Wood for the Coot

Nick Schade's design calls for western red cedar strips with Okoume plywood. I need to build on a very tight budget. So I am going to make a few changes to save some money. I am going to build with African mahogany instead of cedar. It is about 20% heaver than cedar but a lot cheaper to buy. In fact I got a great deal on some African mahogany at Johnsons Woorkbench. It had some rough spots so they gave it to me for half price.

The okoume plywood is very expensive. I would need about $250 worth of okoume so once again I am going to use African mahogany boards instead of okoume plywood. This will add a few pounds to the boat but I will save some money and I think that the boat will look much more elegant when finished. Plus I will need to use boat building skills that are new to me. A great learning experience.

Once again I am not building from plans. I lofted my forms from Nick Schade's book like I have done in the past for the kayaks.

This is where I have saved a lot of money. All the plywood for the forms was left over from the shed that I built this summer in my back yard. So I did not have to buy any plywood.