picking wood for rebuild.

I am in the middle of desiring a 19 foot marlin cudi cabin. So the boats base and motor mounts were built with 2x4s and 2x6s. The stringers were 2 2x10s. I have heard plywood is the way to go when restoring boats. However what is the downside to using dementional lumber? Just seems like it would be a stronger base using demntional. Someone point me in the right way please.

Re: picking wood for rebuild.

Ply is stronger but if it was built with lumber and lasted this long why wouldn't you use the same going back?

Re: picking wood for rebuild.

Well it lasted from 88 to 2000 . I've been
doing some reading on the subject and am going to go with ply it will be more work but why put all this time and money if I'm not gonna do it right

Re: picking wood for rebuild.

I hear ya on that.

Re: picking wood for rebuild.

jjh242 said:

Well it lasted from 88 to 2000 . I've been
doing some reading on the subject and am going to go with ply it will be more work but why put all this time and money if I'm not gonna do it right

Click to expand...

What kind/grade of plywood do you plan to use?

Re: picking wood for rebuild.

I havnt researched the grades of plywood yet.. Exterior grade? not sure why?

Re: picking wood for rebuild.

Here is what I found on the three boats I have done.

1. The Glastron was Lumber and had no rot whatsoever (Except for 5 inches on the back) but the transom was ply and was mush
2. The Sea Ray was Plywood and there was not a single piece of wood left that was not mush
3. The Carslon was a combination of woods. The lumbar stringers were in better shape that the plywood stringers

I would venture to guess that PLY wicks up the moisture faster. But if you have really tall stringers, PLY is the only answer.

Yes Ply is stringer due to its constriction for sure, but you really get your strength from the Fiberglass you lay over the top of it. Is all cases I went back with what was in the boat, but sealed it better and incapsulated them totally. Nothing was done like that from the factory.

The reason Jig was asking about the grade is beacuse you really should use a decent quality exterior grade wood. The glue used in exterior stands up better over time, and is moisture resistant (after your done there should be no moisture anyway) I found that Aurocco ply from HD was very nice and had very few voids between the sheets. It is more expensive, but man is it stiff

Hope this helped.

Re: picking wood for rebuild.

Thanks, that helped a lot. I have some decisons to make... I will most likely go with what was in the boat. thanks guys. Frisco thanks for your rebuil thread. I have watched the videos 10 times to understamd how to go through the project... Im in over my head until i watch the video on how you did it haha.