When you live on an island things are often harder to do. Here is how I went about resawing some cypress today:

Step 1: Load cypress on top of VW bug sans roof-rack. Ensure equal force put on each end so the wood bends to the shape of the roof which evens out the payload.

Step 2: Drive to ferry dock.

Step 3: Load vehicle on barge to St. John.

Step 4: Drive to best friend's house, set up saw, resaw lumber.

Step 5: Load lumber back onto car. (See step 1)

Step 6: Buy friend 6-pack of beer. (Do NOT skip this step. OK To move up in the list but not down.)

Step 7: Return to ferry dock.

Step 8: Load vehicle on barge back to St. Thomas.

Step 9: Return home.

Step 10: Unload lumber.

It's that simple. I must say, it's great to have a friend like Jeff to help me resaw this horribly crooked lumber. We had to snap a chalkline and aim it down the saw, then use that edge against the fence to saw the other edge, and then use that new edge against the fence to dress the edge to final width. It came out absolutely perfect and I now have two 16' close-enough-to-straight-grain cypress gunwales, two 16' stringers, and plenty of stock for crossmembers. I bought wider boards so I could have the gunwales and stringers as close as possible to quarter-sawn. Even with sawing out the crooks it came out pretty straight grained. Now I just have to put it all in the shape of a kayak!!!

This stuff was shipped from the US. It's dried to whatever they dry it to there, and when they ship it here it starts to absorb back the moisture because of the humidity here. Of course it absorbs some here and some there so it swells more in one spot than the other and it gets warped, crooked, twisted, etc. It's hard to ever get wood that is straight. I have some wood for a few guitars I'm planning to build that I have very carefully been bringing up to moisture so it doesn't warp. This cypress I let sit for a month before sawing. Nothing down here is easy!!!

All the best,

Malcolm