Wood Epoxy Saturation Technique

 When gluing it is important to always saturate the wood, namely end grain, with glue.  This is because the wood will soak up the glue which can/will cause the joint to split apart.  This is done by applying resin to the end grain and then waiting 5 to 10 mins until the wood has soaked it in, then you can make more resin, this time adding the fixatrope, and then sealing the joint.  This video quickly demonstrates the first part of this process.

Cutting, Scarfing, Gluing, Sanding

The boat that we are building is 3.5 meters and the standards length that ply comes in is 2.4 x 1.2 so in order to get the desired length we must joing together sheets of ply, this is best done by scarfing. This is when you plane both sides back a certain distance (in our case we used a 1:10 ratio) and then flip it over and fit the joint with epoxy. When we planed our joint we drew lines set and tried our best to plan to a 'feather edge' and not cross the line. This can be extremely tricky if you are not very careful. We laid the bow piece over the rest because it is the smaller piece and then cramped them both down, this makes the job twice as fast in half the time. If you look closely you can see that there is another piece of particle board on top of the bench that we are working on. This is because the bench does not have a sharp edge and if we were to work on it we could either damage the bench or chip off pieces of the ply that we are working with. The bench also has a removable center piece so when you need to cramp down both sides of your work you can. In the second photo you can see the top piece is nearly down and the bottom piece is not quite there. I took this photo before we finished it so that I could explain how you can tell if your joint is flush without hollows or bumps. You can see the straight lines that result from the different layers of ply being cut evenly across on the top and then on the bottom you can see the line wavers. The bottom board has a bump that still needs to be taken out. Looking at the next photo you can see how the joint is going to fit together. When we planed the joint we tried as hard as possible to get right up to that line and also not to chip off the feather edge but sometimes errors happen and you can see why it is important to be extra careful, because if there are imperfections like bumps, hollow, chips or over planing then the joint won't fit right. Another thing that you should have that is not apparent on these photos is straight lines that you can line up to put the boards back together. An easy way to do this is when you are dry fitting. Simply use your cutout to check for size and then draw straight lines on the ply to ensure that when you put them back together you wont mess up. When you remove the chance for error or decrease your need to think about every little step, that is good. Clovegro always says, "When you plan you become 10% quicker!" The boat that we are building is 3.5 meters and the standards length that ply comes in is 2.4 x 1.2 so in order to get the desired length we must joing together sheets of ply, this is best done by scarfing. This is when you plane both sides back a certain distance (in our case we used a 1:10 ratio) and then flip it over and fit the joint with epoxy. When we planed our joint we drew lines set and tried our best to plan to a 'feather edge' and not cross the line. This can be extremely tricky if you are not very careful. We laid the bow piece over the rest because it is the smaller piece and then cramped them both down, this makes the job twice as fast in half the time. If you look closely you can see that there is another piece of particle board on top of the bench that we are working on. This is because the bench does not have a sharp edge and if we were to work on it we could either damage the bench or chip off pieces of the ply that we are working with. The bench also has a removable center piece so when you need to cramp down both sides of your work you can. In the second photo you can see the top piece is nearly down and the bottom piece is not quite there. I took this photo before we finished it so that I could explain how you can tell if your joint is flush without hollows or bumps. You can see the straight lines that result from the different layers of ply being cut evenly across on the top and then on the bottom you can see the line wavers. The bottom board has a bump that still needs to be taken out. Looking at the next photo you can see how the joint is going to fit together. When we planed the joint we tried as hard as possible to get right up to that line and also not to chip off the feather edge but sometimes errors happen and you can see why it is important to be extra careful, because if there are imperfections like bumps, hollow, chips or over planing then the joint won't fit right. Another thing that you should have that is not apparent on these photos is straight lines that you can line up to put the boards back together. An easy way to do this is when you are dry fitting. Simply use your cutout to check for size and then draw straight lines on the ply to ensure that when you put them back together you wont mess up. When you remove the chance for error or decrease your need to think about every little step, that is good. Clovegro always says, "When you plan you become 10% quicker!"  During the gluing stage we learned that you need to saturated end grain because the wood will soak up glue and pull it away from the joint, which can cause the scarf to split apart.  I will discuss that more later with a video.  After the glue is allowed to dry then you can lightly plane and sand the joint flat, being careful not to sand through the layers of glue that was applied to make the ply itself. 

Beveling the Bottom of the Frames

We need to prebevel the frames before we put the bottom ply onto the frames.  This is important because there needs to be a tight fit.  This video demonstrates how this can be easily done.

Fairing the Bottom

So when we started to think about attaching the bottom we went back to the autoCAD drawing and pulled the dimensions for the stations.  Then we went to a piece of posterboard and perfectly faired on the deckline  Here Dion uses a Spruce batten to fair in the lines.  The easiest way for me to check if the lines are fair is to get down low to the ground and look down the length of the batten.  Then we cut out the pattern and take it over to the ply for the bottom.  

Making and Setting the Frames

If the boat that we are building didnt come with exact frame sizes we would need to loft the whole thing out and then get the frame sizes for all the stations from the body plan.  Luckily, in clovegro's infinite wisdom, he gave us the exact sizes of the frames in the autoCAD drawing.  We had to go through and draw them on to sheets of woods, in our case we found old sheets of particle board that is used to prevent dings and scraps from getting onto good sheets of ply when it is bundled and shipped - free wood = good wood.  To be the most economical and to use as much as the sheet as possible we had to attach a small bit onto the edge in order to fit the entire frame, this can just be screwed or attached as needed because this is not part of the final boat.  Marking out the frames needs to be perfectly precise because this is what will cause the boat to be fair or unfair because the sheets of ply that will form the final product will wrap tight around these frames.  Once all the frames are drawn and cut they can be put into place.  the station 0 and station 5 needed angled braces but the rest can just be braced off of each other.  We attached our angled braces too high on station five and so later on in the build we came across problems when setting the transom and, in turn, attaching the garboard planks, this is where building knowledge comes into play.  We had to remove and reattach braces in our boat, but now I won't forget this for next time. 

Buidling the Stock or Ladder

In order to begin the build we must first construct a stock that we will be building the frames and boat on.  This is an incredibly important stage because if we set the stock height to low or high it will become considerably harder on us to build at a comfortable height, aka, planing or sanding above our heads or trying to get under a boat that is 1 foot off of the ground.  It is also vital that the stock is level fore and aft and port to starboard because otherwise the boat will be built on an angle and will make it considerably harder on ourselves to do anything correctly.  There also needs to be a centerline on this jig that we can line the stations and frames up to as a reference point.  These points are indicated on the photo:

Beginning of the 'Hory Dory'

We have started are build of the 3.5 meter dory that we are building as the main project of the semester.  This boat was designed by Christopher John Scott Lovegrove, who also is one of the tutors at this school.  We have 6 weeks, 3 days per, to complete this project.  It will be challenging because no one on our team has ever built a boat before. 

We were able to choose are team from the members of the class which is good because we already know each other well and we know the strengths and weaknesses of the team.  A good team consists of many attributes, communication, hardwork, and knowledge being the biggest three.  Communication:  we must be able to understand what the other person is thinking and discuss parts of the build to arrive at the best possible solution.  Hardwork: if people are lazy and/or don't show up to class then the boat will not be completed on time.  This is costly for both the rest of the team and for the future because it can mean that the costs of the finished craft increase.  Knowledge:  we must understand how to build the craft.  We have a set of plans and access to the autoCAD drawing but we must understand the steps needed to effectively build and not waste time.