Amount of strips in a day?

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KnottyWoodwork
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:33 pm

Amount of strips in a day?

Post by KnottyWoodwork »

Hello all!
I'm an experienced professional woodworker, and have decided that building a strip canoe would be a nice project for me. Plus it's nicer than my old aluminum 10foot boat. One of my many questions is how many strips can I put on in a day?
I plan on using staples, and it will be built in my shop. Can I only put down a certain amount, and have to wait for glue, etc..? Or can I keep adding strips until the fiance turns off the power?
AlanWS
Posts: 209
Joined: Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:30 pm
Location: Shorewood, WI

Post by AlanWS »

If you are using staples, you don't need to wait for the glue. You can just keep going, and get all the strips on rather quickly. It's hard for me to estimate how long it takes though, since I never have more than a couple of hours in a row to work. It might take two days to put the strips on, but there is plenty more work after that.

You can add strips even after the fiance turns off the power, but I can confirm that this is inadvisable.
Alan
firefightered
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:39 am
Location: NW Alabama

Post by firefightered »

I built mine stapless but you may have the same problem with the strips not wanting to go together tight between forms. They somtimes like to separate between forms. If you keep a good eye on this problem area you should be alright. Just make sure you r strips stay as tight as possible, it will save you lots of headaches later.( filling gaps) Just my 2 cents.
charltons
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2009 7:41 am

Post by charltons »

I used staples in my redbird, and the strips pulled apart despite my best efforts. I suspect the particle board forms I used didn't hold the staples well enough. If you go with staples, I would still devise some clamping system. My next one will be stapleless, but I found the lines from the staples were useful in marking positions on the canoe.
Tom in MN
Posts: 162
Joined: Tue Feb 22, 2005 11:42 am
Location: Eagan, MN

Post by Tom in MN »

It will take you about 10 hours to strip a 16' canoe using staples. I never use clamps other than staples and do not have much trouble with getting strips tight. My last canoe, 15' 3" square stern version of the 20' White Guide, I started setting up the strongback and forms on a Saturday morning, and working off and on throughout the weekend and the Monday holiday stripped the entire boat by Monday evening. If you have all your strips laid out, square cut on ends and use butt joints on the forms, you can roll pretty quickly one after the other.

I will warn you though, the Ms's will think you like the canoe more than her. Here is a tip, name the canoe after her and that will smooth things over. How can she complain when you are working on a canoe in her name! Paint the name under the epoxy/fiberglass and hope she doesn't leave you some time later on.
charltons
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2009 7:41 am

Post by charltons »

I've recently refitted mine, and my wife has taken to calling it my mistress. Well, at least it doesn't talk back to me :wink
KnottyWoodwork
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:33 pm

Post by KnottyWoodwork »

Thanks for the advice everyone!
No worries on the misses, she's all for the building. And as lead shop assistant, plans on helping me the whole way! With 2 of us working on it, we're hoping it'll go fairly fast. Hopefully it'll help having full 20' strips, and 2 of everything :-)
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