Building blades

[Shadow]

 I'm thinking of building a spare set of blades to have on hand. I was going to try cedar this time, as some on here are using laminated cedar, I was curious about the lamination part. Are you laminating 2 by 4's together to get a 2 inch by 8 inch board to start carving? If so what process and glue to laminate? Or are you laminating 1X 8's on top of each other to carve? Or something entirely different? Any ideas or suggestions welcome.

[DanB]

Scott uses 2 X 4's, but he rips them in half first, then laminates them side by side.  So the laminate is 1.5" X about 8" before he starts.  You could do lots of things though.

Im not certain what glue he's using, though epoxy would probably be hard to beat.

[mvr]

I don't know a whole lot about blades, but I do know a bit about woodworking.  One point of laminating is that you can minimize the effects of quirks and weaknesses in the individual pieces of wood.  Say for example that there is a bit of tension in a piece that would lead to warping, or there is a place where the grain runs out and creates a weak point.  If you laminate several pieces, these flaws are liable to be canceled by what is going on with the adjacent pieces.  So for this purpose, the more sections the better.  Ripping wood to thinner slices will do more of this than fewer pieces of more slices.  That is assuming that your glue joints are good (as they should be).

Another reason for laminating is that it is easier to get thinner stock which is truly quartersawn, and quartersawn wood is most stable dimensionally.  If that is the purpose, it depends on the particular stock you are working with to determine how many laminations you need.

Two good sources of wood info are the USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Manual of Wood Technology (or some similar title) and Hoadley's Understanding wood.  One of the things you will learn is that wood names are often commercial names, so that several species will get one name for marketing purposes. Cedar, even commercially is marketed with different subtypes, such as white and red, and Eastern and Western.  You might want to investigate further.  I believe that Eastern White Cedar is a favorite with bulders of boats and strip built canoes.

Hope this helps some!

Mark

[rotornuts]

I'd agree with mark, Thinner is better as long as you dont go to extreames. Remeber when your choosing wood to choose pieces that will thier grain oriented through the thickness(quarter sawn/vertical grain) after they are laminated. So if you are going to rip 1x or 2x stock and turn the piece on edge you'll want a board that's plain sawn or horizontal grained to start with. 1x stock works very well amd provides good strength with a reasonable number of laminations.

nuts

[rotornuts]

About glue. I've tried all kinds of glues from bargain basement to more money than I'll ever spend again. for wood I've gone to buying Weldbond by the gallon. It's a waterproof white glue that dries clear and is very strong. I've never had a joint failure nor should you as long as you don't squeeze all the glue out by cranking the clamps up too tight. Weldbond is also reasonably priced. good luck

That's purely my opinion. give both sides to be joined a coat of glue with a brush and don't do more pieces at once than you can handle in say 5 minutes or you'll compromise the strength of the first joints to have glue applied before you can get the clamps tightened up.

nuts

[daleh007]

I've had problems with warping myself and have recently cut 2x8's into 1.5" squares which were then glued together. I alternately oriented the grain vertical and horizontal thinking it would help with warpage. Any comments?

[Randalllvn]

I haven't made any blades but have some experience with finish carpentry. There have been some good comments about turning your units 180 degrees so I won't repeat.

Warping may also be caused by the water that is in the glue. The wood absorbs the moisture from the glue, and the stock comes out of the clamps warped and continues to react until the moisture from the glue has worked it's way out of the wood. You can rip your stock a little larger than your finished product dimension, glue it up, let it dry out for a week or two, then plane it down to the size you want. By planing the glue-up you will straighten out your stock before you contour shape your surfaces.

I use TiteBond II for most of my glue ups. It's about $14 a gallon at Home Depot. There may be a better way.

There are waterproof wood glues that won't warp the wood because they don't have any water in their formula. These are urethane glues. Gorilla  and Elmer's Urethane are good products. Gorilla glue is great but too expensive. Elmer's Urethane glue is more reasonably priced at about $9 for about 8oz at Home Depot. The urethane glue will not warp your stock and is waterproof. Most wood working glues that claim to be waterproof won't survive sustained exposure to moisture. Urethane glues will stand up to sustained exposure. Urethane glues tend to expand as they dry. This characteristic fills small voids but it can be a mess. It will stain your hands and will not wash off with water. The boil out scrapes off. You'll need some thinner to get the urethane glue off your hands. Urethane glue will work better with thin stock which is more prone to react with woodworking glues which have water in their formulas.

Have fun,

Randalllvn