Answers to my questions

I am sitting writting this post from comfort of my shop.  It is kind of nice to be out here with the smell of fresh cut cedar in the air and a Sam Adams summer ale in hand.  The kids are out running around playing and every now and then I step out and check on them.  What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in August.

After my first post I had a few questions I needed to answer and I think that I have done that for myself.  My questions were:
1. Should I get a thin rip table saw blade?
2. How is milling my own strips going to go?
3. What glue works better?
4. Should I stain it or not?



cheap thin rip blade

First off, the thin rip blade.  I had a cheap 7 1/2" blade which I installed on my saw but it didn't perform too well.  I didn't like the blade marks which it left on the strips. 

To me, the blade is flexing or something.  Oh well, I won't use this one for this project.

The strip in the middle was cut with the cheap blade.  The outer ones were cut with the Freud.

So, I went to the Rockler store in Maplewood, MN and purchased a Freud Diablo thin rip glue line blade. 

table saw insert removed to show blade

After cutting a few strips with this one, I am very pleased with it's performance.  It leaves a nice clean edge.  One item of note with this blade is that Freud designs this blade so that only 1/2 of the top tooth should be showing above the work piece.  Apparently they have the cut angles figured out to provide the best cut.  In addition, it is the proper way to set up a blade for cutting in terms of safety.  I have always followed the rule of the blade should be no more than 1/4" above the work piece.






Tooth height above stock to be cut

















Milling the coves and beads:
I purchased a set (one cove and one bead) of bits from MLCS online.  These are 1/4" shank bits which will fit into my router.  I decided on this style versus the combination cove and bead in the same bit purely based on personal preference.  I think this way it will allow for easier setups.



1/4" cove and 1/4" bead router bits with 1/4" shanks
















An important item to note here is the strip thickness.  I had set up the bead bit first and milled several strips that I cut.  The difference in thickness of the strips was pretty minor.  I had two different setups with my thin rip table saw jig, thus the difference in strip thickness.  I've got some work to do here when I set up to rip the strips to the right thickness and also to set up my router.

cove and bead cut strips

For the bead, it didn't seam like a big deal.  But for the cove, the thickness was a very big deal. 


Obviously, this is why I only cut a few to play around and expirement with.  Now I know, strip thickness is key.  In fact, I think I will rip the strips to 0.260".  Verus 0.250" just to give a little but extra material there to account for the variation which will most likely be there when I rip all of the strips. 


Glue:
After ripping a few strips, I decided that I would glue a few together to see which 3M glue I prefered.
One is a 3M white wood glue and the other is 3M carpenters wood glue.

After letting the small strips dry, I sanded them.  I don't really see a difference in the glue type.  Both performed nicely and I will purchase a few more bottles to have on hand.  From what I can tell these should perform the same as other major brands such as Elmers or Titebonds.

Next I put some stain on the small test strips.  I don't like stain for this project.  In order to show the natural beauty of the wood, I will not stain this one.  I would have a really hard time staining the wood on this boat to all look pretty much the same color.  It was a good test.

Stained versus natural. 
The wood types, top to bottom are western red, pine and redwood.

3M product use so far:

3M Scotch 3/4" wide tape - I used this to tape my plans to the wall of my shop.  I know it is a pretty minor detail but hey, it is a 3M product that I used!

3M wide wood glue
3M carpenters wood glue - see picture above.

3M all purpose sanding disks - I will be using many of these later on.

So I learned a few things and answered my questions.  Buy a good blade, set ups are key, no stain!

Lastly, I bought two sheets (4x8) of 15/32" thick sanded plywood.  I will use one to build the strong back and the other one will be for the forms.  More on the form building in my next post.
Marc