Wednesday 22 July 2009

Search for a rubbing strip

My sliding seat skiff Snarleyow is finally being refurbished. I have stripped off several layers of paint and taken off the outer gunwales. They were perfectly sound but the little pine strips between them and the inner gunwales had rotted in several places.
So now I have to find some long (16ft) strips of thin (three-quarters of an inch square or so) meranti to replace them. This is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.
The problem seems to be that the equipment in local sawmills is so hefty that adjusting them down to such small dimensions take time and does not even guarantee the size. It would be easier for me to buy a plank and cut it down with a table saw, but as I don't have a workshop I don't want to invest in a table saw that will sit in a shed most of the time and rust.
So does anybody know of a timber merchant near Chichester, Sussex, that might have some long thin bits of meranti (or equivalent) hanging around?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris--

I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic to be of direct assistance but I've got a couple of ideas if you can't find precut strips.

First, can you rent a table saw to rip a plank into the size you need?

In the alternative, do you have a circular saw? I've had good luck ripping planks into strips by clamping a guide to a circular saw. Just make sure your guide is parallel to the blade.

Bursledon Blogger said...

Chris, I've managed to cut thin strips using a circular saw clamped to some guides much as Ted describes - if you have suitable wood, let me know glad to help.

Max

Chris Partridge said...

Thanks both. I will go on a tour of local timber merchants tomorrow and see what I can find lurking in their offcuts bins.