Shiver My Timbers – a whole new language

One of the major learning curves in this project is learning all the terminology for components in the boat – I’ve always taken an interest in language, but have never heard most of the terms used, and the ones I thought I knew have a whole new meaning in boat building. For example the “floors” in a boat are not the things you stand on (they’re decks of course (actually in the cabin or cockpit I think they are more correctly called the “Sole” or Sole Plate”!!!) meanwhile the floors are under the deck (like floor joists in a building), but they are actually there to provide “athwart-ships stiffness”! – see what I mean!

After a year of reviewing the plans, and extensive reading and starting to build I think I am getting the hang of it… either way onto the subject of this post:

Installing and Beveling/Fairing the Stem/Hog etc.

Having constructed the moulds and strong-back the first bits of real boat to be added are the internal structures that provide the “backbone” of the boat…. These are the “stem” (the vertical post in the bow on this design) the “hog” the part of the keel that goes inside the hull planking, the “transom” the flat vertical stern, and the “clamp”… This last item provides a sort of ring around the entire boat from stem to stern at deck level. In the end it defines the deck-line (known as the “Sheerline”) and seems also to be known as the “Beam Clamp”,  “inwale”, “sheer clamp” and arguably “gunwale” (although that’s likely to be an additional bit added on top)….

I described in the last post how the stem was laminated, here we can see it mounted onto the strong-back, and also see the hog in place.

 

More Bevelling

These components are then bevelled to allow them to match the planking and frames.

This is a worrying topic – but having tried a few approaches, the right one (as recommended in the books and now proven by a complete beginner) is to make two saw cuts where each mould meets the hog, and where the test planks meet the stem, and line the saw blade up with the mould or plank, so you saw down to a line which is an extension of the mould/plank line. Then you chisel out the timber between the saw cuts – so that you have a notch that is approximately the same as the bevelling needs to be, and then you plane down the component until you meet the bevels (trying to make a smooth transition between each notch). Actually easier than it sounds! Here are some pics…

On to the Clamp

The last four days have been about making and fitting the clamp.

This is constructed from three laminations (15mm by 90mm).

As it turns out persuading these laminations to follow the sheerline was more than I could manage – (or more accurately more than my nerves would stand).

So following a conversation with Mike Bell from the SBA he suggested making the forward part of the clamp by splitting the laminations vertically so I had six “sticks” of 15mm by 45mm – this turned out to be a good plan, and I was able to fit the clamp constructed this way (abeit with some straining and one failure – see below).

The process is to construct single laminations by scarfing several planks together (and the new narrower laminations at the bow). I will discuss this in the next post.

But here is the clamp in place (well the first lamination anyway)!