Eastern Red Cedar?
- Thread starter ReedLeb
- Start date
Rob Stevens
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
Hmm, what does "nice" mean?
Have you seen it? What length, width and thickness?
Yes, it is pretty, and often relatively low cost.
Juniperus Virginiana aka Juniper is highly aromatic, rot-resistant with highly contrasting colour (red heartwood, white sapwood) that is usually smaller dimension (multi-stemmed), very knotty since it is an early succession plant (shrub to small tree). Think of cedar-lined chest.
Don't know how prone it might be to splitting though Western Red Cedar is more brittle than Eastern White Cedar.(pre-drill any tack, nail or screw holes).
Have you seen it? What length, width and thickness?
Yes, it is pretty, and often relatively low cost.
Juniperus Virginiana aka Juniper is highly aromatic, rot-resistant with highly contrasting colour (red heartwood, white sapwood) that is usually smaller dimension (multi-stemmed), very knotty since it is an early succession plant (shrub to small tree). Think of cedar-lined chest.
Don't know how prone it might be to splitting though Western Red Cedar is more brittle than Eastern White Cedar.(pre-drill any tack, nail or screw holes).
Last edited:
Howie
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
I'm not a tree guy, but I believe many older canoes used 'red' cedar for planking - I'm sure it's on the 1936 OT 50#er I'm working on now. I have to believe this wood was local to the Maine area. Wouldn't that be Eastern red cedar? Maybe taller trees were more plentiful back then - maybe that's why they were usable for canoes?
MGC
Scrapmaker
Builders who used red cedar were using Western red cedar. These are a tree that can grow over 200 feet in height, girth proportionate. The wood was regularly used for many purposes including siding. It is light, rot resistant and has very predictable grain. It is also known for causing allergic reactions. Many canoes have been built from re-sawn siding. I can remember a few trips to the lumber yard to buy up the siding for a couple canoes we built back in the early 70's.
Eastern cedar, I would be very surprised to find any wood good enough to use. It is knotty, has (as noted above) a very white heartwood..... I doubt that there have been many canoe building uses.
Eastern cedar, I would be very surprised to find any wood good enough to use. It is knotty, has (as noted above) a very white heartwood..... I doubt that there have been many canoe building uses.
Michael Grace
Lifetime Member
Canoes construction often uses Western red cedar (on Old Town build records, often noted as "w.cedar"). It is more brittle than Northern white cedar, especially if kiln-dried, but can be had in long lengths of clear lumber and it works very well. Eastern red cedar is often a smaller tree but can grow to large sizes. It can be kottier, can have more twisting grain, and its color varies a great deal. It's not a good boatbuilding wood, and the thinned milled lumber needed for canoes would be especially problematic.
Western red cedar was in common use from the earliest known Old Town Canoe Company records as MGC and Michael mentioned. A portion of their inventory from September 30th, 1908 at http://forums.wcha.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=7595&d=1242342933 shows 42469 board feet of "Western Cedar on hand" at the bottom of the image with various amounts of local white cedar ribs, planks, and logs above it. This came from a company ledger that has entries for Western or red cedar from 1905 to 1932. Pages 147 to 150 of the document at https://www.google.com/books/editio...hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=RA1-PA147&printsec=frontcover has a lot more information about the cedar used by the Old Town canoe company in the 1920s. Old Town always tried to use white eastern cedar for their ribs and red western cedar for the planking when available.
Benson
Last edited:
MGC
Scrapmaker
I should have said Eastern Red cedar. Eastern white cedar is a much more useful wood, although it is also not easy to find good clear wood in those. My father and I were allowed to cut 50 mature white cedar trees from state land in Northern NY. The condition for removal was that we could not use any logging machinery to remove the trees. A neighbor had draft horses that he used to pull all 50 logs from the woods for us. The trees were two plus feet in diameter. We had the wood milled with the idea that we could use some of it for canoes. It was an enormous amount of lumber that yielded virtually nothing good enough for a canoe build. My father built a garage using it, I sided his farmhouse (board and batten), he had his carriage barn reconstructed and I used some of it for a picnic table. The remainder was traded away for services. As many times as I sorted it, I never found any that I thought was good enough to make even a single rib from.
MGC
Scrapmaker
There was never a dull moment. This experience with the Percherons lead to his decision to own a pony. The pony required harness, a wagon, a stone sled and more. I used the pony a few times to haul trees I cut for firewood. The pony ran away with the wagon and destroyed it. He ran off with the stone sled with my father standing on it and dragged it into the barn. It caught on the doors launching my father onto the manure covered floor, I was riding it bareback and it decided to toss me headfirst into the manure pile..... so many fond memories from those trees......
