For months I was trying to decide on what type of material to use for my boat stringers. For a while there I was all over the place on what to use. The original stringers were made from douglas fir which did their job for about twenty five years. The last twelve years they were rotten. Don't get me wrong - twenty five years is a very long time, but who really owns a boat for that long? Its the second or third owner who has to deal with the problems of rotten stringers or transom. I also thought about using foam for the stringers. The foam would be used only as a form for the fiberglass. When I thought about having to screw something to the stringer, foam does not hold a screw very well, even with five or six layers of glass. It may seem strong when you first put a screw in, but over time the screws will work loose. The two main factors for my choice of material were weight and cost. First of all, I don't have a lot of money and second I didn't want to add too much extra weight to my boat. My choice of wood is cypress. I found some for three dollars a board foot and it only weighs three pounds a board foot. All my local lumber yards wanted six to seven dollars a board foot, but I knew I could find it cheaper and I did. I found Steve Wall Lumber Co. in Mayodan, North Carolina. The drive was about five hours away which was fine because I made a field trip out of it. I was able to see parts of Virginia and North Carolina I never saw before. Plus on the way back I stopped in Blacksburg, Va to see my sister and her husband. I ended up buying eight 1" x 12" x 16' rough sawn select boards for a total of 128 board feet. Later I will show how I take these boards and turn them into a complete stringer grid system.
