Making the Planks

A twenty foot sheet of plywood is a beautiful thing. It took more than a little work though.

If you remember, I was originally going to use puzzle jointed sheets of plywood to make the long sections I needed for the planks. Because of cost and schedule I decided to go the old fashioned way and use scarf joints. Cutting the scarfs was easy enough. I have made a 6:1 jig for my circular saw that leaves a fairly decent scarf. Once cut it only takes a few minutes to tune it up with my block plane. From there it was a matter of gluing up the joints.

As you can see I used every bit of weight I had in the shop to clamp up the sheets. This was the end result.

Large voids and big gaps in the panels due to not enough clamping pressure. Cussing and moaning, I pulled out my track saw and proceeded to remove the offending joints. This is the rig I used for round two, jointed 2×4’s and quick-grip clamps ensured there was enough pressure to do the job.

The end result?

A satisfied inspector.

 

Off Center Harbor

I am always on the lookout for anything that will help me be a better worker. Doesn’t matter what I am doing, I always want to do it better. Something that has helped me a ton is the videos on Off Center Harbor. For those of you that don’t know Off Center Harbor is a subscription based website that provides high quality videos for the small boat sailor. Its like a youtube for boat nuts.

I have seen their advertisements for a while now but never wanted to pony up the money for the subscription. I figured everything I wanted was on youtube. Turns out I was wrong. I stumbled upon one of their videos that had Geoff Kerr from Two Daughters Boatworks building a Caledonia Yawl. Like any good drug dealer OCH had posted a few “free” videos from their 42 part series on youtube. After watching all I could I was hooked. I ponied up the 30 or so dollars for the year and never looked back.

If you are going to build a glued lapstrake boat and have never done such a thing, I highly suggest you check them out.

 

PS: I am not getting kickbacks for advertisement.