Went to McCoy's today...

[gerald]

Had to pick up 2 sheets of 1/2" russian birch plywood. That's what I use for my forms. While I was there I took a cue from Pogo and went through the WRC. I went through more than 200 boards. Made a great haul of two 10" 1X6 and six 8' 1 X 6. Little darker than I prefer to use but it will be fine for the hull. Good grain orientation and quite light. Couple of pieces had some unusual color. Open'er up and I may have something good.

Good material day. McCoy's is the only place in Waco that carries this birch plywood.

[DarrellS]

Birch Plywood... Your choice of form material

My keen senses tell me there must be a new stripper in the near future.

[Shamrock kid]

New stripper were?

[Light Keeper's Kid]

I smell "Hybrid"

Mike

[gerald]

Ah...two strippers. Very interesting boats. Entirely different. I'll be showing the forms of--probably 4 different boats just to emphasize the extreme differences in task specific boats that are designed for a primary task--yet with some overlap. No hybrid--both are full strippers. I'm excited about both boats.

[4x4kayak2112]

New stripper were?

yea i told my wife i wanted a stripper and she got PISSED, i had to show her on here what it ment!!!

[Pogo]

That's interesting . . . I still don't understand how you do so well with one-by boards. I always get 2x4 or larger so I can be sure to get full widths with cleanly milled edges all around. Whenever I've used 1 x whatevers, it's always left me with one rough edge per strip, unequal width strips 'cuz the boards vary in thickness a little, or both, so I avoid them. I go to McCoy's specifically because they carry larger sizes than 1x, whereas Home Depot, Lowe's, et al, carry 1x stuff all day long. How do you do it???

[gerald]

That's interesting . . . I still don't understand how you do so well with one-by boards. I always get 2x4 or larger so I can be sure to get full widths with cleanly milled edges all around. Whenever I've used 1 x whatevers, it's always left me with one rough edge per strip, unequal width strips 'cuz the boards vary in thickness a little, or both, so I avoid them. I go to McCoy's specifically because they carry larger sizes than 1x, whereas Home Depot, Lowe's, et al, carry 1x stuff all day long. How do you do it???

When I cut the 1/4" strips I do end up with a strip with one smooth edge and one rough edge. Generally, when I install a strip, I only plain the rough edge to fit. In other words I'm always fitting the rough edge to the smooth factory edge. Few people can look at a boat and tell you whether any individual strip is 5/8, 11/16, or 3/4. I also loosely monitor the gap left to finish so I can adjust the size of the strips to end up with pretty close to the same on each side. Don't forget--99.999% of all the boats any of us build are generally going to be what I call "utility finish" (or worse). When I build that "show boat" I may use better wood. Maybe not...

[Pogo]

I'm not talking about appearances at all, but rather, fit-up. I want all my strips to be of uniform width and thickness so there won't be any mis-matching in either dimension that forces a bunch of corrective action down the line. Example: I scarf a 3/4" strip to a 11/16" strip, the next course is going to have a gap issue unless I plane or sand the mismatched edges flush; and even then, I've introduced a taper, however slight. Likewise, if there's a 5/32" thick strip in amongst the 1/4" 'ers, there's going to be a lot of sanding to fair the surface. The latter is a function of milling, but the former is dependant on the boards the strips are ripped from. I've never actually found the rough edge to be a problem, but the variance in width has certainly caused problems.

So I've concluded from my experience that it's easiest all around to make sure all strips are 100% consistent beforehand. You have more experience and have built more boats than I, yet do not find this to be true. So I wonder where my answer lies?

[gerald]

Maybe you should learn to chill. We strive for perfection but accept the best that we can do. Sometimes we say, "...good enough!", and then go on to the next challenge in life.

Say after me--stroke, aaaahummmm, stroke, aaaahummmmm, stroke, aaaahummmmm, stroke, aaaaaahuuummmmm...

See--relaxing isn't it...


...'course, I have been known to flame out before....

[Pogo]

Learn to chill? Man, once again I'm totally lost! Having strips that don't fit and make lots of extra work is what gets me all wound up, and when things go together like you know good 'n' well they're supposed to . . . why, then I chill big time. But as they say in Cool Hand Luke, "what we have heah is a failyuh to communicate". It took me forever to "get" your method of achieving that spectacular finish on your epoxy work even though you explained it to me a zillion times (the missing link in that case turned out to be that you apply a whole lot more goop than I do).

And remember, I built my first OI in 29 days, so I know how to say "good enough" as well as anyone possibly can. I still don't know how I did that.

[DarrellS]

Here again the newbie must speak. I had never built a strip boat,but came across enough free redwood for 1 1/2 boats. It was not in real good shape but after planning it was ok. There was some difference in boards due to shrinkage and such, but I was not worried about a 32nd here or there. If every board was off by 1/32 9which is not likely) you would still not be off that much at the center of the "football" on the BOTTOM of the boat (which I cover with graphite impregnated epoxy anyway),and can't be seen. To all the new builders out there: Don't sweat the small stuff. To borrow a term Gerald uses: your building a boat, not a piano.
Darrell

[Pogo]

Perhaps part of the point that Darrell touches on is that builders with more experience aren't always able to remember what it was like in the beginning. After reading his reply I had to stop and give it a little thought, and in doing so recalled that when I tackled my first strip project (a hybrid sea yak that was boat no. 3) I cared nothing about strip patterns, wood selection, or most of the things I take care with now. All I was interested in was getting those forms covered with wood and getting a boat out of the deal, and that's what I did and it turned out great. Heck, I just paddled that boat yesterday, it's still a good 'un.

Still, it can be hard to say which is the wiser approach: to research the thing inside out before starting in an effort to avoid common beginner's errors, or just dive right in and see what happens. I suspect the answer is "different strokes for different folks", but my vote, and I'll bet Darrell's too, is to just get busy and . . . damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!

[bowgarguide]

Pogo
I agree with you on the last post,my deal on a new builder is get them started in a boat they built that is safe.Then on that next build they have some experience,have a much better ideal of what they want in a boat,and to build a boat that is location sensitive .
I think you hit on something ,you forget that you had to learn how to build light and tough. I think we really agree on most of what is posted here and that boat building is a steady progression of boats that get tailered to us personally over time.
Ron