Finalising the garboards

The first job of the day was to slightly modify the guide I built yesterday. I added another hole at 20 mm from the heel, that way I can mark both 20 and 40 mm from the stringer top.

The new guide

Now I can firstly mark the line of the bottom of the stringer on the garboard, this will also be the bottom of the second plank.

40 mm from the top of the stringer

Secondly I can mark the middle of the next stringer (20 mm from the top) and this will be the top of the second plank.

20 mm fron the top and 40 mm from the top

Then I needed to plane the top of the garboard to match the angle to the next stringer but I had to be careful not to plane below the blue line. This is when my other guide becomes handy.

Guide and smoothing plane in action

Today I rough planed the plank with the smoothing plane and before I am ready to make the next plank I will also go over the plank landing with the block plane for fine tuning. I also need to cut the gains at the stem.

Quite happy with the result of the planing

I am aware that this is not the way you are supposed to do it according to the drawings but this is what happens when you build ahead of studying the drawings in detail. And I am sure the boat will be as good anyhow.

Finally I cut/planed the excess planking at the stem and transom, but unfortunately I did not get any good pictures, so I will show this another day.

Time today: 3h

Small jobs

Pulled the screws of the starboard side, the wax works a lot better than the WD40, did not break any screws today.

Todays harvest

When I was at the boat building academy they used mould release wax for the screws, after waxing and using them with  epoxy the screws where throw away since the wax did not work as well the second time. I believe this has to do with residual wax on the screws so it started to get me thinking that maybe you could "rehabilitate" the screws if you could remove the wax. So I decided to clean the screws and washers, not sure if it will help but at least it will prevent the washers from sticking together.

Scrubbing with dish washing liquid

Pour on some boiling water and scrub like a maniac

Rinse with hot water

Let them dry and put them back in their cans

I also built a small jig to mark the bottom of the stringer onto the plank, this is important since the bottom of the stringer determine the lower edge of the next plank.

The pen tip is 40 mm from the step, the same as the width of the stringers.

The blue line is what it does

Wrapped up the evening with touching up my planes.

One thing I forgot to mention the last time I discussed honing is a permanent marker. This is a great tool to see that you hone properly.

The primary bevel is covered with marker

Here also the honing bevel has marker on it but you can see that the primary bevel is not really flat yet especially on the left side.

Time today: 2.5h

The other side

Glued the sb garboard today, it went on much easier than the port perhaps practice helps...

After the glueing I needed to fix the mistake from yesterday, the butt joint doubler that was fitted with the packing tape on the wrong side. Chisel, sander and epoxy filler will make it all good again.

After ripping the doubler off

After chiseling, I damaged the planking a little

After sanding

After filling the chisel scratches and screw holes

The car wax worked fine, I must have had at least 30 screws in the plank and only one broke, and that was the screw in the butt doubler (again a stupid mistake since I ripped the doubler off before removing the screws..). Unfortunately it did not break inside the ply but rather sticking out quite a bit so I will have to dig it out somehow. Anyhow the wax has proved it-selves so I will continue with that.

The broken screw. I will drill or chisel it out after turning the boat

Time today: 3h

Back to glue

Glued up the port garboard today. Started by cutting the butt blocks and making sure everything woud fit properly, yes, this means I put all the pieces back on the boat again.... While doing that I noticed my screws might need to be a bit longer, after hanging the plank on the boat maybe at least 6 times there was very little wood left for the screws to grab onto. So I had to make an unscheduled visit to the hardware store to get more screws.

While there I also bough some car wax, I figure I would try to use wax on the screws instead of WD40 to see if this works better (to make sure the screws are not stuck in the glue).

Screws, washers and wax ready for action

Garboard in place!

Butt joint from the outside 

I just noticed from the picture I put it on the wrong way, the masking tape should face towards the glue not the other way, well I guess I have to chisel that one away tomorrow :o(  (I really need to fire my foreman, he is an idiot!)

And from the inside

Another one

View of the boat from the floor

Finally I prepared the other side for glueing tomorrow.

