Making Some New Strakes.
Hardwood Strakes.
I like to see strakes on the underside of my model power boats (where appropriate) and some hulls such as the deep “V” hulls and the Fairy Marine hulls in particular would be lost without them.
Anyone who has tried to buy any small triangular section hardwood in recent years will know that they have not been produced for a very long time .
Some have tried using balsa wood as triangular section balsa is still available for use by the aero modellers. This is easy to cut, shape and glue, but making it hard enough to be durable enough for everyday use is not something that can be achieved readily - even after soaking with various resins etc.
Glassing-over the balsa strakes could work, but it takes a lot of time and effort and some of the shape definition would be lost.
Unfortunately even the hardest grades of balsa wood are still quite soft when compared with a hardwood such as obechie that was used to make small triangular section wood from in the 1960’s and 70’s when it was freely available from any good model shop.
The only way to get any triangular hardwood to use for strakes is to cut some yourself.
I have not made any strakes since the Covid lockdown-down time period, but I was asked by a local club member if I would make some from the 6mm sqaure hardwood strips that he already had.
The wood looks like it could be obechie (but I am not too sure) so when I went home yesterday to mow the lawns etc, I took his hardwood strips with me in the hope that I could quickly make some for him.
As is often the case, this “quick job” did not turn out to be quite as “quick” as I had hoped!
Bob
I like to see strakes on the underside of my model power boats (where appropriate) and some hulls such as the deep “V” hulls and the Fairy Marine hulls in particular would be lost without them.
Anyone who has tried to buy any small triangular section hardwood in recent years will know that they have not been produced for a very long time .
Some have tried using balsa wood as triangular section balsa is still available for use by the aero modellers. This is easy to cut, shape and glue, but making it hard enough to be durable enough for everyday use is not something that can be achieved readily - even after soaking with various resins etc.
Glassing-over the balsa strakes could work, but it takes a lot of time and effort and some of the shape definition would be lost.
Unfortunately even the hardest grades of balsa wood are still quite soft when compared with a hardwood such as obechie that was used to make small triangular section wood from in the 1960’s and 70’s when it was freely available from any good model shop.
The only way to get any triangular hardwood to use for strakes is to cut some yourself.
I have not made any strakes since the Covid lockdown-down time period, but I was asked by a local club member if I would make some from the 6mm sqaure hardwood strips that he already had.
The wood looks like it could be obechie (but I am not too sure) so when I went home yesterday to mow the lawns etc, I took his hardwood strips with me in the hope that I could quickly make some for him.
As is often the case, this “quick job” did not turn out to be quite as “quick” as I had hoped!
Bob
Sign in to comment on this update.
Hi Chris,
I actually used 6mm square obechie when I made my first strakes, so I didn’t have to make any changes to my original jig to be able to cut Ian’s for him
The strakes pictured on my LesRo Rapier and my Kopy Kommander (as well as my Swordsman) were made this size, and I think that they “look right” on this size of boat, and they certainly work well.
Bob.
Originally I had hoped that if I tilted the band saw table by 45 degrees and slid the edge guide into the correct position IN FRONT of the cutting blade (as opposed to its usual position behind the cutting blade) the idea should work.
I held the square strip as tightly as I could against the edge guide with my finger tips as I fed the wood against the bandsaw blade, but I soon discovered that it was not going to be that easy!
Trying to keep the square strip tight against the edge guide was not going to work - I had not allowed for the WOOD GRAIN.
I found that cutting the wood “with the grain” gave a different result to cutting the wood “against the grain” when the blade was more likely to “DIG-IN”.
Having worked out the best direction to feed the wood into the blade, I was again surprised when the sqaure strip would suddenly KICK itself out from my grip!
Closer inspection revealed something that I thought was IMPOSSIBLE.
The obechie wood grain could CHANGE its direction during its 36” length, and when it suddenly hit the area of grain change, the cutting blade would DIG-IN and make a deeper or thinner cut!
All of the above ruined any chance of getting an equal thickness of triangular strips throughout their full 36” lengths that I was cutting.
My next thought was that some sort of holder that I could pass the wood though could hold it tighter against the guide than my finger tips could, and when it did try to JUMP, my fingers would remain at their intended size with no modifications……..although I did come very close to chopping some bits off - several times during this experiment.
Bob