We also know that unlike white oak red oak is pourous and depending on how thorough a builder is with sealing the wood grains, the coatings can check out and allow dampness to enter and begin to turn to mold, rotting the wood.

Cypress will also react in the simular manner sometimes if the cypress is second growth too. We also know that some of the most exoctic plywoods like the Okumne lacks the rot resistance that even quality meranti does either. The cores of any plywood also plays a big role in the longivity of plywood that is gets fractured too. Some cores are crappy also making a boat inferior.

So yes there are many variables. Abusing the boat or neglecting any and all hulls causing such a short life of two years is solely not the fault of any materials or the fault of any building method and a premature death of any. I am still unsure of how you can get an accurate and absolute answer to what appears to be a broadbrush request.
And about that crude boat comment that I made? Yep a home cabinet guy decided to take his skills to another level and created a line of boats that used zero caulk, and what we now consider low end plywood, fir, even though the stuff was better many years ago and created a working hull for ugly weather and in turn the boats were also sold to hundreds of families as a pleasure craft from 1950 to 1972. Then the boats have been reproduced since then by amateur boat builders throughout the world too, using the same process. When I tell you that these people got more than two years out of their hulls without being babied, and without the expensive materials, the facts are there and you can decide for yourself if your early demise of your own boat appears to be an exception to todays rules of homebuilt wooden boats.

If you would like I can provide you several shots of my no glass, chine built, scantly framed plywood hull, Ace hardware store paint and stored outside hulls and you can decide if I should cut them up and place the parts in the dumpster or if they are safe to give them away to my own kids and allow them to wander away from the shoreline into deep waters

.

 

[Oyster]

What you are looking at is hardware paint and Minwax big box store varnish over solid mahogany veneers. The boat is scantly framed using madrone mahogany, IIRC and the entire boat was also primed with Kiltz interior oil base primer [ stuff used for stain blocking for water leaks in ceilings in particular] under the XO Rust oil base enamel.

If you cannot get more than two years from any of your builds then two conclusions includes that you are beating them up and putting them away without regard and care and you also deserve to loose the boat in such a short time. All it takes is being mindfull and conscientous of the fact that these boats are not some plastic fantastics which are mostly throwaway boats and rarely can be fixed without them looking patched in most cases..

 

[tx river rat]

Well any and all materials in the form of wood that we build boats with have been cut down and looses it life at that point. So its a matter of time before the wood finally gives up the ghost. We slow or retard the death by coating the wood and dealing with dings as they happen. We also know that there are many species of wood and the life can vary depending on the grains and the actual age of the wood when it was cut down. We know that plantation pine has little to no rot resistance to the wood because it lacks the proper resins for the lack of any scientific name. We also know that unlike white oak red oak is pourous and depending on how thorough a builder is with sealing the wood grains, the coatings can check out and allow dampness to enter and begin to turn to mold, rotting the wood.

Cypress will also react in the simular manner sometimes if the cypress is second growth too. We also know that some of the most exoctic plywoods like the Okumne lacks the rot resistance that even quality meranti does either. The cores of any plywood also plays a big role in the longivity of plywood that is gets fractured too. Some cores are crappy also making a boat inferior.

I apreciate the wood lesson but it has nothing to do with my question

And about that crude boat comment that I made? Yep a home cabinet guy decided to take his skills to another level and created a line of boats that used zero caulk, and what we now consider low end plywood, fir, even though the stuff was better many years ago and created a working hull for ugly weather and in turn the boats were also sold to hundreds of families as a pleasure craft from 1950 to 1972. Then the boats have been reproduced since then by amateur boat builders throughout the world too, using the same process. When I tell you that these people got more than two years out of their hulls without being babied, and without the expensive materials, the facts are there and you can decide for yourself if your early demise of your own boat appears to be an exception to todays rules of homebuilt wooden boats.


I think its nice this guy made a business out of his ideal. Were they called crude boats

If you would like I can provide you several shots of my no glass, chine built, scantly framed plywood hull, Ace hardware store paint and stored outside hulls and you can decide if I should cut them up and place the parts in the dumpster or if they are safe to give them away to my own kids and allow them to wander away from the shoreline into deep waters



Your welcome to send them if you want to.


