Stripper

[Sailor]

I spent the afternoon yesterday taking advantage of the fact that my dad was in town to visit his first grandchild, my niece, Emilie. We worked in the drydock most of the day clearing off my workbench and setting up a jig to rip canoe strips. The plan was conceived, put in motion and executed in an afternoon. After setting up we took about 2 hours to rip all the strips I will need (Hopefully). There were three 20 ft 1"x6" WRC planks that I got a little while ago and they were just dying to be turned into canoe planks. I set up a jig for my circular saw, drilled a few holes in the bottom (Thanks Mr. Flemming) and fixed it to the jig. The planks turned out well. A few of them have some wobbles in them but I'll work around them. The whole process was great fun. The WRC dust is a carcinogen so masks were a must. I don't know how effective they were though. The dust got everywhere. Boy was it fun to see $80 worth of saw dust pile up on my shop floor. Now I just have to find some scrap wood to make planking jigs as per Ted Moore's book canoecraft. I have yet to bead and cove the strips on my almost finished router table. (Yeah I have to finish the table as well. That's the project for this afternoon). I'll keep you all posted (pardon the pun) on any new developments.

[Old Bingey]

I have been running a lot of Atlantic white cedar strips here lately and might have learned a little. I am sure there are plenty of people who know more than me, though. One thing we do is to run the bead first. That will keep those sharp edges of the coves from getting splintered with all the flopping around. A feather board works better on the bead, too. Another thing is to run the second edge with the fence on the other side of the strip from the cutter ("back fence"). That will make sure that all the strips are exactly the same width measuring from the outer radius of the bead to the inner radius of the cove so the butt scarves match up. The other thing is to not cut the cove into a sharp feather edge... leave a miniscule flat on both corners.

As for circular saw ripping, if you do it on a long board, it'll keep the last few strips from sagging. If you tack the thin, limber little stick that will become the last two or three strips to the edge of the next board that'll hold it straight. We now use super glue to do that but we used to use little brass brads.

[pipefitter]

I remember one time having to make a bunch of jamb extensions for windows on a home that was changed from drywall to veneer plaster. The original drywall had been 3/8ths and now was 1/2" plus the plaster. We didn't have a table saw so we plunged a circular saw and screwed it's base into a 10' 2x8 that was nailed down to 3 saw horses keeping it relatively straight. Then a long fence was added and 2 feather boards,one down and one across. This system ripped out perfect 1/4" strips as close to table saw perfection as we could get. No wobbles and no having to fasten the strips to anything all the way to the last tiny drop. Think router table but with a circular saw mounted underneath.