Subject: Re: [baidarka] Gunnels and a batten?
From: Philip Jacobs (jaco0253@umn.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 20 2002 - 12:48:26 EST
I've done this to make curved, supporting deck beams on a 'stitch and glue'
plywood kayak, as well as a few other items, and it works very well. I
understand that others do it on everything from ribs and cockpit coamings
to gunwales on baidarka style boats.
The wood is ripped into thin strips on a bandsaw, then I run them through a
small planer to smooth the sides and get uniform thickness. The thin
strips bend fairly easily, but for really tight curves, you can soak them,
clamp them in place around the form, and then glue them after they dry.
It still helps to start with good wood, but you can cut out knots and join
shorter pieces end-to-end, as long as the joints don't overlap, which
wastes less wood and lets you use less-than-perfect pieces.
Since there is less stress placed on the wood than when steambending
thicker pieces, there is less of a problem with splitting from grain run
out, although this can still occur. Essentially, you are custom making
plywood, and it helps to have your best strips on the outside edges, for
both strength and appearance.
If you visit the trim section of any lumberyard, even The Home Depot, you
can buy clear lengths of 1/4 thick trim up to 16 feet in length, and
laminate your pieces out of defect free wood. Although this is more
expensive, it saves numerous hunting trips to various lumberyards and
sawmills, and helps if you don't have the bandsaw and thickness planer. I
have always thought that it would be fun to build an entire boat out of
free yardsticks collected from the State Fair.
There are actually tables in some woodworking references about how thick
the strips should be, based upon the radius of the curve, but you can
figure this out fairly easily with trial and error.
There is very little 'springback' in a laminated piece, compared to a steam
bent piece; they are much more rigid, which I suppose affects the whole
tension (skin) / compression (frame) relationship of a tradional kayak. I
am sure that there are opinions about how this affects the durability and
handling of the finished boat, both positively and negatively.
Philip Jacobs
On 19 Nov 2002, hispaniola wrote:
> No, scarfing I've done. I mean ripping knotty 1xs or 2xs into say 1/4"
> strips and laminating them to get what you want. I've seen reference to
it
> (can't remember where) and it's supposed to be more efficient because you
> use anything that doesn't have a knot in it. Am I making sense?
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