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Click on photos for larger view.
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Finish planking |
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Here's my workbench with the resawn planks, the highest stack is the 5 footers. In the
foreground are some test pieces... one where I laminated a few pieces, put some bungs in, and
glassed it... another where I'm trying different stains, with the idea of staining the wood
before glassing. That piece isn't glassed yet.
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Resawing did not go as I had dreamed, but worked out OK. I had visions of my new bandsaw with a
3/4" resaw blade shaving off clean even slices, all 12' long. (I'm working with a 14" Ridgid Bandsaw,
with a Kreg resawing fence, and two decent roller stands.
Here's the story...
- Started with one blank of mahogany, 12' x 3" x 9" (could barely lift it)
- Ripped it down the middle with hand-held circular saw and an edge guide
- Squared up the 3" x 4-1/2" blanks on the planer.
My target was to resaw to about 7/32, with the goal of planing to about 1/8" (I had done some
test cuts with some leftover framing stock, cut on edge, and that had worked well)
- Tried to resaw the first 12 footer.
- Had lots of problems with blade drift and jamming... The wood was still very heavy and
awkward. I learned that resawing is all about being "nimble and responsive".
- After a couple of really bad and awkward cuts at 12', I decided to cut my blanks to
shorter lengths.
- My new target was to produce lengths of 8', 4', 7', and 5'.
- The resawing went much better with the shorter lengths, but still was not
perfect. Some of the planks had thick and thin spots.
- I planed all the planks to the target 1/8". My goal was to have one "sweet" face,
with some sawmarks OK on the back, as long as the thickness was good. There were
still some spots where I was too thin, so I cut these out, making two shorter pieces.
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Since I will be bright above the bootstripe, and painted below the bootstripe, I plan to use
plywood where it won't show. This picture shows where I projected the bootstripe for dry-fitting
my plywood+mahogany strakes.
View high resolution photo (1280x960 324KB)
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This was my first attempt at dry-fitting of the planks. I'm painting below the boot-top, so have plywood aft,
and mahogany forward.
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This was the first time that I needed to do any serious spiling. Every one of those
mahogany+plywood strakes (longitudinals) ended up fan-shaped to some degree. Some of them lose over an inch
from front to back. Other than the top board, the plywood strips all started out the same width. Look how
skinny some of them ended up to fit the fair curve without lifting. The boards are only loosely tacked down,
so temporary edge lift may look like gaps in this photo. You'll see that there is plenty of demand for 2'
lengths of mahogany plank, so I don't feel so bad about cutting some of those longer planks that had the thin spots.
I definitely had a "learning event" doing this first side. I thought I was being really clever by ripping my
plywood strips to the same width as my mahogany. I initially fitted all the plywood, then tried to add the
mahogany at the bow.. When I got to the mahogany pieces at the bow, I found that the natural curve was
fanning them out, and leaving gaps between the planks. I had to turn around and re-do it, working from the
keel downward, working the entire length of the boat in each strip. (duh... pretty obvious now that I think about it).
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This side went much more smoothly than the first. Knew to work in continuous strakes from keel to
chine. Started using the bandsaw to to rough fitting of the marked planks. This saved a lot of planing time.
View high resoluition photo (1280x960 284KB)
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Again... there is lots of need for two foot pieces, so I don't feel as bad about having these "orphaned"
pieces which resulted from my resawing escapades.
View high resolution photo (1280x960 311KB)
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Here is a closer view of the second side. Again, these are only lightly tacked, so edge-lift
looks like gaps. You can see that there are still a few saw marks from the resawing. There is plenty
of thickness to sand these out. Now I just need it to warm up so that I can epoxy these to the hull !
View high resolution photo (1280x960 261KB)
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For planking the sides, I started by laying out all the required lengths into individual
"strakes", making sure that joints between individual planks were kept well apart on adjoining
strakes.
(23-FEB-2007)
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I then used some scrap plywood to determine the lines for the planks on the sides. I decided to
start with them parallel to the boot top, because the shape of the bow leads to a gentle upsweep
forward. You can see that I have removed and stored the bottom pieces that I dry-fit. They've all
been numbered for re-assembly when it's warm enough to epoxy.
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Again, these are just plywood test strips to get a sense of how they will lie, and where the shape of
the hull will take them. This shows how the strips sweep upward, and fan out in the flared bow section.
At the bow, the gaps between these test planks expands to approx 1" between the planks. This means that
my overall strakes will be "fan shaped".... wide at the bow, narrow behind.
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Here is the first strake that I dry-fitted. It follows the boot-top aft, and its "natural"
lie takes a gentle upsweep along the chine.
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This picture shows how the planks that mate snugly in the middle and stern sections will naturally
fan out in the forward section. The remedy is spiling....
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Every plank is labelled for: side, strake, and sequence. This will ensure that they all go
in the right place when It finally warms up here, and I can glue them on permanently.
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First, I lightly stapled the entire strake to the side of the boat, starting from the stern
and working forward. Toward the bow, the natural lie of the plank will cause it to separate
from the plank before.
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