Ok, I noticed the frequency of postings on this forum has dropped recently. So I decided to start posting my progress.

Here is the plan:
6'4" Striper from Rich's plans
1/4" Exterior grade plywood
Cedar top, bottom and rails
Mahogany accent strip as stringer
Strip and Feather building method with cedar
Bead and cove for rails
Bead and cove for tail
Probably just twin fins and I am not sure of the find design yet. I would like to do something like a sun burst.
I plan on setting the fins in the board
Titebond III for planks and framework
Gorilla Glue for rails
3.7oz glass with Research Resin epoxy
Epifanes Marine Varnish

Here is my voyage so far:
A few weeks ago, I went to a guy's house in a nearby town and stripped the cedar planks off of his deck that was getting torn down. I found the listing on Craigslist. Ended paying $150 for ~250sq ft of 5/4 stock cedar planks. I took me 3 hours to remove. But I have enough to make 10 boards.

Here is what the boards looked like before I planed them down.
top:


bottom:


Here is what they looked like after a pass through:


I have already built the framework and I plan on gluing up the top and bottom panels tonight. To make the panel pieces, I first planed all the boards down on both sides. Then I ripped off 1/4" wide sections on my table saw that are ready for glue up. So I am left with 1/4" x 7/8" strips.

Please check out the thread about my pressure release valve:
http://www.grainsurf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=701

And stay tuned for more...

-Mark
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sounds like a cool project! I'm looking around my neck of the woods for some old Redwood that I can reclaim to start something similar. Good luck and keep us posted!

mcruickshank - nice work on the reclaimed wood. Wood is such a great media to work with, and when it has a history for all to see, its even more interesting!. I scored several surfboards worth of 1x6 cedar siding that came off a 50 year old house. Sorry, mine was free though! Much of it is clear and is now my new 8-4 mini mal. I bookmatched the planks when I resawed them and kept all the nail holes as just 'cause I think they are very cool. Keep posting pics. Looking forward to seeing the skins!

Mike

Update on my progress.

I have both panels glued up. I did the bottom one first and then took a belt sander to it on both sides to get a nice and smooth surface without any glue showing. I am waiting on my bead and cove bits to arrive in the mail. So I will probably start building my fins soon. I have settled one twin fins and a much simpler design since the panels are so busy looking with all the grain and knots showing. The bead and cove bit I ordered is 5/16 not 1/4. I was reading this thread on a wooden kayaker's forum and took their advice.
http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi/read/128434

Dry fit the framework on the bottom panel:


A little crack on the framework since I wasn't paying attention and started to force more than just the bottom panel into shape with shims.


The shims in place on the tail of the board. Making sure I get the double channels done right.


The top panel before I hit it with the belt sander.


Sorry for the quick post, but I am going surfing,

-Mark

Mark,
How did your planer respond to all that paint on the cedar boards? I've severely dulled my jointer's blades by using them to remove paint on salvaged wood before. I suspect lots of lead-based paint.

I like the look of all those narrow planks for the decking. Did that make it easier to glue up the concaves?

T

The skinny planks had benefits and negatives. They were pain to glue up. Luckily my brother was over (he does a fair amount of woodworking). He showed me a pretty cool technique. We layed out the planks on the bottom clamps. Drew a continuous line in pencil across the width of all the planks, so we knew which side was up. Then we stood them up, half against one edge of the clamps and the other half on the other edge. As my brother held the planks up (I used clamps later to accomplish this), I squirted on the glue and spread it with a 2" paint brush. Then I just laid them all down, and applied pressure with the clamps. It went great, except that the skinny boards wanted to bow up when too much pressure was applied. I am guessing a wider plank would not have jumped around as much.

But the positive is that is was easy to make the concaves. I just shoved shims under there and the plank moved into the concaves very easily. I would guess easier than wider planks would have.

I am guessing it will bend easier too when I apply the top deck.

I think the planer responded fairly well. But it was my brother's planer, so I didn't mind using it for paint removal. Also, the paint didn't have any lead, since the deck was 10 years old.

I spent last night learning how to do the rails. It was harder than I thought it would be. I figured out a few things I didn't notice when looking at other people builds before. The problem I was having was getting the rails to follow the contour of the ribs. I found that when I used some clamps to apply pressure across them, they would behave better and wouldn't move away from the ribs when I applied down pressure from the pvc clamps. I will post pictures of what I mean once I do the other side. Also I started by alternating sides and found it was easier to just build up one side first.

Back at those rails tonight. I will take some pictures and post my progress.

-Mark

Progress is moving along. I have finished installing the rails.
Here are some photos of the build.

These next two photos show some of techniques I had to figure out on the fly. I didn't realize I would need clamps to hold the rail strips in line with each other while I was clamping them down. I hadn't picked up this concept even though I am pretty sure I have read every build thread on this forum. After having gone through this now, I noticed in the pictures that everyone else has done something similar.



Picture of the rail glue up.


Top deck before sanding.


Top deck after sanding.


After a rough cut out of the mahogany fins. Notice the tab on the bottom for setting them in the board.


Board in its current state. Rails are glued up.


Anyone need any Western Red Cedar bead and cove strips? I didn't want to run out so I made a few (like 30-40) too many. Plus since the cedar boards had so many knots and nail holes, a lot of them are not usable. It was easy to just run a few more through the shaper and not have to worry.


Thanks for paying attention.

-Mark

I could totally use some rail strips! I'm trying to make my next board out of waste/recycled wood and this fits the category!

You don't happen to be anywhere near Ventura California??

Not even close to Cali. I live near Boston, Mass. But anyone locally is interested in them, they are welcome to them. There are probably enough good ones to make another striper or a minnow. But I doubt anything bigger than that.

So I made some progress this week. I have even removed the board from the operating table (aka rocker table). It was a great feeling to actually pick up the board.

Anyways, here are some photos of how I did the tail. It worked out better than I had hoped. The only negative that I can see is that I only left 1/4" to glue the top down and shape with. I think next time I will make some wider strips for this. My bead and cove bit is actually 5/16" not 1/4" as I mentioned earlier in this thread. I think I will go with 5/16" strips for the tail.

I first put in the chine strip. I just allowed it to follow a natural curve. There was no coaxing with clamps. I wedged it the corner of the last rib and spine. Then after some steaming I bent it to meet up nicely with the rail strips that I had trimmed at and angle. I actually tucked it under the rails and it joined with the chine strip from the rails. I did some pre-bending and then cut the piece to length. The length of the strip defined the curve. It was easy to get the two curves to match since I cut the strips to the same length. After I installed the chine strips, I was able to install the first bead and cove strip up next the chine strip, just like doing the rails. I just made sure the bead and cove strips fit nicely against the end of the spine by adding a 30 degree angle to it. It all went pretty smoothly after that. Check out the photos below.

-Mark