Plywood vs laminated strips for rudders or center boards?

[Apteryx]

Well, the last couple of weeks have not left much time for important stuff like boatbuilding dreams, however, like the money that won't buy happiness, I managed to pay the rent. 

I found a woodworking gizmo called a spoke shave that is apparently for making rounded surfaces.  Is there any point in getting one for shaping the leading edge of my centerboard?

Wait, it's a gizmo, of course there is a point in getting one...  ;D

Anyway, there is a Stanley spoke shave - http://www.stanleytools.com/default.asp?CATEGORY=PLANES&TYPE=PRODUCT&PARTNUMBER=12-951&SDesc=SpokeShave+%96+Flat+Base

I called a woodworking shop in that enlightened city by the bay, Waco, but their woodworking supplies are limited to things like crowbars and particle board.  They were nice enough, once I explained I was building a boat, to direct me to a local jetski shop where they were certain all my boating questions would find answers.  ???

Would a spoke shave make it easier to produce a nice symetrical leading edge?

[Greg Luckett]

I have a spoke shave, maybe two, but rarely use them.  I usually do shaping with a sureform rasp, a regular rasp, or the Jap. rasp (my favorite), a block plane, or one of the orbital sanders.  The spoke shave is handy for making spars or inside curves, but like I said, I rarely use one.  It would not be high on my list of tools to buy if I was just starting to build up a tool box.  A good low angle block plane is a better investment, IMHO.

[Apteryx]

Thanks, Greg, I appreciate your insight.

Regarding the use of dowels or biscuits, I decided to make the surfaces as precise as I could and just glue them.  I painted the surfaces with epoxy and then gobbed on mayo-thick epoxy thickened up with microfiber.  I can't remember which number West microfiber I used, but it's the one suggested for adhesive applications.

Work, my day job, has been heck lately, so I'm just now getting back to my centerboard.  I cut it to outside dimension last night and used some of the scraps for destructive testing.  I beat the living snot out the piece pictured below and it broke in the wood - the glue joints were stronger than the wood.  There is a filled-in place just to the left of the fracture, and that was plenty tough, too.  I whacked it with a 20 ounce carpenter's hammer four or five times, way harder than I would ever hit a nail.  The only visible change was a small crack in the epoxy where the epoxy extended past the wood.

I used a self-feeding planer to make the strips fit as closely as I could.  The pieces needed a little clamping to come together, but not much.  I believe the worst gap was less than 1/16th of an inch before gluing.

Where I cut the centerboard there were no gaps in the glue.  Where the trailing edge diagonal cut transited across from one plank to the next it's almost hard to see.  One board feathers out and the next one takes over as if it's one piece.

This is FUN.  I don't know what I'm doing, particularly, and that makes me feel quite the beginner, but, man, this is a nice way to spend an evening at home.

Wonderful, too, that there is a place like this to glean advice, and folks like the Byrnes' to drive this sort of thing.

Speaking of good advice and Graham, how cool is this for getting some engineering pointers?  This was on the shore at the Magnolia Beach Messabout at the end of the Texas 200.

[Greg Luckett]

I am SO ENVIOUS of you being at the mess about, and so irritated that I missed it and meeting all of the folks.

I did a test of the glued pieces too.  The white oak, sassafras, and walnut glued up just fine and it is the wood, not the joints, that broke during the test, just as yours did.  I took some pics too.