A New Feature Strip

My students who are building the Prospector Ranger have been working on their stems and feature strips for the canoe over the past two weeks. Both the inner and outer stems were laminated together the week before Thanksgiving and the parts to create the feature strip were cut out just last weekend.

They have chosen to use Peruvian Black Walnut for the stems and trim on the canoe. They've selected Poplar and the Walnut for the feature strip as well. Here's a piece of the center that was dry-fitted to give an idea of what it will look like:


As I said, the strip is only dry fitted. When glued together, the joints that you see should disappear and the glued up blank will be about 1-1/2" by about 7/8" thick and 16' long. We'll clean up one side of the blank so that it is smooth and cut two 1/4" thick pieces (for both sides of the canoe) on the table saw and mold the edges with cove and bead.

One thing to keep in mind that many people forget. When you cut the "bead" side of the strip, you lose 1/8" of the exposed face, so if you want the top and bottom strip to be the same width when finished, you need to add an extra 1/8"!

Both students are beginning woodworkers and with very little prodding created a pretty design for the feature strip and executed it nicely! I'm very proud of their work.