Stripper FAQ 5 From: nh@cyberus.ca (Niels) Date: 1996/01/17 newsgroups: rec.boats.building - Re: Wood strip canoes - using tape A group at the Southwest Canoe Rendevous near Houston last month built one on site, and they used rubber bands (long ones) stretched from one mold to the other to hold the strips in place, so staples certainly aren't the only way to do it. shepherd@flounder.sp.paramax.com (Bob Shepherd) A few suggestions on how to hold thin strips together without staples: 1: Tape them together whenever you have a problem area. Masking tape works pretty well, and comes off fairly easily when you want it to. 2: Use clothes pins to hold the strip against the previous one. I prefer the plastic ones rather than wood ones because they don't get glued on. Problem with clothes pins is that you've got to remove them before moving to the next strip. (Don't use them for your good shirts afterward :) 3: Make chains out of rubber bands. Staple the end of each chain to your strongback, and stretch it over your work. If your forms are thin (mine are cardboard), you can use clothes pins to connect the loose end to your form. It helps to connect the loose end near where you are working, so that the strips don't have much leverage over the rubber bands. 4: If it looks like you've going to have a section pulling away from the forms, "tie" it to the other side by hot gluing a piece of a strip across the inside of the hull. These ties can stay in until you get ready to sand/glass the inside. 5: You can also tape the inside of your strips to your forms. I found that masking tape doesn't hold, and that I needed to resort to duct tape. Even that only holds marginally well. 6: If you don't try to do too many strips without letting the glue dry, the glue itself will hold the strips to the forms. However, if you put tape over your forms, you will find that the tape pulls away from the forms, taking the strips with it. - Re: Cedar strips - weight of kayak componets >JCOLTEN@vm1.spcs.umn.edu (Jim Colten) writes: There was a question by meriee@vaxa.isc.rit.edu (Mark) addressed to Bob Shepherd questioning why Bob would cut strips 1/16" thick to save weight. Mark goes on to talk about calculations showing the wood to be a small source of weight compared to the fiberglass and resin, while the wood also provides the great stiffness of a strip boat. My experience and calculations show the same. The wood core weighs less than 15% of our finished boat weight (that at 1/4" thick, 19' racing canoe, 2 layers 6 oz glass inside and out on bottom, one layer inside and out on sides). on the weight issue .... One of us is wrong here .... I am perfectly willing to be the wrong one if someone will show me the error in my analysis. I do not know how much your canoes weigh but lets say 50 lbs (rather heavy for a racer, I admit). 15% of 50 is 7.5 lbs. I also do not know the hull surface area of your canoes, but 50 ft**2 is probably in the ballpark. For 1/4 inch strips you have a wood volume of: .25/12*50 = 1.04 ft**3 in the hull. Your wood needs to have a density of about 7.5 lbs per cubic foot if it weighs only 7.5 lbs .... it would be even less dense if your racer weighed a more reasonable 35 lbs. I have been assuming you use cedar (22 lbs per cubic foot) ..... I suppose that balsa might have such a low enough density, is that what you use? Jim Colten Mark MERIEE@RITVAX writes: I suspect we are in the midst of a discovery. :-) After thinking about this note and the earlier one that listed weights for different thickness hulls I started to think about possible causes. My numbers are a bit fuzzy in that we went through this exercise about 10 years ago so it is not fresh in my mind. I also don't have my engineering manual with wood weights handy, so I'm not checking your numbers. (Not that I question them, just to set the record straight.) From your note I am assuming a 50 sq ft hull = 1.04 cu ft or about 22 lbs. (I think that is a number you will agree to?) I think from here we have to go into the techniques and materials employed. The first question I would ask is if that is 50 ft of cut strips or fo ft on the boat. There is significant strip wastage translated here to missing weight, in the build process. Surely not all the proposed missing wood, but something like 1/3 is on the floor when the job is done. (One can do a very rough estimate by taking the circumfrence at the center, usually about 60 in., and the stem height, say 18 in. This let me assume a quarter section rectangle 18 x 96 for the 'rectangular' section and a triangle 