JEM Watercraft

I thought this was interesting and might give someone without a tablesaw some ideas. This guy made a jig to cut strips with a skil saw.

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~durgerian/id5.html

That's a pretty good way to do it. It might even be easier than using a table saw, since you don't have to constantly adjust featherboards, and repeatedly feed a very long board through the saw. Could be safer, too, with no danger of kick back if a strip binds. I'll be cutting some strips soon for my next build and may try it both ways to compare.

Jay

I don't know how well it would work on 2 by 4s but it looks pretty interesting for 1 inch stock.

I see two main advantages.

1. Everybody has a skil saw. This method might be enough to convince someone to start a project.

2. It takes a lot less room. A table saw would take twice the length of the boards.

If you google it, you will find some similar setups.

I finally have my table saw dialed in. I like working with eight foot boards so I would tend to favor my table saw. However with this method, I might be tempted to try full lenghth boards.

The idea of a type of splitter on the trailing cut is a great one..

I set up a circular saw and did a test of this method last night, and it works great! I used a small finishing nail for the splitter. Even though I only used a fairly short (~ 2 foot) board, the strips were uniformly consistent in thickness, and very smooth on both sides with no saw marks. Should cut down on sanding quite a bit. I used a thin kerf Diablo 7-1/4" 24 tooth framing blade.

Jay

There is another idea on Paddlingiowa.com in their boat building forum. take a look there too, because it works great. Remember, cutting cedar can cause problems with the dust--a word to the wise