Lumber and Design Considerations for Forefoot Construction

[bob mitchell]

       The original lower forefoot was made from 6"x12"x9' Douglas Fir, but that is not readily available in the South, and expensive if you find it. I continue to champion Southern Yellow Pine, as hard and strong, and readily available, and cheap. Historically, hard southern yellow pine has always been considered good boat wood, is what I read. I have personnally used it for decades, and believe in it. So I go to Home Depot, search through the 2"x12"x16' pile and pick out some relatively clear tight grained boards, today at $17 dollars apiece. Then I go home and mill out the quarter sawn, i.e. get rid of the center. That's approximately 32 board feet, take out the center if you need to, and make it about 25 board feet of premo kiln dried quarter sawn for less than a $1 a board foot - that can't be right - some body calculate that a little better. I must have made a mistake.

        So one of the problems you can run into with this lumber is case hardening, where it was kiln dried to fast, and created internal stresses, but when you cut out the center, or down the center, most of those, if they are there, are relieved. A run or two through a joiner and a planer and I have outstanding lumber. Actually, after you have been through the process a few times you can almost tell how to avoid the internal stresses from the grain patterns.

           So, I am going to laminate up my forefoot blank. I have a choice - I can have four 2x12" with glue planes running vertical, which would be really easy to saw out, OR rip the 2x12s in half and have the glue planes running horizontally. After a while the choice for me became obvious - there are 9 fasteners that run through or into the forefoot. If I did vertical glue planes the compression on the bolts would not help their strength, but if I did horizontal glue planes the bolts would compliment and lock them in place.

     One note of signifigance is I can get away with this relatively thick, stiff material because I am not bending it. The forefoot curve of a Newporter is made mostly by cutting the curve on the leading edge.