My CIY daggerboard is delaminating. Ugh! I used cheap plywood so I'm not really surprised. I need to make a new one and was thinking of using solid wood. Someone suggested white oak vs red oak. I have a resource for ash. I know it's used for oars. I plan to cover it with glass.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
White oak is considered superior to red oak as it does not take up water as readily as red oak.
Last summer I got to steam bend green white oak frames into a 1940's Herreshoff H (12 1/2) sailboat. Yesterday I got to steam bend some radiata pine for outwales on an 8' dinghy.
One caveat for white oak I hear is that it is difficult to glue, you may want to research this if the project involves gluing up a blank.
I recently redid my sunfish with a red oak tiller and black ash rudder, neither fiberglassed.
The red oak was on hand in the right size, figured if I had the tiller in the water enough to take up water that I had other bigger issues to remedy...
tops_tiller4.jpg