Milling strips, sheer strip and beyond

Last week I started the stripping process with the boat. With all the forms in place and secured I borrowed some people to help me with milling the 1x6 boards into strips that are nominally 1/4" x 3/4". I had acquired 2 1x6x20' and 1 1x6x13' from the lumberyard in Des Moines, I also had a 1x10x12' of cypress that I will be using to build the football (the flatish are that makes up the bottom of the boat) and do accent work with. I also had a bit of walnut laying around as well that I will use to build up my sheer.
The lumber all got milled and stacked together with similar color boards (I had about 5 different shades of wood).
The first strip to get put on is the sheer strip which is also the most important because it gives shape to all the following strips as well. I used a thin piece of cypress with a similarly thin piece of walnut to build up my sheer.


sheer: The upward curve or amount of upward curve of the longitudinal lines of a ship's hull as viewed from the side.


This was a somewhat challenging process created more challenging because I am building this boat without staples. Most commonly people will align the strips and then staple them to the forms to keep them in place until the boat is all stripped out, however this leaves hundreds of tiny staple holes that are fairly noticeable later. I am trying to build this stapless which means I have to use a variety of clamps and hot glue to keep everything together.

I also laminated the stems using epoxy. There are two sets of stems. The interior are cedar and will be shaped to accept and hold the strips, the exterior and cypress with an accent of cedar and will act as a small keel once shaped.


After the sheer strips are on its only a matter of running a hand bevel on the following strips to make the previous one and attempting to make them as flush as possible as you build them up.