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