Re: To bevel or to cove?

Posted by CLC on Feb 17, 2007

>>>>>>> It never occured to me to bevel the strips with a block plane until it was suggested to me by someone whose identity I shall protect because he said this topic could be controversial. >>>>>>>>>

I'm always amazed that something as esoteric as strip-planking can become "controversial." That's chatrooms for you.

I've used numerous schemes for strip planking, both hulls and decks. Beads-and-coves are the best as long as you're not the one who has to do the milling....tedious in the extreme.

I built a powerboat using a 30-degree angle on every strip, so that in section they were a rhombus or parallelogram. This worked remarkable well; the fits were nearly as tight as with beads-and-coves. It took a about 50% of the time to mill the strips as it would have with beads and coves.

Finally, for a shape as simple as a Mill Creek deck contemplate no treatment of the strip edges at all. If you have 30 strips going across, the delta in angle between each one is microscopic.

The main advantage of beads-and-coves, not to be diminished, is that the cove effectively holds glue while you're fitting the parts. With the other approaches, the glue flows out of the joint and makes a mess.

We're putting a strip deck on a Mill Creek in the shop right now. Need to get the ShopCam functioning again.

In Response to: To bevel or to cove? by Ingrid H on Feb 16, 2007

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