> I have stripped up about 6 inches on my Guillemot L and I am bound and
> determined to use some cedar I have cut off my own place. It is
> predominately whiteish so I purchased some red to suppliment. My question
> is how much trouble am I getting into if I use some cedar with knots? The
> knots have survived sawing, resawing, cove and bead routing and are still
> tight, sound and hard. If I manage to get them sanded without them
> becoming "proud" will I run into other surprises later? I'm not
> lazy, I have removed a lot of them, but some are just pretty and look
> good. Thanks

I have a lot of knots in my cedar canoe. They look fabulous. Nothing defines the look of wood as much as the appearance of a colorful knot and the tight grain pattern that surrounds it. it is like nothing you wil ever see in the pseudo grain patterns on Formica!

The largest knots I have are nearly 3/4 inch in diameter. Since I used 7/8 inch stock, with square edges (not bead and cove) for that boat, the knot practically fills the strip. AS I wsa ripping the stock some ofthe strips broke at that point (so I used them as shorter pieces) and some held together (so I used them, knots and all). No sign of problems with normal use for the past 6 years. The glass around the knots looks just as good as in any other place, so adhesion seems to be fine.

Consider using them as design elements. For a while I was thinking of putting that strip in so that the knot would be above water, and near the bow so it would look like the eyes on the front of a Chinese junk -- but I didn't have a nice one for the other side that would match.

Knot HOLES are to be avoided! If the knot falls out, use a drop or two of glue to secure it back in the hole it fell out of. Or, a dab of masking tape on the inside may keep ti fixed in place until the outside is glassed. Otherwise, you will end up creating a porthole of epoxy resin laminated between layers of glass cloth.

I use a belt sander on the outside of the hull and on the first few passes with a coarse grit sanding belt, it eats up knots as fast as it does everything else, so I've never noticed any sanding problems. Don't be afraid to be aggessive on sanding a knot, or to match your literary allusion, pun for pun: Do not go gentle into that good knot.

Hope this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson