07112011(the first planking)

Learning something everyday makes me happy but it is not easy. Boats on the first floor are getting a shape of boat made with strips and ours are getting there, it is a bit slower though. My task last week was making a stem. I was given a laminated stem on Moira’s boat, which is the one that we (B team) are building. Actually, I was one of guys laminated it. I remember the extra bits of wood laminated on the outside corner of it and it cracked a bit, finally it was gone by planing and sanding though. It is apparently made in a same way to the mid-ship laminated frames steamed in a steam gear or something. Firstly, I had to buzz it and used thicknesser, making it as thick as possible (no?), but end up exact thickness which is exact size of it. Then, I mark up some points on it through the drawing of stem detail. The one that I wasn’t totally familiar with was the bearding line which is a reference for beveling. I used a tick stick, a girly batten and a square. After marking details on 4 surfaces, I started planing. Prior to planing, I used router for rounding the inside of the stem and used face sander for the end of it making round. Beveling surface has to be flat, because it is faying surface. Chris always tell us not to touch the line. After that anyway, I fixed it on the bed lining up the F.P. and station 0 (bulkhead) with screwing on to the bed. It looks good so far. Today, Jun and I lofted the first planking. There are two curves looking not really one fair curve and we checked twice. I thought that it could be like that it was quite curvy though. Anyway, we left 10mm both sides and no worries about it. Lofting today was the same for the bottoms, but this plywood’s thickness was 6 mm, which is half of the bottom ones, and Chris said 60 mm was perfectly enough for glueing area instead of 75 mm. If it is too long it will be rolled up. It has to be avoided lining the scarphing line of the first planking and the top side. (Not ‘has to be’ but Chris said that it is not good.) It makes sense.

Laminating sequence (the bottom plywood)

Mid-ship frame and stem

Transom

Sawing skill for making lovely joints

Wedges under a piece of wood for more compressor in the middle

Taking beveling angles with bevel square on plywood

Same method for scarphing (with resin only, no powder – powder can’t be soaked easily into the fiber of wood, so it is better used for outside of wood or something)

Skeg (follow the line of the bottom, used straight edge for flat surface of skeg and round bit for the end of it)

Box land (???)

Spoke shape (wooden body for honing)

Be aware of grain direction when sawing (stroke the grain for one side you chose)

Spiling planking (used for lofting the first planking before transferring on the card board)