Re: Starter questions

[Al Pritchard <al.pritchard@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Heard my name, so I thought Id chime in.

I planed down my boards to 1 1/8, then ran the bead and cove. The  
result was just under 1in of meet left on the strip. The only warning  
I would give regarding using a wide strip is to plan on using screws  
for some of the bends. You will need to use them on the chine strip,  
no mater what. Other than that, you will probably need to use a  
couple at the bow. But this seems to be the norm anyway. The other  
thing to think about is the way you lay the hull strips. You will not  
be able to bend the strips, as illustrated in the build manual. As  
Greg pointed out. I ran my strips parallel to the center line of the  
hull. Tapering the strips at the ends when needed. The result of this  
is far less tapering of the strips, and only required 3 strips to  
'close the hole' at the end.

You can find a couple of detail shots of my strips at the following  
link. http://flickr.com/photos/loft42/

By the way. If anyone returning from FLA needs a place to upload, and  
store photos. Let me know. Iv got lots of room...


/Al


On Apr 24, 2006, at 3:02 PM, Greg Ryan wrote:

> 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