: O-kay Kent, I'm going to reveal my ignorance here.

: Can you describe to a complete newbie what a rolling bevel butt joint is? Are
: you planing your edges to each other as you lay on your stripps??
: Apparently from your experience this presents you with tighter joints once
: all fairing and sanding is done?

: Tim Eastman

You get a butt joint when two pieces of wood butt their edges together. Plain, simple, straight-on.

Technically, the edge joined strips could be said to be joined by butt joints.

That term is more commonly used for the joint at the end of the strips, rather than the edges, so there may be some confusion, but both can be called butt joints.

When you take two strips and joint the edges after beveling the edges the joined pieces do not lay flat. Think of a cylinder or barrel made of 36 strips. If you sliced out a cross section, it would not be a perfect circle, but it would be a 36-sided shape that was close to a circle. There would be 36 joints, and the angle at each joint would be exactly 10 degrees. to get that joint you would cut a 5 degree (or with some tools you would cut an 85 degree -- that would be 90 minus the 5)) angle along each edge of each strip. The 36 strips each have 2 edges, so ther are 72 edges, at 5 degrees each, giving you the needed 360 degrees to make your circle.

Now the middle of a boat, about 2 inches aboe the water line, may be somewhat curved, like a circle, but the front and back of the boat at about the same height are pretty much vertical. To perfectly join your strips in the center of the boat you would need about a 4 or 5 degree angle on the edges. But at the front and back of the boat the same strips might not need to be bevels at all. They could have straight, square, edges.

In this case "rolling" means that it changes direction and shpa a bit along the length of the strip. A rolling bevel would be one that would be 5 degrees in the middle of the strip might be 4 degrees 2 feet forward, 3 degrees after another 2 feet, and only 1 degree after another 2 feet.

If you were to mark the angle of a bevel at each of these point you would find that it is rather easy to use a plane to connect the marked areas, and give you a bevel which varies in its angle along its length.

The nice thing about working with wood strips is that even if you don;t bevel them they still fit. Beveling them gives a tighter fit. if the gfit is loose, you'll have gaps which can be filled with glue and sawdust, thickened epoxy, wood filler, and other materials. If you cut the bevels fairly close the glue you bond the strips together with tends to fill any gaps.

One trick: You can get the appearance of great precision without working too hard if you slightly overcut the bevel. Then the strips match perfectly on the outside of the boat and you have a hairline gap on the inside, which is easily filled. Some people simply cut ALL their strips with an even 2 or 3 degree bevel and go from there.

Hope this helps

PGJ