Subject: Re: baidarka greenish spruce gunnels?
From: wayne steffens (wsteffen@mr.net)
Date: Fri Mar 31 2000 - 22:57:52 EST
Thanks Bill. That sounds like the voice of experience. Unless I get enough
votes to upend yours, I'll just buy a mess of the fresh spruce (dirt cheap)
for posterity and keep hunting. I want to start building yesterday.
So far I've checked the local lumberyards twice. Last time I did this it
took me several weeks and several visits before I walked away with a couple
of sweet 18 foot 2-bys for about 10 dollars each. A carpenter friend had
told me how to ID spruce in the SPF piles, and the one I used on my boat
was supposedly spruce. Supposedly. Which leads me into my current adventures.
Since its been 3 years since then and my spruce-sniffing skills have faded,
I took a slice of that same board that my current boat is built of to a
canoe builder. Over the last 3 years I had started to question whether it
was really spruce or not. The canoe builder admired the board and told me
it was a beauty, but he didnt think it was spruce. He thought it was a
western fir, but I dont agree. I know hemlock and its certainly not doug
fir. I had also brought along a couple sweet boards from the lumber yard,
that the yard owner had told me were "probably" spruce (on the phone he had
told me wasnt sure he could tell spruce). they looked like it to me. The
canoe guy thought they were aspen. I took them back to the lumberyard (he
had said it was OK to get a second opinion) and told him what the canoe
guy said. He turned bright red, insulted the canoe guy, and got really
ticked off. I slipped out apologetically, not being sure if I had just
given back 2 beautiful spruces or aspens. Thats why the unmilled spruce is
so attractive to me. I can see the damn tree laying there with the bark on
it and I know what it is. I looked at their fresh cut spruce and am
convinced I could only tell it from other softwoods some of the time, and
with no great certainty. I saw molded spruce at the lumber yard that looked
exactly like pine.The more I learn the less I seem to know, and I cant even
get people who make a living at wood to agree on what something is.
Aspen being a hardwood, however, I should be able to tell if the boards I
returned were aspen or spruce, right? How hard is hard enough to call a
hardwood? is there some definitive, non-subjective test that I can use to
tell them apart? I'm not averse to buying one board and taking it home for
some experiments, because if it is spruce, he's got enough of it in
completely clear boards for several boats. Its a very light-colored, light
grained, and light weight wood. It seems almost too light grained for
spruce, but too lightweight for a hardwood. About the only other thing it
could be is balsam fir, which I have no idea how to identify once the bark
is off. I suspect it would be resiny though, and this isnt.
Wayne
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