I had hoped to actually get started stripping a Guillemot during my nice long week off between Christmas and New Year's Day. I haven't gotten very far on the actual boat.

I had my box-beam strong-back built a few weeks ago, and got the forms aligned before Christmas. So here's what I've accomplished this week:

I don't normally work with long stock, so my table saw was only 8 feet from the wall. So, I needed to move the saw back and re-level it.

Then I cobbled together some in-feed and out-feed extensions.

Rip strips, rip strips rip strips....

I wasn't happy with my ability to get consistently 1/4 inch thick strips off the saw, so I wound up ripping a bit over thick, which means...

Run the strips through the thickness planer (well at least is has a power feed).

Except, the belt that drives the feed rollers starts slipping, so the planer stops feeding. I have an obscure German-made combo machine, of which the thickness planer is a part. So naturally I can't just run to Home Depot for a new belt. Off to the vacuum cleaner repair shop. No perfect match, so get a belt the right length, but too wide and cut it down to the right width. Ok, planer is back in action.

Plane strips, plane strips, plane strips....

Time to mill the beads and coves. First build a nice jig for the router table with hold-down and hold-in feather boards. Then cobble together in-feed and out-feed extensions. (Why are they different from the ones for the TS you may ask? Well, when I built the router table, I lived in a house with a nice flat and level basement floor. Now I live in an older house with a floor that is neither flat nor level, so now the router table is lower than the table saw (which now has leveling screws.))

Mill beads, mill beads, mill beads....

Change bits, mill coves, mill coves mill coves...

So, finally I have about 1200 feet of cove and bead strips, a garbage can and a half full of chips, and most importantly sill all of my fingers.

Can I start building the boat now?