Ok, my shaping bay is coming together, I have foam lined up and glass and epoxy on order.
I’ve watched all the videos I could get my hands on and figured out what I was doing wrong, lo those many moons ago when I last shaped a few boards.
I will have to glue up my own blanks after hot wire cutting the rocker… Which leads to the question - what stringer material to use?
Looks like GL uses PVC sheets and cuts out the rocker template for his glue-ups, then uses white glue to bond everything under clamps (is this correct?).
Where can I get PVC to use for strings?
I also assume that I could use 1/8" - 1/4" plywood for a stringer, or am I wrong?
SInce I don’t have the tools to resaw stock wood, where can I get the thin cedar, basswood, etc that I see all the time in commercial blanks.
home depot or hobby shops...some of the better hobby shops stock balsa sheets for radio controlled airplanes and gliders...if youre making a longer board though they may not have the length
The PVC sheets you can source from a mfr in your area, or go to a sign company as they are users of the product. I think GL was using white glue for wood stringers and PU glue (gorilla or like) for PVC. White glue is for porous materials, I don't think it would bond well on PVC.
You can use doorskin or thin ply, but it doesn't plane worth a shit.
A wood mill can cut anything you want but it's pricey for small batches.
the other day i was quoted £35 for 1 x 10'0 tulipwood stringer from a company.
so today i went to a wood importers and bought a block of tulipwood 10'0 - 4" - 7" for £50 and will get it cut at a local wood yard and should get a good few stringers from it with the excess being used for nose and tail blocks.
Do a web search for Komitex. Like Mike D says...sign companies use it. I'm near San Diego ,I have some 3/16 black that I got in a trade... aprox 8 feet long.... Willing to trade or deal in the SD area........
I don't really like the way Gorilla glue expands and seeps into EPS but it works really really good for PVC stringers....I tried white glue and 5 min epoxy and normal epoxy...White glue did not cure...Both the epoxies were cool on the glue up but sucked for shaping.Too brittle....Gorilla glue wins until someone shows me something better.........
Get the clear GG, it costs a bit more, but it dries white so it’s not very visible.
As for stringer material, try and find some bender ply either in 1/4 or 1/8" thickness. You want it to bend crossways so that the majority of the grain is running the length of the sheet. Works great, and planes nicely by both machine and block.
Make freinds with a highschooler that has access to ''woodshop'' class. Have him resaw, and thickness plane your RW, Cedar, or whatever wood you select. Highschool woodshops have every power tool you would ever need to process wood material.
I've been thinking along similar lines, except to re-rocker a tank blank I got for cheap.
Bill T nailed it, as usual, but if competent high school shops are lacking in your area or sphere of influence, talk it up with cabinet or millwork shops nearby. Let your fingers do the walking, and your smile do the talking.
I'm thinking clear redwood 1x6 or 1x8 could be resawn into maybe three useable 1/8" thick sections that I'd have to glue up to make the correct rocker.
Plywood has half the grain going the absolute wrong direction, and those plies will be a real bitch to cut, particuarly where/if they cross the rail. I'd avoid it.
Myself, I don't think stringers contribute that much to strength, but they are real handy as a reference line or a stiffener when you're shaping, especially if shaping something thin. And flexy, like EPS. Otherwise, a colored glue-up can provide adequate reference.
Most likely the "white" glue Greg used in the video was Roo Glue. It was made to glue materials like the pvc used for stringers. It is not particularly fast but easy to work with. With the pvc you can paint the stringer before glue up and get the colored glue line effect. Cheap rattle can paint works fine. I use epoxy slurry to glue my blanks and have not had any problems. You have to put it on thin enough that you don't end up with excess resin squeezing out. You have to remember that you are only bonding to foam which only has so much strength.
I get stringer wood from certainlywood.com. Poplar is nice and they have it in 1/16th. More plys for thicker stringers. PVC comes from a sign supply place. There are plenty of those all, over. Phone book or web browse should find you one in your area. I use 2 mil for shorties and 3 mill for longboards. The 3 mil comes in 10 foot sheets which is very cool. I use Roo Glue to glue PVC. Google it and you'll find it. It's water based and really sticky stuff. For wood white glue is fine.
Greg forgive me for cutting in not intending to hijack here.
This is what I found:
ROO Glue is fine for handshaping however if you mill your blank on cnc the ROO Glue will gum up the cutter head. So you want to glue your stringer clean without a bunch of ooze. You can tape both sides of the blank before glue up to keep the glue line clean. For CNC milling RR Epoxy with Cabasil does the trick.
The white glue is cheap and never tried it. Maybe I could have save some money? I probably use too much RR?
I’m a San Diego transplant current in the Sierra’s near Tahoe, so there is plenty of wood around. I actually have a 120 foot sugar pine laying on the ground right now. A buddy has a mill and is going to mill it up for lumber. I saw him over the weekend and he’s going to check on his cured stock to see if he can resaw a 1x or 2x 12 into 1/4 planks for me. I am also going to start calling the local specialty woods supplies to see if they carry anything stock.
BTW, Sugar pine is beautiful white straight grain pine used for moulding and trim, should make a nice stringer.
On the way back from getting a block of EPS foam yesterday, it occurred to me that I needed to get RooGlue. So I stopped at the local hardwood supplier that carries it and asked them what they had in the way of “thin” material. At first they suggested plywood, then I asked them about veneers. Turns out they had a damaged 4x8 piece of cherry veneer they could not sell. That and 2qts of RooGlue came to $35.
The veneer is only a 16th but it should work for me… case closed.
I am still going to try to get some sugar pine milled into stringer material, but my buddy gets slow sometimes and I want to get to shaping…
Most lumber yards have clear oven dried heart redwood, Its light weight with no knots, It can be planed down and is soft, It comes in red and white/yellow, Mahalo, Brad from HSI
Do you just glue and clamp the 1/16th material when you want to make a thicker stringer? Is there a brand name for white glue, not sure what to look for on that front?