Saturday, November 1, 2008

Shaping softwood the dirty way.

I Have an angle grinder that I use for many functions. Cutting steel, grinding steel, and any heavy duty shaping of most materials. But it has taken on a new task in my workshop as of late.
A couple of years ago I set to make a couple of puddle boats for my 3 nephews. Like the ones I used to chop out of a piece of wood when I was a kid... only better. These were to be toys for boys so they had to be a bit on the sturdy side, and float properly.

I sketched up some basic plans and built them from laminated pine. The hull is hollow in the center and more so up front. I floated the first one in the laundry tub just to make sure it was balanced. The shaping of the front was to be the biggest challange. I used a 30 grit sanding disk on the grinder and clamped the block of wood in the bench vice. I went gentle at first only taking off small gouges, but with practice I was able to take of large swaths of wood in a single pass.

NOTE: A grinder equiped like this can ruin a piece of wood in a heartbeat if held in place for more than a moment. It's like a torch to a candle.

The exercise worked very well and the boats were fun to build and hand over the the boys. Yes they float at the painted water lines. Were else.

1 comment:

  1. HI Perry: These are great. I'll bet your pathfinder is going to be mondo!
    Sandra, Duckworks

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