> One reason I am doing this is not so much to save time, but rather
> to ensure some consistency in the nominal width of the strips. The
> boards I started with are a little rough - not a "perfect"
> 3/4" thick (the dimension which will ultimately be the width
> of the strips after sawing).

> I don't own a planer, so I figure if I set the guides a little
> on the tight side on my newly constucted "over and under"
> router table, I will end up with an essentially consistent width dimension.
> (Even thought the arcs of the beads and flutes(coves) may vary a little).

Over and under router table? Sounds like a shotgun, and maybe more dangerous. It is bad enough if your wood binds when feeding it past one set of cutters at a time. Consider carefully, and then consider again what might happen if the wood gets snagged by one router, and is then forced into the other router. It can only come out in either of two directions -- away from you or back at you. Murphy's law says it will come directly at you, and with great force. (How strong are those router motors?)

You suggested setting the guides a bit tight. It sounds like a prescription for disaster.

I'm sure the idea of cutting both edges at once sounded appealing at first. There are commercial milling machines that do stuff like this. I've seen them.

But when I started thinking about how to build a SAFE jig for doing it, I realized there were more safety problems than I wanted to solve.

One of the joys of strip building is the ease and safety in which it can be is done. After all, you are working with little pieces of wood and staples. Risking injury should not be a part of the picture. Safety should come first, last and always.

Besides, there are other ways, and better ones, to solve the problem.

> In the long run, this may not be important, but I'd like to think
> that if I start at the shear and work toward the keel (or vice versa),
> I won't end up with a couple of obviously dissimilar strips - something
> I saw once on a boat that no amount of varnish could hide.
>

Simplest solution here is to forget power tools and use paint instead of varnish. If you still insist on a natural wood finish, read on.

O.K. now, if the problem is getting the strips to match from side to side, then what you want to do layout your strips in the order you want to apply them, ahead of time. You don't need to match more than 5 or 6 strips at a time, and that is pretty easy to do. Hang three or four strips on one side and take a break while the glue dries. The strips typically will overhang the ends ( both bow and stern).

The overlap is what keeps you from doing a strip on the left side, and then a matching strip on the right. you would have to trim each strip before the glue sets -- a messy job. So you do a few on one side, wait for the glue to set, and then saw off the overhanging part of your strip. With that waste out of the way you can hang the strips on the other side. Here is where you want to make sure that the width of the strips on the left side matches the width of the strips on the right side. If the three on the left match the three on the right, go match up another batch of 6 or 8 strips, and apply half of them to one side of the boat. By switching back and forth between the two sides you build up the strips evenly. If one side should start to get ahead of the other, you can see it quickly, and correct this by using a slightly narrower strip on the high side. The next course of strips should then end up even.

In a really awful scenario, let's say your strips taper. That is, lets assume you have cut them from a plank that was 1 inch thick at the north end, but only 1/2 inch thick at the south end. (Don't worry the salesman said, it averages 3/4 inches thick).

Now let's make it pretty: As you rip your strips from this awful material keep them in order, or at least in the same direction. Then take pairs of strips and flip one end for end (the end that was poiting south now points north.) You will now have a pair of strips for the left side that will line up nicely with the pair of strips on the right side.

If your problem is not quite so dramatic, you can also opt for running your strips through your saw again. If they vary in width (over their length), just rip them into narrower strips. There is nothing magical about strips being a certain width. If you use narrow ones you just use a few more. Actually, narrow ones may be easier to bend and fit. Now, with a SINGLE router, you can do much the same thing, if you set the fence right, and feed the stock properly. Most router fences would probably be set so that they were near the cutting blade. In this setup, the wood would be pushed against the infeed fence, and slid across the table. The outfeed fence would be adjusted to support the wood after it had passed the cutter. The fence is typically in two pieces so that infeed and outfeed sides can be spaced properly. Well, you can do things more simply. Clamp a straightedge to your router table somewhere around 3/4 inch from the router blade. (You can adjust this, of course, to whatever you want, depending on the width you want your strips to be.)

When you slide your strips along this new, home made, fence you will automatically cut a bead (or flute, or cove) and at the same time the router will remove excess stock, so after the first pass you'll have one finished edge, and all your strips will be the same width. In this setup, if you ran the strip through a dozen times, they would end up just as thick as they were after a single pass. By using the `back` or uncut edge as your guide, you are having your router work like a surface planer.

After the first edge is shaped, set your split fence up the way it should be.

Something I haven't tried, but I am thinking of, is to not rout (shape) the second edge until just before I am going to insert the strip. Then, if the strip has to taper a bit, I can use my hand plane to get it close to size, and then feed the whole thing through the router, cutting a nice cove shape on it to match the existing bead shape on the strip that is already placed. If it is still too fat to fit, I'll just run it past the router again and take off a bit more material. By cutting material on the side that is against the fence, now, I am using the router like I would use a jointer/planer. If I run the strip through a dozen times I'll have a long toothpick.

I hope I've explained this well. I should probably have drawn lots of pictures, but....

Best of luck and stay safe. Paul Jacobson