First Strips

At last I'm laying strips and the boat is
FINALLY getting started!

This weekend I cut all the cedar strips on the table saw using a glue-face blade. Last weekend I tried cutting strips on the bandsaw (less kerf loss), but the finish is too rough for gluing without sanding first. Life's too short for that, so I decided to sacrifice 30% fibre loss to table saw blade kerf. The benefit was that the strips were cut quickly and the edges are smooth. There will be more payoff later too in reduced sanding time.


I also figured out a better way to do the purple-heart inlay. First I build up the basic stripe pattern (red/yellow/red etc), then sandwich those strips with purple-heart, and cut the whole works with the bandsaw. I'm free-handing the curve as I cut.




Here are the built-up strips. Once each strip is assembled it goes onto the form and is edge-glued to the adjacent piece.






I am using two clamping methods here.

The first is very fine fishing line which is pull tight around the newly glued piece, wrapped around the shearline brace and clamped with spring-clamps. The benefit is that as soon as one row is glued, the next can be laid up and glued. When the glue is dry, it is easy to pull the fishing line thru and reuse it in a new location.

The second clamp is the combo rubber-band / bull-clip (heavy-duty office paper clip). These are exerting a downward force on the strips to keep them tight against the form.

Test Strips

This was a test of the strip inlay method, and for cutting strips on the bandsaw. While I was happy with the 'look', I was not happy with the quality of the strips, nor the finickiness of fitting for each individual piece in this puzzle.

This effort is likely to end up in the fire-pit. Some days are productive, some aren't.

Finishing the Strong Back

Here's the finished strong back, but first....

All the forms got positioned, squared up, and braced with blocking. Then I installed the Shear Line Bracing using an air-driven stapler with 3/4" staples.






The next step was to sand down the shoulder that was created by a 'squared off' shearline brace intersecting with the rounded edge between the top deck and the hull. This was easy to do with a belt sander and following the curve of the top deck. Then I glued the shear line bracing at the bow and stern and finished shaping these with the sander.

This is the bow....











...and here's the stern.








Later, a black bear stopped by to check out my boat, although Rick said he was really checking out the BMW.

: )