Tom Widney
LOVES Wooden Canoes
A friend told me he would help me build something for my boat shop for my birthday. I said that I had seen this neat sling saw horses (for lack of a better description) on the WCHA web site and that I had been saving pictures of different types from the photos from there for over a year. So from the photo collection we picked a design and built them. We decided to use a 1 in. wide webbing instead of the more common 4in. wide canvas/carpet sling so that I could adjust the height. I use a wheelchair and thought that the adjustable quality would be real handy.
We built the damn things out of some pretty redwood we had left over from a wheelchair ramp project we had just completed; Watco'd them and left them outside to dry before bringing the smelly things into the shop.
Yesterday I brought them in the shop because I thought they would allow me to tilt the canoe to comfortable/stable positions so I could trim the ends of the inwales to accept a deck on a stem rebuild.
What a "DUH" moment, the damn canoe swayed like the swinging bridge over Sand Creek where I used to play as a kid.
I realize that a wider strap would reduce the swaying somewhat along the longitudinal axis but does nothing for the side to side sway. The length of the strap seems to affect the sway somewhat but stability does not seem to be the prime reason for these sling type saw horses.
In all the discussions on this site nobody ever mentions this aspect. What good are these things if they are not stable enough to work on the boat? Why do so many members use them? And what am I missing? I feel so silly to not have seen this before hand; I just copied what I saw here on the website and never question what the damn things are good for.
Any and all comments will be appreciated for right now I'm inclined to cut the things back down to another pair of short sawhorses.
Below are some pics, adding a block to shorten the length of the straps helped some?
We built the damn things out of some pretty redwood we had left over from a wheelchair ramp project we had just completed; Watco'd them and left them outside to dry before bringing the smelly things into the shop.
Yesterday I brought them in the shop because I thought they would allow me to tilt the canoe to comfortable/stable positions so I could trim the ends of the inwales to accept a deck on a stem rebuild.
What a "DUH" moment, the damn canoe swayed like the swinging bridge over Sand Creek where I used to play as a kid.
I realize that a wider strap would reduce the swaying somewhat along the longitudinal axis but does nothing for the side to side sway. The length of the strap seems to affect the sway somewhat but stability does not seem to be the prime reason for these sling type saw horses.
In all the discussions on this site nobody ever mentions this aspect. What good are these things if they are not stable enough to work on the boat? Why do so many members use them? And what am I missing? I feel so silly to not have seen this before hand; I just copied what I saw here on the website and never question what the damn things are good for.
Any and all comments will be appreciated for right now I'm inclined to cut the things back down to another pair of short sawhorses.
Below are some pics, adding a block to shorten the length of the straps helped some?