The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[Wolffarmer]

KC, I have used an RO in places similar to what you have. Now a good hand plane might be just the ticket. I been getting into hand tools more and more. Now have about 6 hand planes. One of which cost me $250. That was when I still had a decent job.



The others are from estate sales and cheaper new ones. And I have learned how to sharpen them. At least better than I was doing.

Randy

[KCStudly]

That's cool Randy. Planes are one of those old craftsman's things that some people turn into a hobby in itself. My chunkin buddy Dave is a bit of a tool collector and has a very nice selection of antique wooden block planes, including many different trim profiles. I figure that someday they will be a pretty big chunk of his retirement fund, since they must have high collector value, both as tools and as antiques.

I'm sure that I will work my way through a solution, but as always, there's no harm in asking. You never know, someone is bound to have a good/better solution.

[Wolffarmer]

The RO has worked good for me in the past. Specially where there is a meeting of wood like that. Hard to plane. Oh, and my fancy smanshy plane is made of mesquite and it is a real pleasure to push around, does my shoulder good. I think it did as much or more good as the physical terrorist after my shoulder surgery.

Randy

[KCStudly]

That's what I was thinking, Randy, about the plane catching. The amount of misalignment is so slight I think the RO sander is the way to go.

This evening I glued up the remaining two hatch ribs, same again same again. Karl was home from the galvanizer and lent a hand.

He had a bit of adventure losing a tire on his utility trailer somewhere in Jersey. He's been talking about an upgrade (he overloads severely at times) but really wants to stay with a single axle for the size and convenience. Plus he thinks they draw less attention. I don't know about that. Before the trip he was even looking up pricing on 6k# single axles (sticker shock ). Anyway, if you saw my post on Big Mike's Memorable Ride Home (or something like that) thread you know about the poorly maintained "tunnel" sections in the city funneling into the GW Bridge. Long story shorter, the way he had the heat exchanger blocked up on the ends, more or less bent the main frame rails enough to bow the inner fender skirt into the passenger side tire causing it to blowout. Believe it or not he took the spare from the truck, which was amazingly the same lug pattern, but the wrong offset, and bolted it on backward. What? Yes backward. Drove 50-75 miles to the next service area (exits are few and far between in the rural sections of the Jersey Turnpike). He was able to get a new tire mounted and they loaned him a cutoff wheel so that he could remove the offending skirt.

I hinted that he should reconsider a double axle set-up directing his attention to my unused flatbed car trailer just outside the door. I think we have worked out a deal where he will buy in at half my low ball minimum sell price, get it inspected and registered, and we will be partners in ownership. Works out well for both of us.

[KCStudly]

So when I placed my plywood order I was sure to mention the price of the item I was interested in, and I thought that the sales guy confirmed this, but I didn't ask for or get a total at the time. Gave him my e-mail addy and when the invoice came the price was higher, $52.02 after 10+sheet discount, compared to the website listed $44.65/sheet. When I called to ask about the difference I was told that the "Noah's Marine" website was 10 years old and the "Noah's Boat Building" site was current.

http://www.noahsboatbuilding.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=OKO10885%2E&eq=&Tp=

Funny how the Noah's Marine sites all come up higher on my search engine. I didn't really get the sense that it was a true bait and switch deal. He offered to knock the price back to $50/sheet. Not knowing the 'truth in advertising' laws in Canada, or over the internet for that matter, I was satisfied, and it was still the best price I had seen. So with shipping it ended up being $60 a sheet, not $54. Still, for 16 sheets and a cup of coffee that's another c-note. Build total is at $3400 so far.

I did go back to my earlier post to make an editorial note and deactivate the link to the 'old' Noah's site.

[Wolffarmer]

Still sounds a little squirrelly to me. But not a bad price at all

Randy

[GPW]

KC, for all the work you’ve put into it , no time to worry about the price now , for what you have invested , It’s not even half of what you’d have to pay for an “inferior” commercial unit .... Let’s face it , your Trailer is going to be a QUALITY unit ....an Example for us all !!! JMHO.. FWIW

[KCStudly]

Randy, agreed.

