wood sealer

C

C-WEED

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I am making a roof rack for a CD22. Nothing fancy, just some pine. I am wondering about waterproofing? Will Thompsons water seal be good enough? Or should I invest in some other type of wood sealer? The boat is usually stored under a boat port when not being used.

Thanks for the wood expert opinions...
 
Chris:

If you really want the rack to last and don't mind a little extra work, apply a couple of coats of epoxy such as West System. Then follow with a couple of coats of marine spar varnish for UV protection. You can apply the first coat of epoxy prior to assembly and the second after. If you do this the rack will look good and last indefinitely.

Good luck on your project.
 
Thanks for the tips, guys. The rack is kind of an experiment as is the main purpose to carry a canoe. I was a bit unsure about the attachment/mount method and didn't want to go with higher end wood in case it didn't work out. I was against painting initially. But since the wood is very light in color, perhaps painting it white to match the boat might look better. The more I think about it the more I like it. I wonder how durable the paint will be.
 
If you went with a hard wood (red oak?), expoxied it, and then applied one of
the topside paints, perhaps it would hold up well. There are many different
kinds of pine - some soft, and some not so soft. The pine I can buy locally
is too soft, would dent, and probably allow the paint to pop. Your mileage may
vary if the pine you use is harder.

Anyhow, red oak is easy for me to obtain locally, strong, and somewhat flexable.
So if I wanted to do something similar, it would be my choice. Red Oak isn't
terribly expensive, either. If you go to a yard that sells it surfaced 3 sides, and you
ask for four quarter, it will cost a good deal less than buying boards at "Home Deport"
or wherever. It has been a while since I bought oak, but I think it runs a little
less than $3 bd/foot in widths less than 10". This is for boards in the top two grades,
whose names I forget because the place I buy wood only sells those grades anythow.

Red oak takes a screw well, too, so assembly won't be too bad. There are some
gotchas though that you need to be careful of. When drilling the pilot hole in
the piece of wood that will receive the threads, make sure the pilot is dead center
of the hole in the piece you are attaching. If it is not, the screw will be flexed during
assembly and will likely snap. When working in pine, the screw will enlarge
the through hole and align itself to the pilot. That won't happen in oak or most
other hardwoods. Pilot holes in hardwood need to be the proper size, too.

I don't know for sure how well epoxy adheres to red oak. Any care to comment?

Mike
 
Mike:

I am not sure how long you want your rack to last but red oak should not be used in marine applications because it will rot. White oak is recommended for marine applications. I have used epoxy over white oak as well as ash, which is a very similar wood, in building kayaks and other projects and it worked very well. Sealing red oak with epoxy would certainly make the rack more durable and probably would be ok for a few years but I have not had any experience in doing this.

Best regards,
Rollie/C-Batical
 
Good to know about white oak. I've sealed a variety of woods in epoxy, but better
to start with the most durable.

The main point I was trying for is that the rack can be made out of relatively
inexpensive wood that should work better than pine.

Thanks,

Mike
 
I know nothing about woods and what is good. It sounds as though some of you have this knowledge and can answer this question. How would cedar do in a non-load bearing situation? Thanks Ron
 
Ron – don’t sell Cedar short on its load bearing abilities. Any wood bridging a span with the ends unsecured (just lying across a span) will bend as weight is applied until it breaks. Cedar has very little spring to it, so it breaks sooner than say Doug Fir.

Secure the ends of the span and it greatly increases its load bearing capacity. Now I am going by memory and do not remember the lower end of the breaking point of a ¼ inch by ¼ inch by 16 inch beam (stick) of Doug Fir spanning 12 inches. Its breaking point with the ends unsecured was (I believe) under 15 pounds. With the ends secured, the same stick of Doug Fir would hold 150 pounds.

I do not remember the numbers for Cedar, but it was less than fir. However if you used enough Cedar to equal the weight of Doug Fir, the weight bearing ability of Cedar with the ends secured, approached that of fir.

_________
Dave dlt.gif
 
Chris, I love wood on a boat, and boats made of wood but it would seem to me that with a fiberglass boat, with little or no exterior maintenance, adding wood parts would add excessively to that effort.

Why not use one of the plastic lumber products?

Charlie
 
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