Hello,

I am VERY new to the kajak building game (ordered plans from Guillemot last week) but I have a question about wood types.

I have not read the plans yet, or the book (they are both still in the post), but most of the web sites I have looked at seem to use hard woods for the building. Now, I can understand the esthetical reason for using different wood combinations, but I live in Norway and hard woods are VERY expensive compared to say pine (this grows on every street corner).

Is it possable to use pine (or some other softwood) for the "majority" of the shell ? Is there any other reasons, apart from esthetics, against using a pine like wood - like strength maybe ?

Many thanks for your help

/Space