Plywood Strip Boat?

[Weasle]

Has any one of you artists done this? Ripped 5mm Luan or Okume plywood to 1" or 3/4" and built a wood stripper this way? Strength I would imagine be considerably more than WRC. Limited to 8' strips. Weight might be heavier. Could look nice depending on craftsmanship. Considering doing this and wanted some feed back.

[gerald]

Well, no, I haven't done it, but I can tell you what I think. First, you wouldn't want to use luan. Luan is heavier, brittle, weaker, and far less quality than typical marine grades of okoume. While you can argue that a typical S&G is stronger than strip, you can also argue the other way. I think the panels of an S&G may be stronger in some ways but the overall boat done with strips is stronger. I'd also think a strip boat done with plywood strips would be weaker than either standard method. Compare the strength and resilience of 1" strips cut in plywood versus WRC. If you cut 4mm okoume up in strips and used the strip method the boat would be far heavier than either method done typically. S&G lapstrake is very nice, strong, and fairly lightweight but your strakes would be probably 4" or more.
Hard chine (S&G) and soft chine (strip) each have positives and negatives. Neither method is better than the other. Either is better for some purposes. Usually a properly designed soft chine boat will be more efficient (faster) than a good hard chine boat (by a very narrow margin, but after 10 miles the boat that is 10 feet ahead is in front).
What kind of boat are you thinking about building?

[bowgarguide]

Just my own experience the strip wrc is much stronger and lighter..
Ron

[Weasle]

Thinking about 20' and 19" wide. Fast race Boat. Just thinking pretty, fast, and somewhat comfortable, as far as race boats go.

[gerald]

That's what I figured. I've got the Stilleto to build one of these days. 20' X 20". Fast and comfortable, as you say, for a race boat. I would go with WRC strips in a soft chine design. Strip built in, other words. One layer of 4 oz. s-glass inside and out. For a little more strength you could add another layer inside in the cockpit area. Not absolutely necessary though. Most race boats that have to meet minimum width requirements are parabolic in cross section. Fairly tippy, but fast for the width. If you don't have to meet width requirements you could go with an elliptical shape and just go narrower. Much more predictable lean. 19" is pretty narrow, though some surf skis are 18". At 20" wide I'm going with a super ellipse cross section. Don't let me confuse you though. My primary goal was to build boats that finish. I did that. Now I need to start going for speed. Unfortunately I'm getting old. Need that comfort. Keep us posted. I'm interested...and can probably take 5 minutes and tell you everything I know.

[Weasle]

Im the classic example of the racer that keeps looking for the better boat, but it is the motor that needs replacing. Thanks Gerald.

[gerald]

Hey...we're in the same boat--except that you're working with an overhead V8 and I'm stuck with a 6 cylinder flathead...
I WILL see you on the river one of these days.

[JEM]

I thought about this (stripping with ply) except with 2" wide strips. The purpose would be to get the look of the old planked canoes. But there's an issue:

The planked canoes were built around steel reinforced molds and the wood planking was steam bent in 2 directions: longitudinally (shape of the hull from bow to stern) and also laterally around the camber of the rounded stations/molds/forms. I don't know you could get plywood to bend like that even with steam (which seems like a really bad idea with plywood).

Maybe you could get some moderate results with 3mm ply but would the effort pay off? Hard to predict.