I’m experimenting with building the lightest serviceable board I can, and using thick bamboo veneer for perimeter stringers. I’ve built a bunch of fished shaped stingers and curved stinger boards, but I always have trouble with the cut for the stringers being a little wobbly on the deck. You know you can cut pretty darn accurately with either a hand saw or skil saw on the bottom outline, but when you turn the curves the saw blade can wobble a bit when the blade bends out or in making the deck look wobbly. Cutting this way is ok for regular outline cuts because you turn down the rails anyway. But for a perimeter stringer 3 inches inboard, it looks crappy.
I’m going to be building more of these, so I decided to build a small hot wire hand tool that I could guide either along a line on the foam, or along a template. I wanted the tool to remain vertical to the bottom and the deck as I cut. First here is the wobbly blank glued up. I do one half at a time to avoid the glue fire drill. This is the bottom, so it turned out nice. No pic of the top where the wobble shows (however minor it is)
Here is what I built:
The throat is about 8 inches for the thick SUP I have in mind. The wire is set just at the edge of the flat guide where my left hand is to follow the template. All just glued together with wood glue from scraps. I tried it out on a piece of junk foam and it works. I’m not cutting in this picture, just posing for the picture.
Nice paddle! What type of foam and wood are you using? Did you epoxy the foam pieces to the wood, polyurethane glue, or some other type of adhesive? The foam looks easier to work with than solid wood blades. I’m also assuming that you’ll be either covering the foam with fiberglass or carbon fiber and epoxy.
Well, I used 2 pound EPS and 3 layers of 6 oz. Glued the foam with 2 minute epoxy and then templated and shaped with a block and sand paper. The handle is cedar. 4 inches taller than me, per Blane. I split it down the middle on my table saw and glued it back with a layer of 4 oz for no reason I can come up with. Maybe stronger? Although I don’t know if it is needed. I used epoxy (RR) on the handle too, after Uncle D showed us how. And screwed the handle to the shaft per Uncle D’s method.
I’ll get a finished pic up tomorrow. And a weight. Seems light, though. And, it seems to be holding up well. No dings in the foam. The shaft is what takes the abuse.
