The Pacific Pelican plans specify "clear, straight-grain fir" for the chines and lots of other stuff...everything on the boat that's not plywood is "clear, straight-grain fir".
Well, I priced that out and hit the floor. No one here in Omaha stocks it, so its all special order, and I was looking at well over $700 for everything I need.
Lou Brochetti to the rescue. I gave Lou a call and he said that I could use whatever common framing lumber we have available around here, as long as I carefully picked the individual boards and found the clearest, straightest ones I could.
So, tonight I spent an hour digging through stacks of lumber at my local Home Depot. What a chore. The plans call for two 16' 1x8's, but HD didn't have anything like that. The best I could do was to get one 16' 2x12 and one 16' 2x10. Between being able to plane off some thickness, as well as rip around the knots, I think I'll be able to get everything I need out of those. I also got some 2x6's and some 2x4's.
The big boards were listed as "kiln-dried fir", which is good. The others were listed as "whitewood" which I think is HD code for "whatever". I think that will work out fine, since its the long boards that will take all the bending.
Oh, and the total vig for all this was only $75, so I'm looking at $0.10 on the dollar here. Nice. Thanks, Lou!
Getting it home was fun. I'm very lucky that HD is only a few blocks away. I stuffed the whole business in the back of my wife's Pacifica and crawled home at about 10MPH. Lydia was impressed...
Some time in the next few days, I'll head over to my neighbor's garage, the one with the surface planer, and get this all milled down to spec.
Also, my order from Duckworks is trickling in. The chip brushes arrived yesterday. Now all I need is the epoxy and the pumps and I can start trying my hand at gluing this stuff together. Lastly, I stopped by my local Grainger outlet today and ordered a box each of 3/4", 1" and 1.5" stainless steel screws. They are supposed to be in tomorrow.
The plan is coming together...
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