Another Way to Get Out Parts

There are two watertight bulkheads in the Fiddlehead. The plans want them laminated from thin cedar boards. Why laminated? Laminating cedar with the grain of each lamination running in different directions keeps the incredible light weight while adding strength. Yes, they could be made from half inch plywood, but would be much heavier.

Building a model exposed the details that were very helpful when buying wood. William, the very helpful guy at M.L. Condon Lumber, was a bit surprised when I said “OK” to a board that had some very obvious cracks, and really nasty edge damage, in the middle of its length. He knew I was building boat and probably assumed I wanted only good long boards. I knew that board would be just fine for getting out the bulkhead parts. William saw it as damaged goods and discounted its footage appropriately. He got rid of a “reject” board and I got bulkhead parts at a bargain price.

Getting them out of the wood requires thickness reduction, like the frame parts described earlier, but done differently this time. Instead of planing off excess wood as waste, I resawed these parts. Resawing is cutting the wood into thin layers. I don’t have a nifty frame saw for resawing like the one used by one of Dan’s friends, (need to make one of those) so I used my bandsaw.

My bandsaw can be opened up to handle 6 inch material, plenty wide enough for the bulkhead parts. Rough cut some slabs out of that cedar board. There was enought wood beyond the damaged area to get the four slabs I wanted.  Joint an edge on each so they will run though the saw. Slice them in half.

I’ve used the band saw a couple of years with the original blade. A trial at resawing with that blade produced some very rough results, completely unsatisfactory. The answer was a Wood Slicer resaw blade, available from Highland Woodworking. Wow, what a differnce! The effort to push the wood through the saw is only about 1/3 of the original blade. The noise level dropped by more than half; no more squealing. The resulting cut leaves two very smooth surfaces. These need very little smoothing. They are now cut to half the original lumber thickness, a good bit thickner than needed. I’ll deal with that after laminating.