GP-Dub, Your high praise is always welcome. Thank you. We will see what it turns out to be in the end.

[DJT]

KC, sorry I must have missed the post about Noah's earlier, I could have made sure that you were looking at the right site... I've been burned the same... Anyways, keep up the great work! I'm excited to see this finished!

[KCStudly]

Thanks DJT. In the end I think it was a fair price. Not sure there was any malice intended, but they did end up with my business in the end, so who knows. They admitted that this has happened to other customers and made a lame comment about having trouble tracking down the original site (?...I don't know computers too well, but it seemed like a direct link to an active site to me...I mean, somebody must be paying to keep that online, right?), but I did not get the impression that I was being snowed, and attributed it all to a moderate sized company reaching to get bigger. You know how it is, everyone is so busy working away that some of the finer details get missed, or just plain do not rise to the level of importance that they get addressed.

Seems simple enough to us looking in from the outside, but I can see where they are probably just hard working people that don't have time, knowledge or authority to do something to correct the problem.

Okay, time to get out there and work on the build (mowing the lawn can wait a few more months ).

[KCStudly]

Lost a couple of days of posting progress to getting caught up in checking the forum and falling asleep before getting to post my stuff. Damn forum, can't live with it, can't live without it.

I'll try to catch up. Saturday morning I ran an errand and went by Ho-De-Po to get some pine to make a plywood scarfing jig. They called it "select". I think that means that you have to be very selective when you choose your boards. There's two 1x6's x 8 ft, one 1x4 x 6 ft (when did they start selling 6 footers?) and a 1x2 x 8 footer. Here they are after dragging them into the wood shop at work.


The jig I am making is inspired by the one linked in the construction techniques sticky for stretching plywood here http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/stitchglue/plyshophtm/scarfjig2.htm

I used drywall screws instead of hot and wood glue, used more of the gussets blocks, and used 8-1/4 deg instead of 7.12 deg just to hedge my bet on panel length (I had not allowed any extra overhang for trimming around the edges of the floor frame and walls, so by cheating the scarf angle I could get a little extra length by having a little less scarf overlap). Should give me about 1/8 inch to play with.

So I had brought my Skil-Saw along to check measurements for starting position run out, shoe to blade offset, and motor housing to shoe clearance.


Since the longest length I should need to scarf is my 64 inch width I went with 76 inches long, allowing for the start position of the saw and a little run out at the end of the cut. So first I cut the 1x2 and 1x6's to 76 inches. The 1x2 is the clamp block used to span the jig and clamp the plys to the jig. It has a bit of curve to it that will be placed crown down to help preload the center of the ply when clamping.

Then I set the miter saw to 8-1/4 deg and cut the gusset blocks from the 1x4's.



The heavy cast iron table on the table saw has a cast iron sector gear and pinion with hand wheel that tilts the table instead of the saw blade. I used the accuracy of the miter saw via the gusset block as a gauge to set the angle on the table saw.


Here's my feather board set up. Note the spacer block behind the vertical feather board to put the downward pressure closer to the center of the work board.


Same shot with the blade guard flipped down ready to cut.


Here's a better shot of the tilting table with one of the drop pieces being used to set the feather boards up.


Had a little trouble when I started the saw. After a few seconds it tripped out on high current overload. Seems that the filler board around the blade had not been clearanced for tilting the table. I had to right the table some, drop the blade down, reset the motor starter (after it had cooled down) and plunge the blade up through the cover plate a couple of times to establish clearance. Had to redo the whole feather board set-up, too, because it all had to come out to clear the blade board so I could clear out the built up saw dust under the edges.

Once that was sorted out I pushed the two 1x6's through the saw ripping the edges off at the prescribed (modified) angle. Then loaded up for Mecca.

Once at Mecca I stripped the clamps and tape off of the last two hatch rib blank glue ups and checked progress.


Here I have aligned all of the tail ends of the bottoms of the blanks.


And the first joint is pretty close.


