Dry Fitting A Stave Shell

Wow it's been many months since I've posted to this blog. My warning about the pictures ... forgive any cat toys or green container lids. We are in the middle of Christmas decorating and well the cat toys ... they are just everywhere with the new kitten.

This post is for the wonderful people over at Ghostnote.net. Apparently the website is down and I can't post there so I decided to put everything here. So, for my frustrated friend trying to build his first stave shell ... sit back, grab a beer and relax. These thing will have you swearing like a $3 hooker, but no worries. They are worth the work and effort. Sure we make it look easy and explain things like they are easy, but this method took me a few tries before I got it right and efficient.

Lets start with the cut wood pieces. This is a 16 stave, 7" high x 14" diameter Cherry stave shell. I dry fit with masking tape (cheap crap you can get a 3 pack for $2 type stuff), and my stainless steel pipe clamps (I use 3 of them together to make 1 clamp ring, you can buy these at any Lowes type store for about $2 each), and last a screw driver.



Next I lay out the staves with the inside of the shell facing down to the floor. Then I place 2 rows of tape on them (tape goes on the outside of the shell).




Then I flip the entire assembly over. This is a challenge because you'll find that the tape doesn't want to hold well due to the twisting of the wood pieces against the tape. Go ahead try to flip it with your hands, you'll see what I'm talking about. Typically I do this on a work bench. I have a board that is about 4 feet long (the same length or longer as the taped staves) and I slide the taped staves so about 2 inches over hangs the work bench (or forms a lip to grab onto). I then put the board under that over hung portion and flip it. In this case I just used the rug as the supporting member and flipped it over.


Next I grab one end and start to roll the staves into a shell. I roll it because it starts to be self supportive and you can then turn it on it's side very easily.

Here is my dry fit, not perfect. Hard to see in the pictures but there are gaps and on the right side of the picture where there is no tape the staves are wanting to open up. The carpet is the only thing really stopping them from opening fully.

Next I put my 2 rings of clamps on. One on top one on the bottom, just snug them up at first. These really hold the shell in it's shape. Again it's not perfect, by my thumb there is a gap. This happens in various places, no worries. Go ahead and tighten the clamps you'll see everything snug right together. This is how I glue the shells too. I add the glue in the joints before I roll it. And yes ... it's very messy. But who cares you take off all that glue in the rounding process anyway.

Here it is fully tightened.

Hope that helped. Any other questions just ask!!!