22 x 96 for the "gain" due to the change in circumfrence as the hull changes shape. I'll let you run the numbers. ;-) ) The next question I would ask is are we talking about starting with strips planed to 1/4 in and coved/beaded or some other proccess to get a basic hull that planks smoothly and doesn't need or get much sanding or are we talking about a 1/4 strip fresh off the bandsaw with no edge treatment sort of glued/stapled flat and then heavily sanded to get it smooth? I'd expect the latter hull is really 3/16 in most places with a carefull sanding job and thinner in some. With a heavy handed power sander operator I would guess thinner. Last, for the hull, I would question the hull/cloth combination. A smooth hull sanded down with 120 or 200 grit and a flat weave 4 oz cloth will have significantly less resin than a nubby hull fast sanded with 60 or 80 grit and covered with a round weave 6 oz cloth. It's easy to put a couple of pounds of extra resin on a hull. Or, for that matter, to learn how to avoid it. BTW, did you add a seal coat of resin or just seal the wood with the first cloth layer to "suck it down"? For the boat there is as big as set of issues involved in seat/rails/stiffeners/hardware as there is in the hull. My point is there are a lot of variables that need to be taken into account. The typical outfitting for a tandem 16 ft canoe is around 15 lbs but some go higher and a few go lower. Are we talking wood as a percentage of total weight or strictly the hull? I think you see the picture. What I was addressing were a couple of cedar hulls we built as prototype/personal designs that happened to be in the schedule after I had read a couple of articles that we were discussing. As a result we kept track of those hulls for time and material. the techniques used were similar to Hazen's with some improvements. Good for beginners. Usually we don't bother keeping those kinds of records. What Bob used was a very sophisticated technique that took a lot of care and skill. Good to know about but I would question it as a first project unless one had similar experience on something else. In general the advice I offered and will continue to offer is directed at the casual or first time builder as I think they need a conservative approach. On the other hand I eally enjoyed the exchange with Bob because it showed what direction he had gone in to push the limits. I think both types of exchanges are very beneficial for everyone to see but that the different intents should be kept apparent to most readers. In the long run I believe it leads to less misunderstanding and fewer discouraged newbies. Old hands can and will judge the appicability as it pertains to them. Enough soapbox. :-) In closing, I don't think anyone was right or wrong, I think we are talking apples and oranges with a plum or two thrown in. Maybe this was a good lesson in sorting fruit? - Re: Filling staple holds in strips Quick and easy filler for staple holes on cedar strip boats, that hides staple holes and is easy to sand? kawrei50@aol.com (KAWREI50) A lot of folks around here use toothpicks, glued in with whatever you used to hold the strips together. The boats I've seen don't look bad. It's just cosmetic, though - the holes aren't large enough to be structural. I'm not sure this qualifies as quick and easy but I thought I'd pass it on. - Re: Cleaning Up Epoxy Drips Vinegar bsosin@aol.com (BSosin) I just use papertowels soaked in plain white vinegar, before the epoxy has cured. works great. (use gloves, of course) kawrei50@aol.com (KAWREI50) Before it has cured vinegar works great - the heat gun technique is for AFTER it has hardened. I don't know about you, but I always miss some and am left with drips that are harder than the wood. The heat gun softens the epoxy so that it comes off easily without damage to the wood underneath. wbs@cancer.dct.ac.uk (Bill Samson) BUT vinegar can stain certain woods (e.g. occume ply) nearly black. (As I found to my cost last weekend!) Try it out on scrap first! sandy@cs.montana.edu (Sandy Pittendrigh) Acetone on rag works fine too, for wet drips, and doesn't stain. For grinding hardened drips, nothing beats a the semi-stiff (semi flexible) abrasive, wire-mesh discs they sell in lumber yards and hardware stores these days. Put them on a slow-RPM buffer/grinder, and they will take off stuff in a hurry, without heating up or clogging up. Plus you can "bend" them into concave corners as you grind. - "Classic" Bead & Cove gauvins@vm1.uLaval.ca (Stephane Gauvin) I just found out about "Veritas Beading