Gunwhales material?

[BRS]

Hi

I'm in the process of re-decking my early 60's National 12. I'm just about to pull off the gunwhales but will need to source replacements. Any suggestions for suitable wood to be used and a source of supply? Ideally I'd like one piece for each side and I'm happy to take plain strips of timber and router a round side on it.

[Ed]

What wood are the old gunwhales?

mahogany? or a 'white' wood?

I would guess they were mahogany....in which case you can use whatever type of mahogany suits your likes and depth of wallet. Personally IMVHO, I have normally found proper brazzilian too expensive, but meranti too horible, so you get left with Utile, Sapile or Kyaha. Sapile seems hard to find, expensive, Utile also and they can both be a bit heavy. I have normally used Kyaha, which is a nice colour and not too expensive. The issue is that the grain can be very wild, making planing in either direction hard....and wood selection very important. Be very careful of particularly wild and cross-grain where you have maximum bend - I have had one snap on the grain, right across the gunwhale before now.

Of course it also depends what is available. Give Robbins Timber a ring and ask.

routing a shape to gunwhales saves a bit of time, but never found it really necessary, It doesn't take long to do with a sharp plane.

eib

[PeterV]

I used an old set of Enterprise thwarts for the gunwhale on my Finn, a nice piece of mahogony. You often see them for sale on Ebay and they are a good source of old, red mahogony for all sorts of jobs. However I had to make it up in two strips becasue there was no way it was going to bend enough in one thickness.