External timber but not teak?

pcatterall said:
Confession!! This is for my Morris Minor Traveller rather than my boat! but there are more timber experts here than on the car forum!
Ash has been used in timber coach built cars for years, my old Triumph Roadster and Riley RME used it on many frames, it was cheap, workable and readily available!
Its not cheap any more ( £1500 for a new Minor timber set!) nor do the exposed Minor timbers weather very well!
My latest project may become a pickup but like the Traveller it still needs a strong timber rear frame for structural strength.
I propose to use Plywood, which may be painted but require some 'nice looking' timber for the posts and side capping's.
Can anyone suggest an alternative to teak which will survive our climate but still look good. To be honest I have varnished small areas of teak in the UK and it has weathered OK
so its not entirely a no no. ( our boats in the med and varnish was hopeless !) Any ideas please?
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Rhodesian Teak
 
Original woodwork on traveller is ash.
I rebuilt our frame ( most of it ) in green ash - actually it has a pink tinge when first cut - these days I would consider Iroko.
 
pcatterall said:
Confession!! This is for my Morris Minor Traveller rather than my boat! but there are more timber experts here than on the car forum!
Ash has been used in timber coach built cars for years, my old Triumph Roadster and Riley RME used it on many frames, it was cheap, workable and readily available!
Its not cheap any more ( £1500 for a new Minor timber set!) nor do the exposed Minor timbers weather very well!
My latest project may become a pickup but like the Traveller it still needs a strong timber rear frame for structural strength.
I propose to use Plywood, which may be painted but require some 'nice looking' timber for the posts and side capping's.
Can anyone suggest an alternative to teak which will survive our climate but still look good. To be honest I have varnished small areas of teak in the UK and it has weathered OK
so its not entirely a no no. ( our boats in the med and varnish was hopeless !) Any ideas please?
Click to expand...
The thing about ash is that it is very strong and very easy to steam.
 
pcatterall said:
Confession!! This is for my Morris Minor Traveller rather than my boat! but there are more timber experts here than on the car forum!
Ash has been used in timber coach built cars for years, my old Triumph Roadster and Riley RME used it on many frames, it was cheap, workable and readily available!
Its not cheap any more ( £1500 for a new Minor timber set!) nor do the exposed Minor timbers weather very well!
My latest project may become a pickup but like the Traveller it still needs a strong timber rear frame for structural strength.
I propose to use Plywood, which may be painted but require some 'nice looking' timber for the posts and side capping's.
Can anyone suggest an alternative to teak which will survive our climate but still look good. To be honest I have varnished small areas of teak in the UK and it has weathered OK
Click to expand...
Plywood sounds potentially fairly horrible for that application, If used in essentially "planks", as opposed to panels (which I THINK would be the case with an original Minor Traveller, since IIRC the panels are still metal) there will be a lot of short exposed end grain.

Taiwanese builders seem to do this a lot. Its awful.

OTOH if you are using the plywood to replace the metal panelwork that wont be original but painting it would retain the contrasting half-timbered Tudor look, and should otherwise be OK
 
Graham_Wright said:
When building my boat, I bought an iroko plank around 1 1/4" thick and maybe a foot wide.
I had a good relationship with the maintenance staff at the company I worked for and asked a chippee to saw it into strips for fitting out.
He refused!
Thinking I had upset him, I found the courage to ask why. He explained that the dust made his face bleed.
Another chippee volunteered.
The first strip was straight, the second bowed to starboard, the third to port and the next caused the saw to stall.
Curved strips fitted nicely for my requirements!
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Iroko is well known for not machining very well.
 
My best source of teak and mahogany has been from perfectly good doors found in skips. Folks are usually happy for me to take them ( and I always ask for permission). Apart from one chap who was using them to line the edges to make the skip higher 😑. He wasn't interested in hearing he was using rare unobtainable hardwoods as glorified bin liners...
 
I have companionway steps which were machined out of blocks of iroko and they have been fine.
 

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Iroko can have very weird grain and be diabolical to plane. I have done enough with the stuff to know that I don’t like working with it. But the Real Thing is not to be had in the UK (though Leo Goolden was able to import a lot to the USA for Tally Ho!
 
14K478 said:
Iroko can have very weird grain and be diabolical to plane. I have done enough with the stuff to know that I don’t like working with it. But the Real Thing is not to be had in the UK (though Leo Goolden was able to import a lot to the USA for Tally Ho!
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I THINK i scored some in the shape of a lab bench in an abandoned SAI laboratory in Leith, but someone nicked it from under my boat in Granton, so I never got to do anything with it. Perhaps I would have ruined it snyway
 
Cedar?
It is light and strong, lasts for years out in the weather. Easy to work and it bends beautifully.
I have seen a kayak made from strips of it and it was beautiful, That and my parents' cedar shingle roof is going strong after 40 years.
 
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