Tool." Sold by Lee Valley Tools, it is a wooden handle with an integrated fence and a set of cutters that can carve bead and cove shapes. $35 CDN. Maybe the cheapest/fastest way to B&C cedar strips. - Sanding the inside of your stripper am128@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Perry Michael MacDonald) After trying various sanding methods,padded orbital sander,random orbital sander,hand,surform, I recently purchased a 5 dollar flexible sanding disk that you can chuck into your hand drill. Because its very aggressive I use 100 grit sanding disks, even with this grit if your not careful you can gouge the wood quite easily. Then I take my orbital sander and slip a piece of foam between the sander and the sandpaper so its flexible and you finish sand with this. Its really cut down my sanding time, which is really nice considering boat building is 90 % sanding or so it seems. HBTX58A@prodigy.com (Thomas Barrie) I have been using a sears polisher/sander (looks like a grinder). I cut 7"circles out of an old ensolite sleeping pad and used scotch spray cement to fasten the circles to coarse sanding disks. This method is quick, but I have two problems. When the sandpaper gets hot, it tends to loosen the glue. This usually happens in the bilge. The other problem is reaching into the stems. I met a guy in canada that glued his canoe together in such a way that he could take it apart in three pieces, then sand the inside, then put it back on the forms. I don't think that technique would work very well if you had very sharp curves in your design. - TOM - Dumb Mistakes I Have Made (Was Kayak Shrinking) eklein@whsun1.wh.whoi.edu (Edgar Kleindinst) This is a followup on my eariler post about my Kayak shrinking in the hope of saving someone else from making the dumb mistakes I did. The story goes like this .... I stripped the hull, scraped, sanded and glassed the outside. Then I scrapped the inside and sanded it. After a week or so I noticed the boat was curling inward, especially at the shear line so I put some sticks in at each station to hold it at the correct width. Christmas rolled around and we put the boat on hold until after the season. This was the second week in Dec. New Years Eve I went to the basement for something and stopped to see the boat. I noticed large cracks on the inside running almost the full length of the boat. The cracks had opened the boat to relieve stress created by the inside of the boat drying. The cracks didn't go thru the glass on the outside of the hull but huge dents were created. (At least they looked huge to me) I imediatly took the sticks out. The boat curled up like a leaf with a leaf rolling bug inside. It started looking more like a cigar than a kayak. I wet the boat with water to see if it would open up again. It did somewhat so I thought maybe it could be saved. After the boat dried I took 1/2 inch wide tape and glassed the cracks to keep them closed and get rid of the dents on the outside of the hull that the cracks had created. (With the boat curled up the cracks were closed.) I didn't want to use wider tape so the boat could open up again with min. interference from the tape. After the tape dried I decided to wet the entire inside of the boat with System 3 clear coat. This being a very watery resin with a pot life of around 70 minutes, I figured it would act like the water and swell the boat. I didn't want to put glass down in case something else happened. Good thing I didn't. I wetted the inside of the hull and waited about 15 minutes. I began to put the sticks back slowly, using small sticks and working up to the correct size sticks at each station. Things seemed to be going well, the boat was swelling and spreading out. Then I heard the most sickening sound I have ever heard. CRACK!!! The boat split along the 2nd and 3rd strips to the port of the centerline from the bow to the stern. It also cracked at the edge of the football on both sides. This created more huge dents on the outside. After crying for a few minutes I decided it would be best to put the plywood stations back in. I covered the edges of the stations with Saran wrap and put them in. I used very tight straps around each station to mold the boat into shape and I let the resin dry. By now the boat was plyable being soaked with resin and it took shape. I then used 3 inch tape and covered the cracks between stations hoping to keep the shape around the cracks correct. After everything dried I removed the stations. The boat curled up but nowhere near as badly. I put the 1-1/2 layers of cloth