Balsam Wood for a floor?

[Roach1948]

I am finding it very hard to sister the broken frames in the reverse tuck of the engine bay. I was wondering whether it would be better to have a new floor to strengthen the area - and I have just the bit of wood for it with the correct grain orientation, except it is Balsam Wood from Central America. It's a type of Cedar and very hard. Would I have problems using this with Bronze screws?

 

[Mirelle]

Well, I'd give it a go. Most cedars are fairly durable.

A couple of friends crossed the Indian Ocean with two strakes of camphor wood (utterly unsuitable!) in their Percy Mitchell-built, Warrington Smyth designed, 32 ft ketch. They had hit a rock in Indonesia and could find nothing more suitable.

 

[Captain Coochie]

Well its a good way to use an old Christmas tree .

 

[Peterduck]

Many of our Australian hardwoods give a new meaning to the term "hard". I 've been told that very old oak can be like this too. The problem with using them with screws is that to be able to get a screw into the lead hole, the hole has to be very nearly the outside diameter of the screw. If the lead hole is the diameter of the screw root then I've been unable to get anywhere in advancing the screw into the hole. This includes using a battery drill. I end up either bolting or gluing-and- dowelling pieces together.
Peter.

 

[Roach1948]

Yes, I had experience of this when replacing the hanging knees (hence left-over wood). It was very hard work but I did it in the end using large manual screw driver. Maybe is a better idea to rivet with long copper rivets - but unsure how copper will react in balsam wood.

 

[Mirelle]

I doubt if either copper or bronze will react much at all in any cypress-type timber.

The only timber that shows a marked reaction that I can think of is English oak and iron - due to the tannic acid in the oak. Copper and bronze on the other hand don't react with oak to any discernible extent.