: Merry Chirstmas: I'm getting ready to order cove & bead bits for a strip
: built canoe. The strips will be 1/4" x 3/4". My question is
: should I order the 3/8" dia bit or the 1/4" dia bit. Seems like
: I read somewhere to go with a larger bit than the actual material. I may
: bump my strip thickness up to 5/16" to allow a little more thickness
: for sanding. I'm not that concerned about weight.

: Thanks

: Chad

Hi Chad, my suggestion is to go with the 1/4" bits and cut your strips to 1/4" thickness. To start with, most of the strength will come from the fiberglass being bonded to both sides of the wood, making a composite of glass-wood-glass.

2nd, if you cut the wood thicker than the router bit, then you will have to do lots of sanding or extra planing to bring the strips down to the thickness of the bead and cove. Or, if you oversize the bit to the thickness of the wood then then the cove will be very shallow and the edges will be paper thin. If you do what I think you are suggesting, you may be better off to forego the router bits and try your hand at beveling each strip for proper fit with a plane.

If you have slight variations in the thickness of your strips, error on slightly thicker. It will be easier to plane down a high spot than to bring everything else down to a low spot. If you do cut any stips with thin areas, mark them or cut them out right away so you won't be tempted to use it. Its amazing how much more work it is to fix these areas. Not that it can't be fixed. Thats the beauty of bulding with wood strips. There are always ways to fix our little errors and usually it only takes time and elbow grease and hopefully little to no moola

Tom