Jordan, there is no real "correct width", but the commercially manufactured and
easily available canoe strips are 3/4 X 1/4. These are a "good" size to use, as
time (and many builders) has shown. Strength and stiffness in the hull is
obtained by separating the inside and outside skins using the cedar core.
Moreover, stiffness is exponentially related to the separation (thickness of
the core). I don't think anyone would recommend making the strips thinner than
1/4 or its metric equiv. The minimum weight is already generous.
Uniform Strips are nice to have but not absolutely necessary, if you don't have
a thicknesser then don't stress. My strips were made from 5/4 decking
boards. I did put all the boards through a thicknesser so that they were all
exactly the same thickness before ripping the strips. The purpose was to get
strips that have the same width so that I could bead and cove in one pass
without continuously adjusting the jig. If you are doing a separate pass for
the beads, change the router bit and then rout the coves, absolutely uniform
strip width is not necessary, your fence/featherboard setup will cope with
that.
My strips came out at around 7/8ths wide X 1/4 inch thick. The router bead and
cove cutters really don't work as well if the strips are thinner or thicker
than the 1/4 inch. Al Pritchard was lucky to source some cheap cedar stock that
was thicker than my decking boards, so rather than blow a lot as sawdust he
elected to make wider strips. He solved the problem of compound curving and
bending while laying the strips by first doing the two specially "edged
chamfered" chine strips then laying all the bottom strips parallel with respect
to the keel. Each strip has a tapered front edge where it meets the chine. More
work but for less strips. Al's work looks just fine to me.
If you use a high tooth count rip saw blade you will get fairly smooth flats on
the resultant strips. I don't think it is necessary to thickness plane the
whole batch of strips if you have used an adequate fence and featherboard setup
to make sure the strips come out as uniform thickness as possible. The outer
and inner surfaces are sanded off anyway. As long as the strips are edged with
the bead and cove radius centered in the strip, the flat surfaces will be
uniform heights with respect to each other. If the edge shaping tools are found
to have been off center, then put all the strips the same way up otherwise you
have to sand down to the lowest strip when fairing, ultimately making the core
thinner than need be.
I gang cut my strips with 3 sawblades on the arbor at the same time. I used
home made epoxy fiberglass shims to space the blades correctly for each strip.
Saved a lot of time, which I have well and truly squandered in other places.
Greg
----- Original Message -----
From: Jordan Spencer
To: swiftsolo-info@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: swiftsolo@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 3:48 AM
Subject: Starter questions
Converting imperial to metric, there 1/4'" by ¾" strips look thinner than the
photo's I have seen. In fact I have seen photo's of strips that are 1 ¼" wide.
What is the correct width? ¼" by ¾", (6mm by 19mm)
Also when you cut the strips, do you put them through a thicknesser afterward
or is the accuracy of the cut enough?
Cheers
Jordan
New guy
|