Well, I’ve been thinking about doing this for quite a while and after finally comitting to a small band saw, it’s begun. The idea is to build something somewhere between a hollow wooden and a chambered board. It will be getting three stringers,the centre one being 2 1/2" thick and chambered out with some decorative patterning. the other two will be 6" out from the edges of the centre one, these will be 3/4" thick and chambered. Between the stringers will be planks laid on top of ribs like a Jensen type hollow. I’m trying to upload a shot or two of the progress so far.
This is the centre stringer all glued and clamped up.
This is the stringer partly chambered and with half the ribs inserted (these will almost certainly be replaced with thicker ones before the planks go on
The lack of timber available around Christmas time has put a stop to the work until next week when the timber yards re-open. So, I’ll get to some more stuff next week.
i especially like your collection of used beer bottles in the background… i presume you have many of these filled with sand ready to weight your skins down! roll on the new clamping method… dont reckon id get away with that at work though!
with the roll of your deck from side to side are you going to need to cut the strips for top and bottom at different widths in order to get your other stringers in parallel to the centre one? if you draw out the centre cross section on a bit of paper at full size and mark where your stringers go i think the distance along the deck between stringers might be different to the distance between stringers on the bottom.
i think we still have some walnut at work if you fancy some for nose/tail blocks??
also are you reinforcing/adding inserts where your leash and finboxes are going?
cheers buddy, the plan is just trim the last plank to fit. Thats the plan, but I dare say it might change yet, it may be easier to route a rebate (rabbet) into the outer stringers to accept a final plank on he bottom. Who knows eh! Think I might need something a bit heavier for the gravity clamping than stubby stella bottles.
Dude, if you do still have any walnut I will gladly give it a home, I’m stuggling to find decent timber for nose/tail blocks, I have some really nice stripey birch left over from my dining room floor but other than that its oak and pine round here. This board’s going to require a substantial nose and tail block aswell.
Did some more chambering earlier trying to get the weight down, its about half what it was now. Cutting some more ribs later, then tomorrow offto the timber yard for some western red cedar (with a bit of luck).
The amount I’ve drunk recently I might have enough as long as I get to it before they collect the recycling. I’ll be clamping with a mix of cord, bolted timber and all the other clamps I have in the garage. As you can see in the pics there’s a lot of crown in that deck so it’ll take some holding I reckon.
I’m not sure what size pieces I’ll need for the nose/tail blocks yet as they’ll be going in diagonally between the centre stringer and outer stringers an inch and a half or so in from the ends, I’m sure if I could do maths I could figure out some formula to work it out but I find a steel rule so much easier so I’ll measure it later.
Really appreciate the timber offer mate, let me know what the postage is going to be.
finally got around to doing the rest of the ribs last night, and managed to score some really nice oak and sapele (my favourite wood combination) for nose and tail blocks from the timber yard. Getting some WR cedar sorted for next week so getting there slowly.
Mate if you have got any walnut floating about doing nothing, the thing is the tail block in particulr is needing to be quite a whopper. The dimensions I’ve measured at are 50 x 320mm x whatever thickness it comes in (if its a bit too thick I’ll stick it through the jointer, if it’s a lot too thick I’ll resaw it and joint it). If you don’t have any in that range that won’t be missed, don’t stress it. I have seen a piece of lovely curly maple that would look good so as soon as my son puts his guitar down its going on the band saw. Like I say mate let me know what the postage is.
Hey Rik, that’s odd, I was just saying to someone this morning about never having surfed around Pembrokeshire, but hopefully I’ll get around to it soon. When I do I’ll deffinately get in touch.
On a side note, I need to get round to making that plane fairly soon as it will be really usefull for this project. I adapted one of those small cheap rosewood and brass mini block planes for thinner stringers (works OK but needs re-sharpening all the time) but this requires something with a blade wider than the 12mm.
Any more Stella and the whole plan would fall apart, in the next shots you’ll seethat I’ve taken the sensible precaution of swapping to bain food (Guinness), ahhh much better.
I haven’t done much this week, been too busy trying not to freeze my nuts off.
John, the white wood, was confusingly described in the yard as “redwood”. It just looks like pine to me, but I spotted that lump which I thought looked nice and stripey so ran it through the table saw a few times then the jointer.
A bit more weight gone from the stringer
Some extra ribs cut and balanced in place
The first couple of strips forming the bottom, the ribs are still not stuck as I want to be able to remove them later for fine tuning and to allow easier fitting of the outer stringers
I’m still waiting to get some western red cedar, hopefully be sorted this week. Jeeeesis this country is crap for timber supply.
ive been off for the past week surfing and celebrating my 30th!
im back in work tomorow so ill see what i can come up with. im down your way probably on friday as my girlfriend lives in shrewsbury so postage should be in my t4!
Latest installment, got me some western red cedar today, finished work half an hour early to cut it up and joint it. My garage smells gorgeous (for now). Anyhow the plan was to just get the stuff cut up but I got a little carried away.
Some “redwood” planking
And some lovely smelling wrcglued and clamped.
Had a bit of a mishap with the first couple of strips of wood breaking free, but hopefully the glue will hold this time. Man, I just can’t spend enough time in the garage at the moment.
Right, well here’s where I’m up to… Tryingg to figure posting pics in the new forum.
nose block
Tail block
Some bits of deck and outer stringers balance/clamped in place
I’ll load the rest of my progress fotos if these work.
There’ve been a few deviastions from the original plan alomg the way so far, nowt disasterous yet though, I’ll probably wait til the glassing to really F it up.
