At any rate, this fellow really wants a slightly longer and wider canoe so that he can use it to fish from. Additionally he wants this longer and wider canoe to be very, very light-weight for carrying in to his chosen fishing haunts. He's chosen the Solo Portage by Rob Macks of Laughing Loon.
In order to reduce the weight of his finished canoe, he's going to try two things. First, he's gone looking for Atlantic White Cedar which is a bit less dense than Western Red Cedar. (22 lb/cubic foot versus 23 pounds/cubic foot) He's also going to be ripping the strips to 3/32" thickness - a 25% savings in the weight of the strips. To that end, I made up another spacer disk to go between a pair of Freud Diablo thin-kerf blades that would allow him to cut two strips at a time. This new gang-sawing set-up; similar to one I posted previously, is seen below:
He's pretty picky, 'tho. He wants a pretty canoe, too. He wants to build a staple-less boat again and he wants to build a canoe with continuous strips so no scarfs show. To do this, I think he needs 15 or 16 foot long stock.
This COULD be a problem, as he has a rather nice, but somewhat small workshop in a barn at his house. As a matter of fact, it's too small for him to rip the strips in a continuous length.
However, necessity is the mother of invention.
Check out the pictures that he sent to me of his solution....
Below is his table saw as seen from the outfeed side. Note that the workbench under the window is at exactly the same height as the table saw's work surface. Pay particular attention to the light colored area directly beneath the window.
Here's the outside of the same window. Again, note the light colored area below the window. Oh yeah, and the hinges...
And, voila, here we have the open infeed doors!
The only thing that I wonder now is if he has enough room or now has doors on the outfeed side, too!
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