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Classic Wood Interier
- Thread starter C-Hawk
- Start date
C-Hawk":1d9mwafs said:I am told that C-Dory will be offering the classic wood interier as an option in the future.
This is from a source that I question the reliablity of.
If it were true, I'd expect it to be a pretty expensive option considering the labor involved. Didn't someone from C-Dory say that the switch to fiberglass was a cost cutting measure?
And what's with this C-Hawk on order (I think) Didn't your dealer get a factory confirmation and build number?
Don
Heck we all know that's just a joke about C-Hawk being on order....they are never gonna build that boat.... Roger they are just pulling yer chain...
I would love to see a wood interior... sure would be an upgrade the "plastic" interior now offered... I would think with the economy, and boats getting harder to sell, the company would be looking at how to put more quality into an already great product....
Joel
SEA3PO
I would love to see a wood interior... sure would be an upgrade the "plastic" interior now offered... I would think with the economy, and boats getting harder to sell, the company would be looking at how to put more quality into an already great product....
Joel
SEA3PO
starcrafttom
Active member
We have considered having a friend of mine ( yes I have a few) redo the interior in the Susan E with a light colored wood. We would tear out the inside and redo the same thing. Alex is a cabinet maker by trade and would provide the labor with my help, i get to hand (but not use) him tools. First we have to finish building his new shop.
Talking with Ricardo at the factory today- he confirmed the classic wood interior will be offered as an option.
We are getting closer to finalizing the deal on the replacement vessel.
Ricardo has been very instramental in pushing the deal through. Seems the factory choked up a bit for a few months there.
Almost back to being a happy boater again :x
Roger
We are getting closer to finalizing the deal on the replacement vessel.
Ricardo has been very instramental in pushing the deal through. Seems the factory choked up a bit for a few months there.
Almost back to being a happy boater again :x
Roger
Yellowstone
New member
Roger - I'm curious as to what is called the classic wood interior in the C-Dory you are referencing. My first 22 CD cruiser (1996) happened to be the last one out of the factory with what was called the wood finish. The door, cabinets, storage areas, and table were made of marine plywood with a faux teak (actually formica) finish (both sides). PIeces of solid teak trim finished off the edges. I liked it, but the outside of the door soon showed fading due to sun amd weather. Also the formica edges were sharp and could splinter off. My second 22 CD cruiser (1996) has the white finish over marine plywood with teak trim. The white laminate doesn't seem to be as brittle as the faux teak and seems to be less subject to fade. I purchased a 4x8 foot sheet of teak faced plywood half inch thick for some projects and found its strength was marginal. And was it pricy! Yellowstone
Les Lampman
New member
I just got off the phone with Ricardo regarding the interior question. He said they want to take the boat (and company) back to the traditional C-Dory approach so they are going to offer an option with the interior that was available just prior to the change to the molded interior. Those boats were built with Decraguard which is high-quality 3/4" ply with the white coating.
There is nothing wrong with a molded interior done right; the vast majority of small boats on the market have them including the Ranger Tug and Rosborough. Fiberglass is a tough resiliant material that's relatively easy to maintain and repair. Had the attributes of the traditional C-Dory interior been more closely adhered to I doubt even us old purists would have had much to grumble about. The devil is in the details and I think the disatisfacition with the current molded interior stems more from the lack of attention to maintaining the functionality of the wood interior than aesthetics.
It could have been a good thing for all since being able to drop in a molded interior does make the boat easier to build but it also makes each boat more consistent so that it's much easier for dealers to rig and for accessories to fit where they're supposed to. It's also an easier interior to keep clean since there are so many less joints than in the wood interior.
It's nice to think in terms of quality but the fact is with the shortage of qualified workers trying to build a wood interior is much more difficult than teaching someone to lay up a mold. So what happens is that the qualilty of the resulting interior is really in the hands of the individual putting the wood together each and every time and only in the hands of the moldmaker once for fiberglass interior. If the original mold is done right than each and every interior that comes out of the molds after than is just as good...repeatability and consistency.
I don't know how much higher the price of the boats can keep going even with a hand-built super quality interior. The typical C-Dory 22 Cruiser we deliver is now in the mid $60K range (that's a loaded boat for sure...but that's how they're mostly done here). I hate to keep adding more!
At any rate it's a "wait and see" situation right now. All the details are not finalized yet and Ricardo said he have more for me in the next few days.
There is nothing wrong with a molded interior done right; the vast majority of small boats on the market have them including the Ranger Tug and Rosborough. Fiberglass is a tough resiliant material that's relatively easy to maintain and repair. Had the attributes of the traditional C-Dory interior been more closely adhered to I doubt even us old purists would have had much to grumble about. The devil is in the details and I think the disatisfacition with the current molded interior stems more from the lack of attention to maintaining the functionality of the wood interior than aesthetics.
It could have been a good thing for all since being able to drop in a molded interior does make the boat easier to build but it also makes each boat more consistent so that it's much easier for dealers to rig and for accessories to fit where they're supposed to. It's also an easier interior to keep clean since there are so many less joints than in the wood interior.
It's nice to think in terms of quality but the fact is with the shortage of qualified workers trying to build a wood interior is much more difficult than teaching someone to lay up a mold. So what happens is that the qualilty of the resulting interior is really in the hands of the individual putting the wood together each and every time and only in the hands of the moldmaker once for fiberglass interior. If the original mold is done right than each and every interior that comes out of the molds after than is just as good...repeatability and consistency.
I don't know how much higher the price of the boats can keep going even with a hand-built super quality interior. The typical C-Dory 22 Cruiser we deliver is now in the mid $60K range (that's a loaded boat for sure...but that's how they're mostly done here). I hate to keep adding more!
At any rate it's a "wait and see" situation right now. All the details are not finalized yet and Ricardo said he have more for me in the next few days.
As everyone is recalling those wondrous days of old in which one could buy a "woodie" car or truck, we need to remember that most of those were just wood bolted to the normal, rustable, metal car/truck bodies, or even worse, wood grained metal painting. You'd have to go way way back to find structural wood vechicles.
I don't see that fiberglass interiors are all that bad to work on or 'redo' in wood. You just make cutouts and glue/screw/bolt wood structures in place. At some point, any wood in a fiberglass boat is going to touch fiberglass.
John
I don't see that fiberglass interiors are all that bad to work on or 'redo' in wood. You just make cutouts and glue/screw/bolt wood structures in place. At some point, any wood in a fiberglass boat is going to touch fiberglass.
John