Hi all, I'm newbie here; I'm about to start on a 34' sailboat using
cedar strip planking core/glass fibre. This is the first of many
subjects that I will ask your advice on.

I have the luxury of a joinery workshop, so I intend to cut up and
machine to size Red Cedar planks that my local (and very convenient)
supplier stocks.
My problem is that although my supplier tells me that the cedar comes
from Canada, I keep reading that it is Western Red Cedar which is the
stuff to use. I frankly do not know the difference - if there is one -
between Red Cedar that comes from Canada and Western Red Cedar. My
supplier in question is very forthcoming but as they are not normally
suppliers of boatbuilding materials, I guess that the knowlegebase
here will serve me better than to keep going back to my supplier.

Next question may cause a small bit of disagreement perhaps.

I have read that the cedar is ideally dried to below 15% but I know
that whatever the mc when the wood leaves the kiln, it slowly reverts
to whatever the average relative humidity of the air surrounding it
allows it to be. ie, kiln dried to 9 or whatever% is ok as long as the
stuff gets quickly put into the environment that you kilned it for (or
it needs to be stored in a proper manner - which doesn't mean allowing
a fresh air supply)
So although the cedar was probably kilned to maybe 12%, it comes from
Canada and maybe has travelled for a few weeks as deck cargo and then
spent a month or two sitting around in distribution sheds/timber yards
waiting for me to buy it, all the time arriving back to the 16-17% mc
that air dried timber will get to here, and whatever the local
timber merchant sells me, after checking, is normally at.
Luckily, not a problem for me, as normally I work with timber which
needs to be around the 8-12% mark so I have a kiln.
So no problem perhaps, except that as I need to build this boat in my
spare time and as it's winter here, whatever I kiln my wood to now, it
stands a really good chance of reverting back to around 15 plus % by
the time I get around to finally sealing it all up with epoxy .

Am I just going over the top with this, or is it really a problem? My
gut feel as a joiner is that once the stuff is encapsulated it stays
stable and I reckon 16/17% is fine. The only problem I have ever had
with wood is when it moves - and it only moves when the mc changes
(I'm talking of shrinkage here not flex although I know drier wood is
stiffer, or rather harder).

I am also very concious of the fact that I ain't a boat builder, so
what the **** do I know?.

I have also been told to temporarily fix the strips to the molds with
stainless steel nails, before removing them to lay the epoxy and
glass. I can see s/s nails costing a fortune, especially when I see
them lying, bent and buckled on the floor in the boatshed; and then I
have got to pick them all up! Surely there is another way??

One more question for now; I have seen tongue & groove and bead & cove
strip planking for sale; I can machine this myself, but are there
significant advantages over square section when using epoxy?

Hoping for some advice from you guys

ttfn
Pete