inside the hull, put the sticks back in and wet out the whole thing with clearcoat. After drying, the hull is back in shape although with a 18' long dent in the bottom. The moral of the story is don't stop halfway thru. The inside of the boat will keep drying if there is any moisture in the wood at all. Not being a woodworker this obvious conclusion was not obvious at all. This is my second boat and so far I haven't repeated any mistakes I made on my 1st boat. I've just invented some new ones! Anybody have any dumb mistakes they want to share? I wish somebody had posted this one a couple months ago :) - Re: Dumb Mistakes I Have Made (Was Kayak Shrinking) guillemot@aol.com (Guillemot) Just last weekend I was working on the combing of a kayak. I use strips glued vertically into the hole cut for the cockpit. I went out to the garage and cut a bag full of 2" long strips. Back in the basement I glued these in with hot-melt glue to the boat and Elmers between the strips. The next morning the combing had pulled off around about half the perimeter. The wood coming from out in the cold garage to the heated basement had strunk enough to make the radius of the combing about 1/8" smaller than when I glued it in. I fixed it by re-gluing and wedging in some thin strips - Re: oak and epoxy? > I remember Gougeon's book recommending not using oak, Keeping in mind that the oak was in these locations to provide a tough barrier between reality and the mahogany portions of the boat...how does epoxy work with mahogany??? brant@BATES.MIT.EDU I have used epoxy to bond white oak to mahogany plywood in by last three boats projects, two nutshell prams (from scratch) and a rebuild of a 17' McIntosh sloop. In each case white oak was used for the klle, inwale, outwale and assorted high traffic areas. After over four years of use in each case, I have not had any joint failures. Before applying any epoxy, thoroughly clean the surfaces with a de-greaser to remove as much of the woods natural oils as possable. Apply a first coat of thin epoxy that can bond to the wood structure. Now the final bonding layer of epoxy can be applied with thickeners for gap filling as necessary. Good luck. young@nbnet.nb.ca (Allyson Young) Oak and epoxy do not mix well, but then again teak and epoxy do not mix well either but I have used teak in quite a few places on my boat. There is a trick that you can use that works for teak and probably will work for oak.. I wash the surface of the wood with acetone and do the glue up at once. I have dorade boxes that would not take epoxy at all and this seems to have done the trick. As the oak will turn a black color when exposed, any breaks in the coating will have to be repaired at once. Hope this helps brant@BATES.MIT.EDU I have used epoxy to bond white oak to mahogany plywood in by last three boats projects, two nutshell prams (from scratch) and a rebuild of a 17' McIntosh sloop. In each case white oak was used for the klle, inwale, outwale and assorted high traffic areas. After over four years of use in each case, I have not had any joint failures. Before applying any epoxy, thoroughly clean the surfaces with a de-greaser to remove as much of the woods natural oils as possable. Apply a first coat of thin epoxy that can bond to the wood structure. Now the final bonding layer of epoxy can be applied with thickeners for gap filling as necessary. Good luck. unkmown Oak and epoxy don't go together that well. Oak is both an oily wood that is hard for most adhesives to get a grip on, and is also very acidic, which tends to cause adhesion/compatibility problems longer term. The usual recommendation is to change to a less agressive wood to avoid these problems, but you can get round them with preparation in you want to. De-greasing is definitely worthwhile to improve initial adhesion and I would also wash with a neutraliser to reduce the surface acidity (you'll never clear either of these completely). There are a number of attractions of oak for boatbuilding. It's _very_ strong, it's _very_ durable (rot proof) and if heated for bending it's _remarkably_ flexible. If you change to another wood it will almost certainly be inferior in one or more of these aspects -- fortunately, epoxy can more than make up the difference in the first two, and helps a lot via lamination in the last. richard@volcano.demon.co.uk (richard john burton) I have never had any problems with oak and epoxy. I wouldn't agree that oak is particularly oily. There are also many different "oaks" within the species; natural variation giving differences