I stopped at a old hardware store that was going out of business and found some 16’ and 20’ 1x6, 1x8 cedar boards. didnt see any knot so I slid them out of the rack they were laying in when I could tell they were finger jointed. On the 1x8 some were running long ways.they have no knots, just wondering if they would be suitable for strips.
Jeremy
They sound great
but how many finger joints and how far apart were they? If you have 8 or 10 ft between joints, they should be ok
finger joints
they were more like 4’ to 8’ between. Just wondering how strong this joint would be when I rip them down to 1/4".the price he gave me was $21 for a 1x8x20 and $15 for 1x6x16.
Jeremy
The strength comes from the
fiberglass not the strips. I have a strip canoe taking up space in my garage because I have trepidation about fiberglassing the boat. I’ll have to finish it one way or another this year. Good luck with your project.
Maybe
What is the grain orientation? And is it the same for all segments of a board?
I wasn’t so much worried about
the stregnth. It would just be frustrating to work with if you end up with a bunch of 4’ strips.
Yaknot, putting on the fiberglass
is a lot of work, but easy IF YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS. Go for it.
Once cut to size
the finger joints MAY become an issue if there are any voids, or dry spots, in the glue in the fingers. I would also be concerned with the finger joints in the areas with more than gental curves. You would would have to use your own judgement.
finger joints
“The joint is stronger than the wood,” said the lumberyard salesman who came out on the jobsite in the mid-1970s to show us this new interior house trim they were promoting. Being strong but none-too-bright, we carpenters picked up the samples and bent them… each one broke along the glue joints, not through the wood.
Of course, for door or window casing it really didn’t matter much. I can’t say that I’ve kept up with developments in the field, though I’ve hung a lot of finger-jointed trim without problems. I’ve learned not only that those finger joints aren’t always so strong, but that the guys at the lumberyard sometimes don’t know what they’re talking about.
That said, just fill the wood with epoxy and slap on a coat or two of fiberglass and I’d guess it’ll be just fine. In fact, you could use last week’s newspapers between two layers of epoxy’d fiberglass and still have a very strong boat. But as leob1 says, “You would have to use your own judgement.”