So yes there are many variables. Abusing the boat or neglecting any and all hulls causing such a short life of two years is solely not the fault of any materials or the fault of any building method and a premature death of any. I am still unsure of how you can get an accurate and absolute answer to what appears to be a broadbrush request.

I dont know how much simpler I can make this. You answered my question you said you had one 7 years old ,you run clear water, and store under a cover.
Now if Bee has the time I would like to hear how his are stored how old they are and anyone else that has an unglassed chine log hull.
Neglect or misuse I will take into consideration ,but your interpretation of that doesnt apply to me ,just to your boats.
Thats a pretty boat and well preserved and would be that pretty for about a hundred yards on the Brazos, and everytime you went she would be upside down and you redoing the hull.
So it would not be a good boat for me.

 

[Oyster]

I dont know how much simpler I can make this. You answered my question you said you had one 7 years old ,you run clear water, and store under a cover.
Now if Bee has the time I would like to hear how his are stored how old they are and anyone else that has an unglassed chine log hull.
Neglect or misuse I will take into consideration ,but your interpretation of that doesnt apply to me ,just to your boats.

My seven year boat that is shown is just one boat in a long line of boats that have stayed in the water exposed and out of the water sitting on a trailer with questionable covers at best, such as the blue tarps that rarely hold all water out f they are six months old or more.

And yes we boat in water that consists of real to life oyster rocks, shelly beach heads and cypress stumped rivers, all supported by photos, if it was really worth the time here. Frankly I don't think you will accept any and all evidence past your own experiences no matter the building method or materials. If you run them hard and put them up wet, your hull will give up the ghost no matter what method. I was drawn to reply when I read the two year time frame, simply because that is an acception to the rule with more than enough evidence on this forum to back that crazy notion up too.

Why don't you wonder over on the link and take a look at the history of those crude commercial fishing hulls that were built using lesser materials and lesser time than most of us build our hulls these days.
Fiifty years and growing with some of those hulls without a single tube of caulking, epoxy or glass. In the early years they were used in oystering, and net fishing with water laying in the bilges for months on in while they resided in the water too. The two year tops time frame is nonsense.
http://www.simmonsseaskiff.com/SSS%20history/index.htm

As far as the wood lesson, you dang right that plays a big role in the life of any and all boats, especially ones that are neglected too. You create your own reality sir and I cannot help you in that area. Now you will have the last word as I cannot help you.

 

[oldsparkey]

Ron's paddling is not like anything here on the East Coast , he paddles in a total different world. His world is made up of Rocks and tons of them along with extremely shallow water so you are either bouncing off a rock or running over one while paddling. I will not even get into the man made obstacles. :roll:

I know when you think of Texas you think of cows and pastures covered in green grass , well under all of that are rocks and you will get up close and very personal with them when paddling. The sand bars in the pictures he posts on here are not sand but small pebbles from a BB size up to larger quarter and half dollar sized ones.

It surprises me that any boat Ron paddles lasts more then a couple of years considering the conditions he paddles in. Don't get me wrong it is not his handling of the boat it is what Mother Nature and Father Time does to them. I believe that any boat without glass , at lease on the bottom , would get chewed up really fast.

As far as the weather , when I meet Ron at his place , to paddle the Brazos with him , Darrell , and Bear there had been a hard rain and I asked him if he was planning on using one of his boats for a fish tank since it was full of water. He emptied it before we left for the camping trip. He told me it was from a rain , I found that hard to believe until the last night while camping.
The weather was really nice for several days and the night before we were to get off the river the following day a tornado swung past the campsite in the early morning hours and after it left I had a good 3 inches ( probable more ) of water ( Rain ) in my canoe. That was from just one storm which only lasted a couple of hours.

Personally I was wishing my canoe was an Grumman Aluminum on that trip and not 1/8th inch wood glassed over with a slicked bottom.

Chuck.
A Question for Beekeeper and so far he is the one who has not responded , he must be camping , fishing or without a computer.