And here you can see the run out at the top end. I was not familiar with the miter setting on Ben's saw. It would snap into place when you released the handle and, at first I assumed that it was locking in on my desired angle, when in fact it was locking in where ever it happened to be at the time (I told you...I have limited cabinetry skills).


It's OK tho, because there is plenty of meat for the hatch rib profiles to land on.

Here I have started to assemble the scarfing jig.


And here I have mocked up the jig and a couple of pieces of scrap 5 mm to demonstrate how the jig works for Karl. I still need to decide how thick the saw guide fence can be w/o interfering with the saw motor (i.e. the depth of cut on the Skil-Saw vs. how high the motor is above the shoe).


In order to keep my stuff out of Karl's way as much as possible, I keep it on the back of the bench, hopefully out of the way. Here's a shot of my glue up kit, including glue, painter's tape, staples and stapler, brad nailer and brads, clamps, etc.


Rubber gloves on top. In the foreground you can see the remaining slats for the other wall edge rail clamped up to try to stop any warping. To the left are sanders, biscuit cutter case, and pneumatic nailer case.


Here are some parts stored at the base of the shop stairs.


I finished up Saturday by setting the wall edge cap rail laminating jig up on the bench in prep for Sunday.


Busy day. Falling asleep now. Will have to update you about Sunday tomorrow, Monday.

[KCStudly]

Looking back at the pictures of the scarfing jig I see that I should have left the end gusset blocks recessed in from the end some so that I can get another set of clamps onto the ends for the clamp bar. Pretty happy that I didn't bother to glue the jig up. Won't take anything to move those outer blocks in a couple of inches.

Okay, where were we?

Yesterday (Sunday) I did the second lamination making the second wall edge cap rail thingy. Did I mention how light the first one came out?
Here's the forming jig lined with freezer paper plastic side up. All the clamps, mallet (for tamping the plys down even), dog down blocks, etc. at the ready. The slats are laid out on a long strip of waxed paper on the left.


At this point I have already selected, oriented and predrilled the end of the stack for the alignment bolt (the short length of threaded rod w/ nuts and washers seen just above the jig board.


After brushing a layer of glue onto all of the slat mating surfaces, and with Karl's help pushing it into the form while I set the clamps, hammering it down flush with the mallet, and screwing the dogs down.


This one seemed to come out more even with less variation between slats sticking up out of place; paid more attention to that this time before getting the clamps too tight to thump it down.



Karl went to the trouble of unloading the Zamboni heat exchanger from his trailer and loading up the big lawn mower again, so now was a good time to break away for a couple of hours and mow my lawn. Between the big mower and both of us on string trimmers, what usually takes me about 2-1/2 hrs. only took about 1, plus transit time. Lawn got mowed.


Saturday morning when I was in at work using the saw I also took the time to do a full sized layout of the hatch ribs (with wall edge superimposed) I had to sketch in a couple of reference axis and do three 'D' sized prints to piece the paper template together. Here it is pieced together on a 4x4 ft piece of cheap luan underlayment. Note how I cut out sections of the paper so that I could tape it down closer to the line.


Here I have cut out the paper template making sure to score down into the luan.


The score line was hard to read where it ran in the same direction as the grain, so I fogged on a guide coat of black spray paint. Fogged it on so as not to get bleeding under the paper. Here it is with the paper pulled off.


Then we cut that out rough using Karl's cordless Makita jig saw, just using the edge of the saw shoe as a rough guide. This way the template blank will fit thru the throat of my vertical band saw.

If you look closely you might be able to see the little tabs that I have drawn where I will screw the template to the rib blanks. I'll cut around those then just trim them off later, thus avoiding screw holes in the ribs.

Back home to my cluttered little garage shop.



I really like the Shop Smith band saw (inherited from my father in law). Haven't used it much, though. Shortly after starting to cut out the rib template the blade stopped running; thought maybe I had popped it off of the rollers. Nope. Both the drive and driven belt pulleys had decided to jump off of their shafts at the same time.


Look closely and you can also see the key laying there on the floor. Best I can figure the die cast aluminum pulleys had expanded with the warm weather (and even warmer inside uninsulated garage) allowing the set screws to loosen up. Quick reset after finding the key hiding in the sawdust, and I was back in business.