in texture and density. If I were looking for oak to bond with epoxy I would go for lighter more coarse grained open pored material. To aid penetration of the epoxy I use a technique I call "ingassing" - the opposite of "outgassing". I start with the material which is kiln dried to between 10-14%emc, at around 25 deg C, I apply the coating and then allow the piece to cool to the temperature outside the kiln - 5-15 deg C. The epoxy then has a longer time to set and the slight contraction of the air inside the piece draws the epoxy in. When laminating oak I tend to use Aerolite glue because it costs less than epoxy and is easier to work with. I have used West epoxy on an oak floor in my house. It has had a lot of use in the last two years and still looks great. The epoxy seems to enhance the colour of the wood better than any other product. - Re: Casting Lead Ducks > I recall from my high school metal shop days that one had to very firmly tamp the sand down in the mold before removing the pattern. Are you doing this? Also, the sand used might be of a special grade or size... g_seibert@bionet.bio.dfo.ca (Gerald Seibert) For those contemplating similar small castings, the most straight forward suggestion so far is as follows: Get silica sand (size 00) also known as white foundry sand and mix into it Bentonite (8% by wt), stir in water (about 7% vol) and use the mixture to make your mold. The Bentonite acts as a binder; the whole mixture should be robust enough that, when formed into a ball, can be " fondled" without breaking apart -Cedar Strip kayak construction > I have completed bottom hull and top decks from cedar strips and fibreglass/epoxy. What techniques do you suggest to connect the two hull pieces? Is there a special piece or fibreglass method to secure the deck to the bottom hull? guillemot@aol.com (Guillemot) The technique I use is to tape the interior seam: 1. With masking of packing tape, bind the deck and hull together, 2. Lay the kayak on 1 side, 3. Cut 2" fiberglass tape to length form mid cockpit to each end, 4. Roll up the tape and dunk it in resin, let it soak until saturated, 5. Starting at the cockpit, roll out the tape toward the end, 6. When you can no longer reach the end of the tape, poke it to the end with a stick, 7. Smooth it down with a resin soaked brush. 8. Let it cure, 9. Remove the packing/masking tape from the outside, 10. Apply a layer of tape to the outside seam. I use two layers of 2" tape on the inside one layer of 1" on the outside. The "Boatbuilder's Manual" edited by Charles Walbridge gives a good description of this procedure From: kahunaloon@aol.com (KahunaLoon) I back bevel the edges of the deck and hull so only the very outside edges of the joint touches so the seam is very tight and neet. lay sticks on the hull and put the deck on top.Tape with 2" CLEAR packing tape so you can see the joint. Remove sticks as you go. Rap around hull and deck every 16" so the tape on the joint is not taking all the stress. I cut out my hatch openings so I can work through these to reach the ends. I roll out the glass tape out DRY. (don't be cheap and cut strips because the fraying edges will stick to your brush and drive you nuts) Laying the boat on its side I pour resin on the seam and brush it to the ends with a foam brush hot glued to a long stick. Glass the outside of the seam also. Doug_Brunt@mindlink.bc.ca (Doug Brunt) Fiberglass tape is want you want. Which is a bit of a misnomer. It's not tape at all but rather long thin strips of glass. The method is to sand the inside and outside of the hull along the joint line. Then tape the hull together (packing tape works well). Turn the taped-together hull up on one edge. Paint the resin aloing the joint then apply the fibreglass to that joint. You need a stick long enough to reach both bow and stern. You also need to be a bit of a contortionist. Stick your head up through the cockpit and work the glass along the joint line. Attach a paint brush to the stick then saturate the glass throoughly. After one side of the inside is finished roll the hull over and do the other inside. After it's thoroughly set, remove the packing tape from the oustide of the hull and do the outside. - Minimizing Weight in Strip Canoes kahunaloon@aol.com (KahunaLoon) I would not use less than 6 oz. cloth. If you squeegee off the excess resin especaily on the inside you can keep the weight low. I make my gunnels from Northern white spruce of sitka spruce and glue instead of screw them on for added weight savings. Add a couple screws at high stress points like the thwarts & seats. If you need abrasion resistance glue a strip of ash on the outside edge. This will make you canoe lightweight. - Canoe seat mounting method > I am pondering the matter of mounting seats in the strip canoe under construction. The two methods seem to be: 1. Hanging the seats from the inwhales. 