 

[Oyster]

I know when you think of Texas you think of cows and pastures covered in green grass , well under all of that are rocks and you will get up close and very personal with them when paddling. The sand bars in the pictures he posts on here are not sand but small pebbles from a BB size up to larger quarter and half dollar sized ones.

It surprises me that any boat Ron paddles lasts more then a couple of years considering the conditions he paddles in. Don't get me wrong it is not his handling of the boat it is what Mother Nature and Father Time does to them. I believe that any boat without glass , at lease on the bottom , would get chewed up really fast.

Oh I have boated in the Port Arthur-Sabine area in particular and understand the state has marshes, redfish and flounder in particular. But i go back to the notion that no matter the building method which was in the original post will give a small portable boat any extention in its life if you solely are looking for a building method in which to extend the life of the boat thats going to be abused over and above standard operating practices for a given hull build. For sure some coatings are better than others, but finish cloth is not at the top of the list for the absolute best coatings in heavy abuse requirements. It has not real impact resistance by comparison to two other frequently used materials slated for protecting wood forms. A wooden shell or form with maybe kevlar or even Xynole as a fabric on the exterior will enhance the skin's ability to resist the outside forces from penetrating to some measured point and resist the normal scuffs that shells and rocks create on the bottoms of the boats. But that is another subject from the original post.

 

[tx river rat]

Oyster
the gulf coast are nothing like I paddle, thats sand and oyster reef country.
I have run this area for 40 something years and the only boats that will go are Yaks and airboats , and you better have plastic on the bottom or you will burn the bottom out of an airboat.
The LLano river ,the Colorado river are worse than the Brazos , so if I went by your thinking I would just sit at home and wish I was on the water. Oh bye the way I have a T_V that lives outside, been blown down a sandbar for a hundred yard , dragged over rocks sand gravel and has over 2000 miles of that kind of abuse built from Luan and poly thats still going strong.
Your right you cant help- me, you dont know what kind of country or conditions I paddle in.
This post has gotten plumb stupid ,
Ron

 

[Oyster]

Oyster
the gulf coast are nothing like I paddle, thats sand and oyster reef country.
I have run this area for 40 something years and the only boats that will go are Yaks and airboats , and you better have plastic on the bottom or you will burn the bottom out of an airboat.
The LLano river ,the Colorado river are worse than the Brazos , so if I went by your thinking I would just sit at home and wish I was on the water. Oh bye the way I have a T_V that lives outside, been blown down a sandbar for a hundred yard , dragged over rocks sand gravel and has over 2000 miles of that kind of abuse built from Luan and poly thats still going strong.
Your right you cant help- me, you dont know what kind of country or conditions I paddle in.
This post has gotten plumb stupid ,
Ron

Go back to your original post. If anything is stupid, it was that you were not specific in what you were attempting to ask. You specifically ask only about the longivity of a particular building method, end of story. What you are now attempting to convey is that you want something that can withstand the local conditions on the ground since you appear to be not willing to fix whats needed. Because thousands of people know that wooden hulls built using chines and even the cheapest enamel paints last longer than the point that you attempted to make in the first post, being that you only got two years out of your boat, without any caveat or qualifiers.

I notice several times you have recommended boats built with chine logs and no glass. The first couple boats I built were like that.
How long do you get out of a hull with no glass and just paint if stored outside?
My boats were built out of marine ply and a year 1/2 or 2 years was just about the limit.for mine

Feel free to ignore that you were not clear in your point at all. While I did not reply to the new point of having a more rugged boat to endure the abuse, I also doubt Beekeeper would have answered correctly either by reading your request that had nothing other than generalities in it. You can have the last word here.
.

 

[tx river rat]

I am sorry if you cant comprehend the post
I will break it down for you

one line one question
How long do you get out of a hull with no glass and just paint if stored outside?
I think that is simple and very understandable.

I notice several times you have recommended boats built with chine logs and no glass. The first couple boats I built were like that.


My boats were built out of marine ply and a year 1/2 or 2 years was just about the limit.for mine
These are both statements not questions
Now if you cant comprehend what I just wrote I am truly sorry. And about 90% of the above thread is stupid.
Ron
I am done