If you peruse the photos in earlier posts you will see that I don't have a lot of room in my shed. It's basically a tandem two-car garage. It's definitely cramped, but the commute is good, I walk out the back door and down six steps and I'm at work. But this means that I don't have any room to machine long timber. I have my old circular saw bench which I converted from 415 to 240 volts when I shut down my commercial shed 5 years ago, but even angling it and poking timber out the back door I can only machine up to about 10' (3m) in length. Plus there is simply no room to store the volume of timber I need to have on hand. Luckily a generous friend allows me to have a 20' container on their property an hour's drive out of town. The remainder of the Huon Pine planking timber and the Spotted Gum for the remaining stringers, beam shelf, mast step etc is also there plus a lot of miscellaneous timber I couldn't bear to part with when I shut up shop. Whenever I need more planking timber I work out the lengths I need for the next 2 or 3 rounds so as to stagger the scarf joints, and drive out to Smithy's Boatshed West. I have a deep-ripping Laguna bandsaw with a 1" blade and a DeWalt thickness planer in the container. The Huon Pine was originally bought for a different project, and sawn 1 1/2" thick (38mm) so I rip each board to about 1 1/8"(28mm) and thickness it down to 1" which leaves ample to hollow and round the planking to fit the curve of the ribs for a finished thickness of 7/8" (22mm). I'm left with lots of thin Huon for internal panelling and maybe even a dinghy or two. This video shows the setup and some machining shots of the nice Spotted Gum I need for the mid-bilge stringer as well as the next load of Huon Pine planking.
1 Comment
Peter Whyte
5/11/2019 04:04:19 am
Thanks Ian...keep the videos coming! I would love to talk to you directly if I may ( briefly, but importantly). Let me know by email. Cheers, Peter
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AuthorIan Smith, Boatbuilder (ret'd) Archives
January 2024
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