Hey ya'll - some notes on my latest project and some questions below on how/what to finish with (hope this is helpfull):
Alaia build notes:
Here are some notes from my Alaia build, I’m making 2+2 Alaias (7’ x 17”; 5’ x 15”, 35” (a shelf), 18” (Kanani’s board):
Material costs: 1 x 4 x 12’ cedar (Home Depot) $60+/-; West System epoxy $20, Small block plane $8, plus sandpaper, masking tape, gloves, etc.
Tools used: Table saw, circular saw, router, jigsaw, clamps, hand planes, sander, 5 gal bucket elbow grease.
Lessons learned – takes a lot longer than I expected from what I’d read, but then again I’m making a whole fleet of Alaia’s here. Wish I’d gotten some cleaner stock (better grain), but I did pick through the whole pile at HD for my select 6 boards, but “next time” I’m gonna rip out ALL the knots and check for more parallel straight grain, and try to orient the grain of all the boards in the same direction. I spent about a Sat afternoon on each step except the shaping which took a day and a half.
1. Ripped boards to remove most of the knots, sorted and cut to length and then re-ripped and arranged to get a nice width pattern across the board.
2. Glued up – I really like the west system epoxy – plenty of work time (40 min) to fuss. Used some on-hand tite bond for the shelf & Kanani board.
3. Worked out a great clamping idea – screw 2x4 to the work surface, used a long piece of aluminum square tubing and angle (screen door frame), plus door shim wedges for clamping pressure. Used 6mil visqueen to keep the epoxy from sticking to the work surface and clamps. That will be the setup on my next eps blank glue up.
4. Made an outline using some research, a photo, scaled to fit my dims, cut out and traced.
5. Tailblock T&G was made with the table saw to cut the grove in the tailblock and the router to cut the tongue on the tail of the board. First I cut the tail square with a circular saw.
6. Since I was hand planning, I helped cut the bottom concave using the table saw – set the blade to 1/8 inch depth, clamped a wood fence to the table and slid the board perpendicular to the blade. Made 5 passes (reclamping fence as needed and lifting up the board at the end of each pass to taper the depth) and then set the depth 1/8 inch higher and repeated. Saved a lot of time. Need to set the fence so the blade doesn’t grab the board and chew up the rail….
7. Hand planning with the small block plane was going great until I dropped it and broke the blade. My neighbor had an old Stanley so I sharpened her up and that saved the day. Sure made the final planning go smoothly, no pun intended.
8. Final shape in the photos show a covex nose, then flat and then concave through the last 2/3, plus tapered rails top& bottom.
Next step is to finish the fleet. Navy grey has been ruled out. Also my research is steering me away from the various combos of linseed oil, turpentine, pig snot, seal blood, etc and towards epoxy, especially for the 7 and 5 footers. Q1: I have RR epoxy – will that work? If not what is recommended. Q2: I saw on another thread (http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1029005) about unwaxed shellac fallowed by three coats of epoxy and four or so coats of marine varnish – what does the shellac under the epoxy do? What does the marine varnish over the epoxy do? Q3: Would a single coat of RR epoxy seal the wood?
Thanks,
JW