2. Resting the seats on cleats fixed to the inside of the hull. Does the seat perform any structural function, beyond the obvious (aesthetics, but not at the expense of functionality and reliablitiy)? While I'm asking, what type of seat do you prefer. I am thinking a woven cane seat, right now. This is based on a combination of ease of fabrication, low cost, light weight, and some aethetic value. I am not sure of the durability factor. HBTX58A@prodigy.com (Thomas Barrie) Here is the method I use which has worked very well I make the frames out of 1 1/2 " ash. The cross members are made several inches wider than the canoe is at the location where they will be hanged. The excess is trimmed off and used to hang the seats. 1) trim the seat to width, and angle the ends to match the taper of your canoe at that spot. 2) cut off the extra & save them for step #4 3) decide how low you want the seat 4) trim these end pieces to the proper length - (this is may be different lengths for the front and back of the seat) and angle 5) drill a hole down the center of the end pieces 6) use a file to slightly round the edges (to prevent splintering) 7) stick a bolt though the gunwale, through the end piece, then through the seat. The hole in this spacer block (step 5) should be slightly larger than the bolt that you are using. Because of the width of these spacer blocks, the resulting seat is very well mounted. As far as cane, I have been very happy with plastic cane - looks just like the real stuff and it's stronger. It also does not absorb water. HBTX58A@prodigy.com (Thomas Barrie) wrote I prefer to hang them from the gunwales because I view the gunwales as the skeleton of the canoe. Better to hang the seats from the skeleton, than glue them to the skin (the sides)! By connecting the seats to the sides instead of the gunwales, you are creating 4 stress points in the side of the canoe. WXBG84A@prodigy.com (Charles Duchon) Have you had any problem with your seats "racking" ? It seems that with the seats hanging of the inwales 2-3" they' be subject to a lot of stress - especially if you kneel while paddling and just use the leading edge of the seat to rest your rear end. I know that riveting through the hull is not very pleasing to the eye but I think it provides a more secure mount for the seat. From HBTX58A@prodigy.com (Thomas Barrie) I have never had a problem with racking. I was concerned about this also, but have successfully used this on 7 canoes. I make sure that the seat itself is fits snug inside the hull, this probably prevents side to side racking. The wide mounting pieces prevent forward/backward racking. I do almost all of my canoeing kneeling, leaning on the front edge of the seat. wick@winternet.com (B. Michael Wick) I don't think there is a clear winner here. I had trouble getting a good bond between blocks and the hull with the my first canoe so I hung the seats on my second. However a local commercial strip-builder has great success with blocks. He thickens West System epoxy with micro-fibers, 'butters' up the hull side of the block, places it on the hull where he wants it and walks away. Small blocks too! about 4 inches**2 contact area between block and hull. Jim Colten (JCOLTEN@vm1.spcs.umn.edu) wrote He generally uses just one thwart (the carrying yoke). One would think that as the hull flexes that any poorly done glue job would fail but then he isn't the type of builder who does anything poorly. wick@winternet.com (B. Michael Wick) I tried epoxying blocks onto the hull and had problems with the blocks popping, so I went ahead and hung seats on both of my boats. It seems that a number of people around here (Mn) have been advocating this epoxy butter technique for nearly everything. I saw a number of canoes last summer where there were no screws used to fix the gunnels. (Gotta cut that weight down). At one of the MCA events last August I got the chance to paddle some guys brand new Merlin. I was paddling (kneeling) along at about 100 yards out I started to hear a nice crisp popping noise, boink, boink, boink. The gunnel was popping away from the hull. Keep in mind I weigh about 250, so I was definatly doing a stress test. Turns out he had epoxied his gunwals on, no screws. One