It is nice to have the strong back on castors so you can move it around a little.

Time today: 4h (Total time: 145 h)

Getting the pieces ready

Finalising the last bit of the garboard and getting all the pieces ready for glueing tomorrow.

Cutting out the aft end

All the pieces in place

Initially my intention was to scarf the pieces on the workbench and then fit the whole plank onto the boat, however a few days ago I started thinking if this was the right way. Fitting the whole plank might be a bit of a struggle when working alone. In addition I was getting a little nervous about doing the scarfing on the bench since a small misalignment in the scarfing might screw up the whole plank. So I decided to find out what others had done on their Welsford builds, and one of the best ways of doing this is to post a question on the JWbuilders yahoo group.
The answers I got back showed me that there are as many ways of doing it as there is builders, this got me thinking perhaps I should try some different ways, after all I am trying to learn stuff here, right!

So I have decided to butt join the garboard plank, the rest of the planks will be scarfed, some directly on the boat and some on the workbench. Then hopefully I will have learned which was is the easiest.

Before removing the planks from the boat I mades sure to mark all the frames, stringers and scarfs (butts actually) on the planks.

Here you can see the markings after removing the forward section of the plank, before the butt was cut

Here the mid section, the markings will help me put the plank in the right position and also show me where to put the glue.

Time today: 1h

The middle piece

Worked on the middle piece of the garboard today. Started by marking it of on the 6mm ply, I noticed that the template had become a little loose in the joints so I decided to cut it quite a bit bigger than the marking.

After the dry fitting I noticed that there where far from enough curve at the bottom, the top side was quite ok. Since the lower side is concave I could not really plane it to the right shape so I used my sable saw to cut slivers of it and dry fitted many times to get the right shape.

Plank, slivers and saw

Plank in place after final shaping, no scarf with the forward end yet and no screws in bottom stringer (that is why it sags a little)

Since I shaped both starboard and port together I get two identical planks so the fitting on the other side only required a touch up with the plane.

I also drew up the shape of the last part of the plank, but as my power tool policy do not allow me to cut this late it will have to wait until another day.

Time today: 2.5h

Always remember to mark...

Lesson number one of boat building:
"Always remember to mark everything and then mark some more"

I forgot this one...stupid... even tough I fidded the plank and marked the scarfs, I forgot to mark the frames! This makes it a little difficult to know exactly where to hang the plank... I did not want to re-fit the template again and remark, so I will just see how it goes (at least the transom position is properly marked).

Started the day by cutting out the forward end of the garboard, the one I marked yesterday.

I cut both planks at the same time to get the same shape

First dry fit

Some planing, again as a pair to keep both garboards identical

The first one in place (there will be more clamps and screws when I glue it). 

It took me three fittings to get a good shape but as you can see it is not a perfect fit, it is slightly too high in the along the forward part of the first stringer, not a problem since this will be planed anyhow. Also a little high in the forward end along the bottom. I "mis-fidded" the curve here, but not worse than it can be fixed with some filler etc. In addition the garboard and bottom will be glassed. (Maybe I will plane the stringers a little more to get a closer fit)

Both forward parts dry fitted, will leave them on the boat over night hopefully they will adjust a little to the curve.

As you may have noticed the pictures today are somewhat better than previous. That has to do with the fact that I have a new camera (well a phone actually) so hopefully for the rest of the build we will be able to see what is in the pictures.

Time today: 2h

Garboard plank again

Today was very much a repeat of yesterday. Erasing yesterdays markings, nailing the template onto the boat, fid the outline of the plank and remove it from the boat.

I got a little further though.

Template back on the boat and the plank has been marked again

Template on the planking stock

Cut out the stem shape

Transferring the plank edge mark onto the planing stock

Then I hammered a nail into each of the marks and ran a batten along the nails and drew the shape of the plan.

Forward part of the garboard, looking from aft

and from the forward end

I was planning to cut the plank as well, but it got to be too late and as I want to stay friendly with my neighbors I try to avoid using power saws after around 7 o'clock.

Time today: 2h