Planning

Yesterday I planned.  I thought about the planking process, what we'll need, and the steps that happen after that.  I got to thinking about the rudder, which I lofted (drew full size) on the table and changed a little from the pattern.  I thought about the centerboard and centerboard case, and the decks that will be substantially different than those the designer calls for in the plans.  

I'm waiting for JD Ross to come up from San Francisco so we can attatch the garboards together.  It's a two person job.  In the meantime I might be able to get a start on the oars.  We're going to need six of them, three pair,  and that's a lot of work.

The New Table, The New Garboard, The News on Scarphing

I built this huge table for laying out the planking and gluing it.  It's made of a 4' x 10' sheet of 1" MDO.  It's plywood that has a leveled surface that's covered with paper.  It's easy to draw on, and really smooth and flat.  I was hoping it would be a little stiffer, but it's good enough for a gluing surface.  The half sheets are light enough to move around easily by myself, so I unscrew them from the horses and double them to make a stiff enough surface for scarphing.

I glued the port garboard scarphs today.  I'm definitely getting better at it.  I think that these ones are going to turn out pretty well.  Better than the last seven anyway.  Maybe by the time we get to the sheer strake I'll be expert at this plywood scarphing thing.

The most important things I've learned are things that I "knew" already.  The subsurface (the bench or whatever the scarphed objects are sitting on) really has to be perfectly flat, at least the part directly under the scarphing zone and a bit past.  Otherwise the plane will bridge over the low spots or take too much off the high spots.  The clamping strip that's nailed or screwed through the scarph should really be exactly the width of the scarph.  It's also nice to wrap the strip in plastic and staple it on so there's no plastic flapping around, allowing a clear view of the joint once it's clamped.      

A Visit From Andy

Our old friend Tetris Wassertron visited the boat shop today.  Helped clean up a little, and kept me company while I slowly moved ahead with the port garboard.

Port.

Last week I patterned and constructed the starboard garboard.  So far this week I've fixed my mistake at the stern, and begun preparations for the port garboard.

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but the plank that I made for the starboard side ended up a little short from top to bottom in the stern.  Yesterday evening I added a piece to that section, which I faired in today.  So the starboard side fits now.  When the boat is all planked and we turn her over, I think we'll probably want to add a stringer along that seam from the transom to frame number six to shore up the small joint and ensure structural integrity.

As I suspected, the plank that now fits on the starboard side doesn't exactly fit on the port side, meaning the boat isn't exactly symetrical.  Hopefully this minor asymetry won't affect the tracking and handling of the vessel too much when she's in the water.  I think the effects will probably be neglegable as the disparity is within an eighth from one side to the other.

Garboard Ho!

So, does that look like a boat or what?  It looks like a boat.  Maybe we'll just have a garboard canoe.  Keep it low profile.

Or maybe we'll make a whole boat and row to Alaska.  I'll have to talk to JD about it.  Canoe?

I cut out the garboard and test fit it today.  It mostly fit.  The part that doesn't, well, I'm going to have to fix it.  

More Scarphing

I worked a little more slowly today.  I needed to be really careful with the garboard scarphs because I have very little leeway for error.  The angles that I measured, and the distances that I calcuated with the pattern left me only a quarter inch or so at each end. 

But now the garboard is all scarphed.  The next time I'm in the boat shop I'll transfer the spiling marks from the pattern onto the big scarphed board and cut out the first plank.  

Patterns and Spiling

I've finally finished all the fairing.  The new battens (thank you John Gardner and Howard Chapelle for the dimensions) made what was once almost impossible into a relatively easy task.  I still spent several days working my way along each frame, making the bevel just right to accept the planking.  

Yesterday, I ended the day making the pattern for the garboard plank.  This is really exciting because it means we've made it to the next major part of the project (and the part that makes the boat a boat).  We're now separating the inside of the boat from the outside, making it a floatable object.  

Today I finished making the garboard pattern, and spiled the shape of the plank-to-be onto it.  Spiling is the process of transfering a three dimensional shape onto a flat piece of something (probably wood) that's held against the object.  In this case the object is the hull of the boat, the transfer tool is a compass, and the flat spiling stock is 1/8 inch plywood bent around the frames of the boat.  (The pictures will make it a little clearer.)  

After finishing the pattern and spiling, my problem this morning went something like this:  I have one eight by four foot piece of plywood to make the garboard plank with.  The plank is about 17 feet long by twenty or so inches wide with a big curve.  How did I get 17 feet out of 16 feet?  Very carefully.  Look at the pictures to discover my fancy style.