I got back to shore, all the builders gathered round and there was all sorts of speculation on what went wrong. Some say he didn't use enough epoxy butter, some said he clamped it too tight, some said not clamped tight enough. No-one doubted the technique, eccept me. I saw this same guy at an October paddle, he had re-epoxied the gunnels, and this time added screws at the seats. He did not offer it to me to stress test. The moral of the story ? I've hung my seats, paddled my canoes all last summer, no problems (successful stress test, eh). On the other hand, I've seen the "epoxy a block to the hull" method fail enough that I am leary of it. By the way, fixing the seat to the hull by screwing or bolting make me read apprehensive. I don't know how these stress points are going to hold up over time. - Ribs in strippers [was Re Grand Lake Canoes member9510@aol.com wrote Would you add the ribs after you glassed the inside of the hull? Would you plan on full length ribs, from gunwale to gunwale or partial ribs? How would attach the ribs? Using epoxy? Screwing to keel and inwale/gunwale? wwhalen@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (William Whalen) When building a stripper guideboat I needed to put in a number of ribs -- to mount seat stringers on. I installed the ribs after I put the inwales (with spacers) on, I slid the extra long rib (as thick as a inwale spacer) through both sides -- raised off the bottom so that I could apply epoxy -- then pushed down on both sides and clamped, and later screwed. If the bend of the bilge was too great I might try to laminate a rib in place with thin strips .... - alternative woods for strippers In article <3kj23n$90f@newsbf02.news.aol.com albertg319@aol.com (AlbertG319) writes From albertg319@aol.com (AlbertG319) Subject Re alternative woods for strippers Date 19 Mar 1995 23 59 35 -0500 kahunaloon@aol.com, (Rob Macks) writes ... comes in boards the longest of which are 12' so I scarf boards together to make 17 to 20 footers for my kayaks. I cut my boards into albertg319@aol.com (AlbertG319) writes **snip** That's one way to do it. I prefer to cut all the pieces into strips and then do my scarfing. I use a bandsaw with an 8 1 jig in the miter slot and cut the scarfs on edge rather than flat. That means that for a 3/16 x 3/4 inch strip, the length of scarf is 1.5 inches compared to 6 inches the other way. (or 24 to 32 inches Rob's way) I coat the joint surfaces in epoxy and wrap it with wax paper, placing splint strips on the outside of the waxed paper. I prefer to staple through the splints on one side rather than use clamps. It's a lot easier to stack up a bunch of scarfed strips if they are stapled and in wax paper. Remember to pull the staples in about 10 hours or the legs will break off instead of pulling out. It's a *lot* easier to cut the strips uniform if you aren't fighting long boards. Also, neither a jointer or planer are needed, waste is cut to practically nothing, and you can scarf out the knots or use #2 lumber or scraps. A possible disadvantage of my method is that a bandsaw is essential. I once tried cutting strips on a 10" table saw. I'm sure there are those that do it, but not me. From JCOLTEN@vm1.spcs.umn.edu (Jim Colten) Many builders don't bother trying to make long strips out of short ones. They just cut the strips with square ends and but the ends together. It works fine. I have not done this myself but a close friend is nearly finished stripping his second canoe and is using abutted short strips. He says that stripping goes much easier and faster when handling shorter strips. He also said that it is easier to cut the bow/stern ends of pieces to fit well. He does that first and then cuts the abutted ends to length. BTW he is using cove&bead strips. dgerty@draper.com (David R Gerty) Cutting the strips or just scarfs? I like table saws for cutting strips. Same here with 2 exceptions 1) I stacked my strips in a stair step arrangement 3- 4 strips wide and 4-5 deep. The length of each step was the length of the scarf. The stepped pile was clamped to a pine board with the ends of the bottom strips at the edge of the board. I used a plane to cut the scarf. 2) No staples, just stacked a bunch and clamped lightly on both sides of the laps with a board top and bottom to spread the load. Don't clamp over the lap or the strips will slide out. Used plain wood glue. Test the strip by lifting from one end and shake gently. If it breaks or doesn't make a fair curve, redo the joint. I broke maybe 3-4 scarf joints per canoe. From Ron Dwelle