Author: NickB

The oars and rudder are in hand, but there is still a vital part of the skiff to be constructed.

The stroke oar’s footbrace is fixed, though we will be able to use blocks for shorter people. or the remaining three footbraces the current idea is to make them in the form of a rectangle where the runners slot over the actual frames of the boat and the distance is adjusted by either moving the whole device so a different slot is over the frame or possibly moving the footboard in separate slots in the top of the runners. Making the footbraces like this means the rowers will be bracing against the strongest part of the structure of the boat and the footbrace does not have to be actually glued into the boat.

(If anyone understands what on earth I am on about and can send me a drawing I can post here that would be very helpful!!)

Each footbrace will be slightly different due to the curve of the hull. What is needed is for someone to make templates out of cardboard then take them away and make the three footbraces. We have some heavy duty ply to make them out of, and one of the building team will be happy to come jup to the shed and explain in more detail what is required.

The first coat of primer was put on the inside today. Unfortunately the epoxy filleting done yesterday had not gone off properly, so it was not possible to sand these areas down . . .  and there are still a couple of places where more epoxy is needed. There is also the fixed stretcher board for the stroke oar, which Ewan glued in place this morning. We didn’t paint these bits, and in addition we missed out the underside of the seats, as by the time we worked out that someone would have to lie on their back inside the boat to paint these bits there was too much wet paint around  for this to be possible.

So –  more accurately – the first coat of primer was put on 90% of the inside today. We are going to get some more epoxy  this week and finish the filleting on Thursday. We can then sand the whole interior and put the first coat of primer on the bits we were unable to paint today.  Then it will be full steam ahead with the rest of the painting.

Nothing is ever as quick or simple as you think it will be the first time around . . .

The skiff was turned on Sunday after the final sanding session.

A wee bit more work is needed to fillet in under the thwarts and the  breasthooks on the inside, but it was too cold for the epoxy during  the week.

… the average age of volunteers was reduced by decades in one fell  swoop! The first coat of thinned down primer went on very quickly  with the willing hands of the 1st Kilbrandon Guides.

Yesterday we cut the scarphs and shaped the ends of the outer inwhale pieces and test-fitted them. We also shaped the breasthooks.

Today we had intended to glue up the outer inwhale pieces both sides, using brass screws to fix the inwhale pieces to the short blocks and so leaving us plenty of clamps to clamp the pieces to the long blocks. However, the screws were not man enough to pull the rail in tight against the blocks so we ended up using all the clamps (over 30) on one side. We will do the other side tomorrow.

Got the small blocks glued along the other side and test-fitted and marked up the pieces for the rest of the inwhale.

Today we began to glue the small inwhale support blocks in place. The main purpose of this construction is to leave holes for water to drain out if the boat is left inverted; this is a place wooden boats that tend to get left upside down often rot. With holes all the way along the outer edge of the inwhale water will be able to drain freely.

The blocks are 3″ and they are spaced with approximately six and a half inch gaps. (The actual spacing varies slightly due to the position of frame tops and and the long oar support pieces). We ended up with 15 pieces per side; due to a shortge of clamps we decided to do one side at a time.

As usual there was a lot of cleaning up of squeezed-out glue afterwards, which is used to fill any gaps and  smooth wee fillets along sharp corners.

You can get an idea of what the finished gunwhales will look like from this picture of the Queensferry skiff ‘Ferry Lass’ at her launch:

Today we glued the inner halves of the long blocks in place. These long blocks are deisgned to provide structural support for the thole pins / rowlocks or whatever mechan ism we eventually use to connect the oars to the boat.

(Remember these were split to avoid causing flat spots when gluing and clamping – if you look in the photo you can see that each long block is in two halves).