next posts

fixing the bottom

taping the frames/midship

box landing

Attaching the Topside

The problem that we ran into when getting ready to attach the topside pieces was that the "jig" piece that can be used to create pressure weren't deep enough to account for the garboard or strake pieces.  So we had to use long nails to keep them attached until the glue dried (We later learned that screws would have been a lot easier, we were trying to minimize the amount and width of hole, but regardless...).  Anyway, so once we dry fit the side, and made our markings on the wood to be attached then we were able to apply the resin and hardener, once again using the WEST system.  As another side note, we dry fit the piece multiple times because we kept on forgetting things.  This is where a list and a manager, who has built boats before, could come into play.  We could have a list of the things that we need to mark and check and look for in the first dry fitting and then only do it once and not waste the 30 minutes that we did.  Also, we were very careful to note that when we hammered in a nail to realize that this nail would need to come out, so we got smaller bits of ply and other scrap and made little 25 by 25mm squares and hammered those in as well so when the glue hardened we could just break that off and retract the nail without damaging the topside. Here are some pictures of the topside.  NOTE: we did a box landing joint at the bow and I will discuss this in a later blog as well.

"Handing" the Topside

One of the important aspects of building a boat is getting the heights or freeboard correct on either side.  This can be very difficult a task because we build each side and then try to line them up as best we can.  One way that we found to make this process just slightly easier is called handing.  This is when you need to make 2 or more pieces the exact same but instead of drawing, cutting, planing and whatever else you can simply fasten the pieces together and draw, cut and plane once. We learned this technique the hard way because we only handed the strakes, not the garboard.  Because we didnt had the garboard we had to somehow go back and plane off the uneven bits that were left on the bottom of the boat.  I will post more on this later.