Fairing up the frames to take the planks
The frames are now clamped to the moulds and the inner keel piece (sorry – don’t know the right name for this) has been glued onto them. Now this keel piece has to be bevelled and shaped to take the first plank. The frames all have to be bevelled by hand to take the curve of each individual plank – a time-consuming process.
Checking the frames with a dummy plank
A dummy plank is clamped along the frames to check the angle. This section is looking good.
Making the first plank
The chief beveller and scarfer decides he has had enough practice and the first plank is ready for assembly. It comes in three sections that have to be scarfed together with epoxy. In the picture you can see one of the scarf joints clamped and in the background the bevels cut on the second plank.
Next – gluing the garboard strake in place
Once the plank is glued we need to painstakingly finish truing the inner keel piece, the inner stems and the inner bevels on the frames to make sure the plank is a perfect fit. This plank, the one near the keel, is known as the garboard strake. It (and its partner on the other side) will be the most difficult to fit because it has to take the greatest amount of bending.
Gluing the garboard strake is likely to be a Wednesday night job as it will need three or four people. Whether or not it is next Wednesday depends on the progress made in the interim on fairing the keel and stems – there is a lot of work to be done yet.
After the garboard strakes the rest of the planking should just get easier and easier as we work up (or down!) towards the sheerline. Or at least, that’s what the head boatbuilder says 🙂
Pingback:Part – 10 – Glassing the Scarf Joints.wmv | Boat Building on a Budget
That’s a terribly odd suggestion that someone has posted, that anyone would think of glassing the scarf joints. The scarfs once glued with epoxy are already stronger and probably a bit stiffer than the remainder of the plank, which can be seen if you look very carefully at the curves – there’s sometimes a tiny flat where the scarf joint hasn’t managed to bend as fairly as the rest. I think that if you start adding unnecessary glass you will just compound this. I can imagine all sorts of other problems too, such as actually creating a point where a plank could break if very stressed, as it has been deprived of its ability to flex. Definitely a very bad idea IMHO.