Here's the template all ready for the sander.


And that brings you up to date. Now I'm off to the garage to sand the template to my line and to use it to rough out the hatch ribs. May use the template as a router guide, or I may just stack all of the blanks and belt sand to the line.

[Wolffarmer]

Your progress is looking good. I like my Shopsmith band saw also. One of the best of the smaller ones. I have a 1955 Mark V to power it with. I like the Mark V but I no longer use the table saw set up now that I have a real cabinet saw. I finished up the cutting board I been working on. Should turn out a another one but will be smaller. The one I just did was 25x18 inches. Had to hand plane that one down to something that resembles flat. Gave my shoulder a good work out this past week end.

Randy

[KCStudly]

Randy, you know the drill. No pics, didn't happen. We want to see the cutting board!

Glad to hear that you are working out the kinks with your shoulder.

Stand by, I'm down loading today's pics and will be posting an update in a little while. Nothing earth shattering, just more curved parts work.

[KCStudly]

So out to the garage to start sanding the hatch rib template to the final shape. Using my little Craftsman bench top combo belt/disk sander I started in sanding the outside arc to the score line. Got about a foot done when the belt shredded and flew off of the rollers. Glad I listened to Norm, "There is no more important safety rule than to wear these — safety glasses."

The pic of the shredded belt didn't come out. Had to run out to get new belts. Ho-De-Po doesn't carry the 2x42 size, but I picked up a 60 tooth blade for the circular saw and some sand paper (nice 3M sticky back) while I was there. Had to go to Sears from there to get the belts, so a bit of running around. All stocked up now.


Clamped in soft jaws in the vise to sand the inside with the nose wheel of my old heavy Sears belt sander.




Had to be real careful not to get too carried away with the belt sander. Did the final detail work with a small piece of 150 grit wrapped around a little block of 1x2 oak.


Still hadn't switched to the good 3M paper at this point.

Once I thought I had the template in pretty good shape I screwed it to the rib blank using a few short drywall screws with a stack of small washers underneath to keep the screw tips from poking through (still hadn't decided if I was going to use the template as a visual guide in the band saw).


Decided that the coarse blade in the saw was a little too aggressive, gave me concern about wrecking the template (let alone the blank) so decided to just trace around the template and cut wide from the line. Once I pulled the template off I could see that my inside curve was not as fair as I want. I decided that I will tune the template up some more (later) and use it as a router guide to make the final trim cut on the ribs. For now I will just rough cut the ribs close to the line.

Started to cut the rib blank in the saw, nervously. It was difficult to hold the far end up at times and still be in a good position to see the blade and guide well. Had second thoughts about using my jig saw instead.

Got the jig saw out, pulled the old gummy tape off of the shoe, cleaned it up with a little brake cleaner, and put a fresh layer of protective tape on the shoe.


Fiddled around with trying to clamp the blank to my makeshift work table and couldn't get to where I was happy with that, but I did use the jig saw to help trim around the screw tabs, and such.

Ended up doing most of it on the band saw, just taking my time and being careful.



No sign of the biscuit joint poking through, so I guess I did a good job measuring. Still a little concerned about the glue joints breaking (shouldn't with the strength of four ribs plus the added strength of the biscuits). Suppose I could make some polished aluminum lap plates to scab on to the joints. Incorporate a towel hanger on the upper joint or something.

Off to Mecca to unmold the 2nd wall edge rail. I had used a little less glue (about 1-1/4 pint instead of 1-1/2 pint) but the weather was more humid. I'd say the clamp pressure was the same. Not sure about the length of the cure time, but this one was just a little over the recommended 24 hrs. Lots of wet glue under the paper.



Here it is after wiping down with damp rags and a scraper, set back in the jig to check spring back (about the same as the other one, which wasn't much at all.).



And after clean-up.


Well, the 5 mm marine ply and I are probably in the same state now. Should be delivered to Rover Mike's place tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will probably work on the guide fence for the scarfing jig, or maybe run another hatch rib blank through the saw.