Stringer Cleat Board Question

[76SeaRay]

My new aft stringers are set in place with peanut butter under the full length of each. Corner joints are tabbed in so ready to start tabbing and glassing the stringers. So, here is the issue.

My old stringers have cleat boards running the full length of the stringer for attaching the floor. The stringers are 3/4 inch plywood (exterior originally but new are now marine plywood). The cleat boards measure 1 inch by 1.5 inches so not standard dimensional wood. It looks like they are fir. So two questions;

First, what is the best wood to use for these cleat boards? It seems like using solid wood for these is better than plywood since the screws would likely hold better in solid wood that through the edge of the plywood.

Second, what is the best way to glass these? I am thinking that it might be best to coat the stringer and cleat board with resin, attach the cleat board to the stringer, and then glass over the stringer and cleat board as an assembly. The problem is the number of corners and getting 1708 down tight to the wood as it wraps over the stringer and the cleat boards.

 

[TankerDan]

On mine I used 3/4 inch plywood about 2 1/2 inched high. I wetted then down with resin then attached with stainless screws. I figured with the screws and when the resin cured it would have enough hold for the floor. I also read that glass doesn't do well with sharp edges I cut the bottom of the cleat boards at a 45 degree angle and router'd the top of the board and the stringer so all the edges weren't sharp but rounded or gradual angle

 

[Emerger]

What @TankerDan said. It will look like this.

 

[todhunter]

I built my cleats from mahogany - it's a hard wood that will take a screw very well and is also very rot resistant. It honestly wasn't that expensive either (under $5/board-ft...I think I have only about $40 in mahogany for the cleats. I cut/planed them to ~1" x 1.5", coated them with polyester resin, then drilled holes for SS hardware, PB'd them to the stringers, thru-bolted with 3M 5200, then covered the hardware with PB.

You can see my cleats starting with this post.

 

[TankerDan]

What @TankerDan said. It will look like this.

Identical except I rounded the top edges

 

[76SeaRay]

I will check the price of mahogany but if I run full length cleats, I will need about 40 feet. Likely I will go with plywood or a less expensive solid wood.

 

[todhunter]

You can get 40 ft of 1x1.5 cleats out of a 6" - 8" wide four quarter (1 inch thick) board that is 10 ft long. You're looking at about 5-7 board ft of wood there, so at $5/board-ft, $25-$35 before tax. If you don't have a planer and table saw, most hardwood centers will plane and cut the wood to whatever you want for a fee. Not really trying to sway you in a particular direction...just trying to show that mahogany isn't as expensive as it sounds, especially if you're not building the entire boat out of it.

 

[76SeaRay]

My cleat boards run the full length of the stringers in the original factory design.