Rob Stevens
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
Mike,
What was that pony's name, for future reference?
What was that pony's name, for future reference?
MGC
Scrapmaker
Brownie....AKA "little horse".
Drifting back, what I was attempting to highlight is the challenge of finding good canoe lumber in Eastern white cedar, an accepted source of wood, vs. red cedar, one that is not. Most consistent sources of canoe lumber rely on sawyers to "set aside" the occasional pieces that have potential.
OP
OP
ReedLeb
Too many canoes
The "pretty nice" Eastern Red Cedar I have access to is air dried, 10'+ long and 10"-12" wide with some clear straight grain heartwood 2-3" on each edge. It has beautiful color. Definitely a bigger ERC tree for around here. A local band saw operator that gets logs for sawing that most would just burn or chip.
I try to find uses for local wood as much as possible. As a timber framer I have always had a problem with using very expensive west coast timbers (often old growth) when there is so much good wood here in New England at less cost and environmental impact. Any way that's my problem, bias, issue.
So, sounds like no one has any positive experience with it other than cabinetry or fence posts.
I'll find some good use for it, even if not in a canoe.
Mike, Great horse and pony stories. I worked for 2 guys who did horse logging in the winter in northern NH. They were bringing a sled load of logs off the mountain when their 2 horses decided it was time to go back to the barn, at speed. Needless to say, an exciting ride home, and the end of the horse logging days!
Reed
I try to find uses for local wood as much as possible. As a timber framer I have always had a problem with using very expensive west coast timbers (often old growth) when there is so much good wood here in New England at less cost and environmental impact. Any way that's my problem, bias, issue.
So, sounds like no one has any positive experience with it other than cabinetry or fence posts.
I'll find some good use for it, even if not in a canoe.
Mike, Great horse and pony stories. I worked for 2 guys who did horse logging in the winter in northern NH. They were bringing a sled load of logs off the mountain when their 2 horses decided it was time to go back to the barn, at speed. Needless to say, an exciting ride home, and the end of the horse logging days!
Reed
JClearwater
Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
Mike,
While growing up on a farm with 1000s of chickens my grandfather told us kids that if we wanted a manly and hairy chest that we should clean the manure out of the coops barefoot. You landed in the manure pile head first - does that mean you have a head of hair like Chewbacca? And did you change Brownie's name to Alpo? Important questions that inquiring minds need to know.
JCC
While growing up on a farm with 1000s of chickens my grandfather told us kids that if we wanted a manly and hairy chest that we should clean the manure out of the coops barefoot. You landed in the manure pile head first - does that mean you have a head of hair like Chewbacca? And did you change Brownie's name to Alpo? Important questions that inquiring minds need to know.
JCC
MGC
Scrapmaker
Jim, Brownie lived to a ripe old age. My excursion into the manure pile may have something to do with my loathing of horse riding. A few years ago on an elk hunt, my guide started us down a rocky ridge late in the day. My horse decided he had had enough and also that my tempo was not to his liking. He started to head for the waiting horse trailer and his feedbag going faster with each step. I had my bow slung across my back and was hanging on for dear life. Each step felt like I was going to be split in half. My legs were shot so I wasn't able to use the stirrups to my advantage. All I could think about was flying off that dam*ed horse and crushing myself and my bow on the rocks. I could see sparks shooting off of his shoes and could feel him slipping on the rocks. With more than a mile to go to the truck I had enough. I climbed off and walked that bugger back. Enough.
Reed, I'm laughing because the image of the barn and my father hanging onto the reigns trying to stay on the stone boat is crystal clear. I can't even imagine a couple big draft horses with a load of logs hell bent on the barn. That must have been terrifying.
Reed, I'm laughing because the image of the barn and my father hanging onto the reigns trying to stay on the stone boat is crystal clear. I can't even imagine a couple big draft horses with a load of logs hell bent on the barn. That must have been terrifying.
Dan Lindberg
Ex Wood Hoarder
The easiest/cheapest way for me to get WRC is to go to the local home "box" store, Menard's prefered but others will do, and go through the 2x stacks and buy the chearest I can find, and then "high grade" it to be canoe grade material.
The other way is to just go to a real lumber yard that stocks clear cedar and buy it.
"Western red cedar"
The other way is to just go to a real lumber yard that stocks clear cedar and buy it.
"Western red cedar"
