Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

For my next poject, I had decided to try my hand at milling my own cedar strips. All went well, until I realized that I'd planed the strips too THIN. I could not rout a strong cove-the edges crumbled-no matter how I adjusted the bit router bit & fence. Another website about Strip Building said to mill the strips "a fraction of an inch thicker than 1/4"", but I think he meant more like 1/16 over. So I now have a pile of too-thin strips.

I also looked at Nick Schade's Guillemot Kayaks page. I wish I'd looked at it FIRST, because he cautions about the difficulty of milling good coves & beads. He also writes that you can also skip the bead-and-coves, and fit the strips by planing a Rolling Bevel as necessary. Has anyone done a strip build by this technique?


10 replies:

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RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

I have done a couple of hybrids and never used b&c. Rolled bevels for me and many others.

1/4" strips are nice and easy to use but you can go thinner. 3/16 strips are fine.

Have a look at some of the other sites regarding stripping as you will find a lot more info. kayakforum and blueheronkayaks

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

 I'll second Craigs post. We milled our own strips for our two WDH's. Let me save you some of the learning curve though and caution you about over beveling. There were a few areas in our first build where this happened and after sanding the results were glue lines. Keep this in mind and you'll be fine.

 A small trimming plane will sure help if you don't have one allready such as Stanley's 12-101, under $10 and comes with a $.05 edge.

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

Milling B&C strips is not difficult. You need a router, router table, and canoe bits. Problem is you can drop $400+ on those items. It takes some fussing and a few short (2' -3') test strips to get the proper bit height/depth set up, and then just feed them through. I did several hundred strips in one morning between coffee breaks.

Advice: Do bead side first so when you do cove side the featherboards aren't squishing the bfragile cove edges. Wear ear protection, safety glasses, and an absolute must when working with WRC = a good respirator! No cheapo dust mask, get a good one and use it whenever sawing, planing, routing, or sanding cedar. 

 

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

If cutting your own strips, don't bother with bead & cove. If they are a uniform thickness,you will be fine. Correct beveling and pulling the strips together tight and in contact with the forms is key.

Have done a strip canoe[no staples] & a Shearwater deck this way.

Lew 

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

O.k. guys, you've talked me into it! Graig, thanks, I like the idea of going a little thinner. This way I can resaw a 3/4" board and safely get two 3/16 boards out of it. They must use 1/4" boards for B&C milling because that's about the thinnest board you can cut a cove in without the cove edge being too fragile (cedar is soft). Sskiff, I think I understand your caution not to over-bevel as a "hidden gap" that appears when you sand down from the top?

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

Jim... you can get by with moving the router fence out enough so the edges aren't so brittle on the cove...it doesn't have to be the full depth to get the benefit of the cove and bead ...I have used both techniques...and you can't beat the C&B for alignment in the long straight runs...it is faster and keeping the cove on the down side of the keel line give you a little trough for the glue tip to fit in. To me it is faster and I use way less staples in the space between forms...

 

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

My next boat, a Petrel, will be with square edge 3/16 strips. I have the forms and pile of strips ripped by one of the guys in our paddling club. Joey @CLC will also be doing the same so we will be commiserating...

The one thing he suggests is a long holding jig for the strips that is set up next to the boat so to strip does not get away from you while planing. I think it'll be a long board with a groove in it.

I like the idea of that small plane sskiff suggests. Does anyone else have experience with this or similar for doing the rolling bevel?

Dan

 

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

Hi Dan,

Glad to see that you plan to build a Petrel.  I am just about to start the deck on my Petrel.

I find it to be much more easy to work with bead & cove strips on the main structure, but then I like to use square edge strips where the colors change for the pattern.

If you lay out your deck pattern with the b&c,  Your sharp lines in your pattern will move around and turn wavey as you sand deeper into the joint.

Each method has it's pro's and con's so I like to use a blend of both in my kayak building.

I am looking forward to watching your Petrel take shape.

Lou

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

Apiece of timber with an appropriate width groove is perfect for planing strips. I used a floor board that had a bit of a twist which held the strip in place

RE: Strip Building Without Coves & Beads?

Apiece of timber with an appropriate width groove is perfect for planing strips. I used a floor board that had a bit of a twist which held the strip in place

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