Charles Treichel

I have a hard time using all those accumulated shorts of various hardwoods for kindling.  But they were taking up too much space so I bit the bullet and here are the results.  BlockTable1.jpg   59.94K   7 downloads  Blocktable2.jpg   11.04K   8 downloads  IsTable2.jpg   136.43K   8 downloads  MagRack.jpg   98.7K   7 downloads

It seems that about half the shops I have visited have at times removed the blade guard from their table saw.   I sympathize with them because the guard is often a clumbsy thing to deal with and frequently gets in the way.  I am guilty of this myself so I thought I would toy around with devising a more "user friendly" guard that could stay in place.  The guard is made from a piece of 1/4 plexy and mounted from the ceiling of my shop on an adjustable mechanism to keep it in close proximity to the top of the blade.   The back flap is made from a piece of converor belt and is mounted to the fence.  For a cross cut the flap can be lifted when inserting the stock, if necessary.  For ripping it can be removed and the saw positioned so that a pushing aid can move the stock through the blade with the plexy offering some protection from the blade.  I am not making any blanket recommendations  on duplicating this until I gain some experience testing it under different conditions.

I've been toying around with various means of cutting scarfs on stringers for my kayak project and here is what I came up with.   I realize that space constraints may render this impossible for some workshops.   I have cut several now and find that this seems a relatively easy and safe way to get good cuts.   When using a radial saw the most important safety aspect is to keep hands out of harms way and to have your stock backed up against the fence.  Therefore the tip of the stringer must be brought into contact with fence before initiating a cut.  The clamps hold the stock firmly and the cuts are consistant.  A further improvement would be to redesign the jig to allow for different angles.  Hope I am not treading on someone elses idea as I imagine this has been done before.

My Christmas present was the book by Jeff on Fuseloge Frame Boats.   Having built 4 other small craft all with different techniques, I thought it might be an enjoyable project to try a skin-on boat.   My last project was from Harry Bryan's plans for "Fiddlehead", a 12' decked kayak, ostensably for my wife Dianne.  Unfortunately I went a little overboard on materials and it came out too heavy, about 60#.

I will be doing the lofting and the frames from my home in Madison, WI but plan on finishishing up during the summer at our place on Fidalgo Island, Anacortes, WA.  I am going to try to post something every week, but its going to bog down from time to time as I have a trip plannned mid March, and then some time driving to WA by who knows what route.

I do not plan on following the plans religiously, just the basic offsets.   No offense; I just have some ideas I would like to try out.  One of my objectives is to try to utilize alternate good materials that will reduce the cost and hopefully make amatuer boatbuilding more palatable to those who are turned off by some of todays prices.   In the old days taking on a boat project often was ofter for reasons of economic necessity; today, if all you want is a boat, there are plenty of perfectly functional plastic ones on the market for as little as $300 or so. But with marine plywood at over $150/sheet, tiny copper brads at .10 each, paint and varnish at over $50/qt, to say nothing at the cost of bronze fittings, etc., it is easy to understand why one could be discouraged on the idea before even getting out of the blocks.  Of course, no matter how you build this kayak, it shouldn't be all that costly anyway, as it doesn't consume that much wood skin and fabrics in the first place. 

 Events - 1002.jpg   86.68K   26 downloads

Just finished lofting and believe I have found an error.  (Checked the first 8 pages and didn't find it)  Pg 61, new edition, Bow offsets, second line down shows x=4, z=2- 3/16.  Hope I am not missing something, but I think it should be 1-15/16.

Pg 33 shows the frames with stringers more or less flush.  Pg 34 and 35 show the stringers somewhat outside the frames, which is where I believe they were intended to be.  In any case there is no discussion of what the outside radius of the stringers should be, but I think I will be rounding them off to 1/4 or so radius.

I've been toying with the idea of making the stringers out of 1/2 x 1" white oak (partially because I have lots of it)  Weight would be about the same.  The oak is incredibly strong and bends nicely. Also wondering about the properties of luann (meranti???) molding which is sold in strips 1/4 x 1-1/2.  (I would laminate two of these to make 1/2".  Varying data and opinions on its resistance to decay.  Any comments on this would be appreciated.