Timber type for a marine hatch ?

[Ch1ppie]

Hi.
I have a project to make a hatch for a Dutch barge. Essentially it will be a wooden hinged frame with a recycled double glazed glass (15kg) unit on a base, fixed to a roof at a 6 Deg > . The frame : Woa 35 " X loa 45 " using 3 1/2" X 1 1/4" finished stock. My budget is minimal ( boat = a large money pit you just through money into ) and was wondering if anyone can advise a suitable timber type for this project ?
I have been thinking hardwood - but have seen some real disasters in oak. Teak is probably the standard choice, but a no go for me on environmental and cost reassons. Engineered is out if the question, but maybe a softwood type that won't shrink and could handle a tough marine climate it ? I would probably use a high performance sadolin wood stain as a finish.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

 

[Modernist]

I take it the glass will be toughened? If not you could be in for a surprise.

Douglas fir is a good timber for marine with high resin content or mahogany or similar.

 

[Guggs]

Without any hesitation i would use a hardwood . Iroko or Keruing . I would avoid any form of softwood .
Hardwood all the way .

 

[heimlaga]

I have seen hatches made from ordinary European pine. It seems to work but it must be an extremely slow grown pine tree. I doubt you can find pine of that quality down in UK.

 

[marcus]

I second Iroko if you can stretch to that.

 

[jumps]

There are good reasons that teak, iroko and mahogany predominate on marine craft - and it's not because boats are such money pits that the owners don't care about the additional marginal cost!

Oak works well where there is lots of it and everything is expected to move together (green) but well seasoned oak will work, but be relatively expensive and then there's the issue of any fastenings.

Even small things are iroko on mine and it's only really when I want thinner&wider stock that I even think of teak now. As others it would be my starting point here too.

 

[Ch1ppie]

Many thanks for the advice. I'll be off to our local timber merchant tomorrow to see what they can do for me. I have a few options here anyhow.

Cheers.