Stripping side two of the SlumberMAX SO - Could get long

[Juneaudave]

I had some interest in seeing how I did side the first side of the SlumberMAX...so you can follow along with this post to see how I did it. Certainly there are better ways...

As a reminder, the SlumberMAX uses a variety of woods, and for the design...I used steam bent ash, and filled in with individual strips that were scribed to fit...



For side two, I've already applied the border, and rounded off the bottom pieces. To construct the border, I simply cut and glued the 1/4 inch ash boards, routed off the outside and then routed the interior using a router guide.



The first steam bent piece of ash is started by transferring measurements from the first side and setting up a smooth curve. I'll be using 4 - 1/4 inch strips for the upper ash piece. Notice that except for the lowest holder, all of the brackets are on the inside of the final curve.



You just can't bend wood without a fancy steamer consisting of a piece of discarded downspout, a Coleman stove and a teapot. Our "Red Green" guy would be proud to own this setup!!! I ususally steam the strips for about 15 minutes per 1/4 inch of width. If you can find wood that isn't kiln dried...it will bend better.



Here are the first steam bent strips in place. Once you take your hot strips from the steamer, you only have minutes to get them in place before they cool. So work quickly and have your clamps set up. The little brackets are pieces of one inch dowel with a hole in the middle and one side knocked flat with a chisel. The flat side gives me something to clamp to if I need to draw the strips tight. The screw drilled into the 1/4 inch ply side holes the dowel in place. I'll let this dry overnight, glue it up, and bend the lower half in the morning.

[apratt]

I am gonna watch this thread. It is going to be very interesting. Dave you have a lot of patience.

[Classic Finn]

I am gonna watch this thread. It is going to be very interesting. Dave you have a lot of patience.

Amen to that... a lot of patience and a lot of know how ...what a combination.. Just Fantastic Work...

Classic Finn

[CASHCOW]

I just love the look of your td... wow....the wood is awesome. I dont think I have the patience for Mike or myself to even attempt something like that..... I am ready for ours to be finished so we can hit the road. Yours is beautiful though and I wish you luck with it

[Micro469]

So.. your strips are 1/4x?. And your bending with the grain, right?

And your glueing that to 3/4 ply, right? x2 sides, plus roof, +++=one really heavy tear, right?

[Juneaudave]

So.. your strips are 1/4x?. And your bending with the grain, right?

And your glueing that to 3/4 ply, right? x2 sides, plus roof, +++=one really heavy tear, right?

Well sorta...the walls are framed with 1 inch pine and insulated, and the outside skin is 1/4 ACX (inside skin 1/4 inch birch). The framing is pretty minimal, but pretty solid...



I do steam bend with the grain, but on a 1/4 inch square strip of ash...it's hard to tell just how the grain is running...to tell you the truth, I didn't even check on the small strips...

Iffn I were to guess, I think the walls aren't going to weigh much more than solid 3/4 inch ply...but if if I were to do it again, I would maybe go with 1/8 inch inner skins...thing is that the 1/4 inch ply I found here in Juneau is soooo much flatter and better finished. Sometimes you just go with what you can find!!!

[jeepr]

Nice work! Your fancy steamer gives me some good ideas, thanks!

It doesn't sound extra heavy to me. My walls are 3/8" exterior, 1x2 pine framing, 5.2mm luan inside. Mine feel lighter than the sheets of 3/4" panel I was moving around the garage.

[Juneaudave]

About strips and stripping....

Wood selection: Most any wood can be cut into strips and used. But some are much harder and heavier and are significantly more difficult to work. A popular choice among the canoe and kayak builders is Western Red Ceder, but depending on where you live and what's available locally, Eastern White Ceder, basswood, cypress, spruces of various sorts may be readily available.

Most of the wood on the SlumberMAX is Western Red Ceder. It's plentiful up here. The 1/4 inch strips are ripped from 2x stock. Given two boards, one flat sawn and one quartersawn, I will always pick the flatsawn board to rip my strips from. That's because I like to end up with quartersawn strips. Quartersawn strips will sand and plane much more evenly once you get to that point.




On side one, I used a set of bead and cove canoe bits on most of the wood. When you are applying strips around the curvature of a canoe, bead and cove gives you a snugger fit....but on the flat side of a Tear...I really can't see going through the extra milling effort.



On a final note about strips...you can cut and plane enough strips for a teardrop trailer in a mornings work...but it can be a dusty, messy job. Try to time it for a nice day where you can work outside. I envy those with shops set up to deal with the mess!!!

[Juneaudave]

The first set of strips have dried overnight. I'll go ahead and glue them now using Elmers carpenter glue. I'm not too worried about using a non-waterproof glue as the whole thing will be epoxyed.



Be sure and use plenty of clamps, wedges, or whatever it takes to make the strips lie flat and snug together.

[Steve Frederick]

This is going to be a great asset! Thanks for posting the info!! (The T/D's nice too!)

[peggyearlchris]

This is very interesting to see how it is done.cool! Peg

[Miriam C.]

Wow Dave, what a great teaching tool. Thank you!

[Micro469]

1/4" strips x what? 5'?=240 strips give or take a hundred.......

[Juneaudave]

1/4" strips x what? 5'?=240 strips give or take a hundred.......

The ceder strips are cut from clear 16 ft' long 2 x 6's S4S, the purple heart is cut from 10' ft long 2 x 10 nominal. The ash is 10 ft 5/4 x 6 S2S. If you can find those long lengths, it saves a bunch of time and makes matching strips a cinch!!!

That size of wood is not something you are likely to find at HomeDepot. Fortunately, many "real" lumberyards carrry that kind of stock, and you might just have a local sawmill in you neighborhood that cuts similar stuff!!!

A really good resource for finding wood for strips, as well as information on various ways to cut the strips, route the strips with the bead and cove canoe bits, and construction techniques are the canoe and kayak builder sites. My favorite resource is the BearMountain Boat builders forum that is very similar to this one. Like here...you ask a question and ten people will jump in with answers!!! Here's a link BearMountain Builders Forum

[Juneaudave]

Well the first set of stem bent strips have dried...let's mess with them some!!!!

I've gone ahead and taken the dried strip off the profile. Now I want to clean it up some. When I glued the strips up, I took some time to wipe the excess glue off. I can simply feed it through the planer a couple passes to clean them up.



The dried strip look pretty good, but it is pretty easy to get some gaps if it isn't clamped well. If we had gaps, we could fix that with color matched epoxy...instructions to follow when we get to filling (and there will be some of that!!!).



The inside edge of the top ash strip has a little strip of purple heart for accents. That purple heart strip is so thin, I don't need to steam bend it. While the strip is off the profile, I'll go ahead and glue that accent strip on now and clamp it up. Be sure to wipe off all the excess glue. It will save you time later on!!!!



I'll steam bend the lower strip, glue it up and apply its accents over the next two evenings.