And finally, all the tenons needed to be trimmed flush where
they come through the gunwales. Sanding, even with a good
sanding block, would wear down the gunwales as well as the ends
of the tenons. The best solution is to trim them with a very
sharp chisel.
I can hand-sharpen a chisel to reasonably sharp, but that isn't quite the razor sharpness I would like. So I gave up and bought a honing guide. Dad would have had a cow, but he had very steady hands and the ability to repeat movements exactly for long periods of time. When I hand-sharpen I end up with curved "flat" surfaces. However, a quality evening with the honing guide and varying levels of grit from 100 grit sandpaper through three grades of stone, ending with 1000 grit sandpaper gave me a wonderfully sharp pair of wide and narrow chisels and a 2" plane.
The sharp chisel takes off a paper thin layer, even across the grain, leaving a nice smooth flush end!
The top outside edge of the gunwale needs to be rounded off so the skin will curve over it instead of having a sharp edge that will wear through. (see the pretty curls coming from the lovely sharp blade...)
Given the grain, I can only plane in one direction so I do a long pass the full length of the boat getting a thin curly shaving, then trot back down the boat and do it again (and again and ... then switch to the other side!). Glad I'm not building a longer boat!
Finally, the bow and stern blocks need to be lashed to the gunwales. I grooved the wood so that when the skin is on, the lashings won't form a ridge that would wear through.
The deck is now one solid piece. I can pick it up and wave it around and it holds its shape and nothing falls off!
And after all this, it looks just about the same as it has for weeks.
Before I bend the ribs, I need to be absolutely sure that I make them deep enough that I can get into the boat!! So I set the deck up on blocks on the floor for testing.
The cross-piece is the thickness of the future cockpit coaming, so if I can sit on that and slide under the deck beam in front of it, that is the right depth. The size I calculated back before starting is just exactly enough space, with no wiggle room. I decided to add 3/4 of an inch for cold weather clothes and general ease of entry.
I also make a note that the ribs at that point need to have a generous curve so I can fit my, um, generous curve in the bottom of the boat.
There are two ways to bend ribs. Making patterns for each one and bending each rib over its pattern, or setting up a batten where the keel will be and bending the ribs in place just touching the batten. No way I'm making 33 separate patterns. I hand-bent the ribs for the last boat and it worked fine. I'm doing that again.
With the batten bent it's starting to look like a three dimensional boat instead of just a deck!
So, about those ribs. When we last saw them, the planer produced thin, wide strips that were the right thickness but needed to be cut into several ribs each. To bend a rib evenly, it helps tremendously if the rib is the same thickness and width from end to end. The planer made sure of the thickness. However, the edge was still a bit wavy from where I'd hand flattened the original log. I was going to have to make that edge perfectly straight.
It just so happened that a co-worker came by my desk last week and said he had to get rid of a jointer 'cause he'd developed an allergy to wood dust (side effect of liver & kidney transplant). Did I have any use for it? What perfect timing!
He brought it over mid-day on Sunday (in a power outage, thanks to the wind and the power lines going through the trees). When the power came back in the afternoon I put clean straight edges on all the strips.
Then I ran the strips through the table saw and got perfectly even ribs.
(note that both photos are mocked up with the tools turned off. I value my various body parts too much to try to hold a piece of wood on a spinning blade while taking a selfie, thank you very much).
Some quality time with the power sander rounds the sharp corners so the ribs won't wear on the skin (of the boat or the person sliding into the boat).
Next trick is bending ribs. From reading various sources, hot water works as well as steam and doesn't have the timing issues (steam too short a time and the wood doesn't bend, too long and it splinters). I happen to have an old copper pan from a window planter that holds water and is long enough to hold the ribs and will fit on the grill... Should work! I'll let you know.
I can hand-sharpen a chisel to reasonably sharp, but that isn't quite the razor sharpness I would like. So I gave up and bought a honing guide. Dad would have had a cow, but he had very steady hands and the ability to repeat movements exactly for long periods of time. When I hand-sharpen I end up with curved "flat" surfaces. However, a quality evening with the honing guide and varying levels of grit from 100 grit sandpaper through three grades of stone, ending with 1000 grit sandpaper gave me a wonderfully sharp pair of wide and narrow chisels and a 2" plane.
The sharp chisel takes off a paper thin layer, even across the grain, leaving a nice smooth flush end!
The top outside edge of the gunwale needs to be rounded off so the skin will curve over it instead of having a sharp edge that will wear through. (see the pretty curls coming from the lovely sharp blade...)
Given the grain, I can only plane in one direction so I do a long pass the full length of the boat getting a thin curly shaving, then trot back down the boat and do it again (and again and ... then switch to the other side!). Glad I'm not building a longer boat!
Finally, the bow and stern blocks need to be lashed to the gunwales. I grooved the wood so that when the skin is on, the lashings won't form a ridge that would wear through.
The deck is now one solid piece. I can pick it up and wave it around and it holds its shape and nothing falls off!
And after all this, it looks just about the same as it has for weeks.
Before I bend the ribs, I need to be absolutely sure that I make them deep enough that I can get into the boat!! So I set the deck up on blocks on the floor for testing.
The cross-piece is the thickness of the future cockpit coaming, so if I can sit on that and slide under the deck beam in front of it, that is the right depth. The size I calculated back before starting is just exactly enough space, with no wiggle room. I decided to add 3/4 of an inch for cold weather clothes and general ease of entry.
I also make a note that the ribs at that point need to have a generous curve so I can fit my, um, generous curve in the bottom of the boat.
There are two ways to bend ribs. Making patterns for each one and bending each rib over its pattern, or setting up a batten where the keel will be and bending the ribs in place just touching the batten. No way I'm making 33 separate patterns. I hand-bent the ribs for the last boat and it worked fine. I'm doing that again.
With the batten bent it's starting to look like a three dimensional boat instead of just a deck!
So, about those ribs. When we last saw them, the planer produced thin, wide strips that were the right thickness but needed to be cut into several ribs each. To bend a rib evenly, it helps tremendously if the rib is the same thickness and width from end to end. The planer made sure of the thickness. However, the edge was still a bit wavy from where I'd hand flattened the original log. I was going to have to make that edge perfectly straight.
It just so happened that a co-worker came by my desk last week and said he had to get rid of a jointer 'cause he'd developed an allergy to wood dust (side effect of liver & kidney transplant). Did I have any use for it? What perfect timing!
He brought it over mid-day on Sunday (in a power outage, thanks to the wind and the power lines going through the trees). When the power came back in the afternoon I put clean straight edges on all the strips.
Then I ran the strips through the table saw and got perfectly even ribs.
(note that both photos are mocked up with the tools turned off. I value my various body parts too much to try to hold a piece of wood on a spinning blade while taking a selfie, thank you very much).
Some quality time with the power sander rounds the sharp corners so the ribs won't wear on the skin (of the boat or the person sliding into the boat).
Next trick is bending ribs. From reading various sources, hot water works as well as steam and doesn't have the timing issues (steam too short a time and the wood doesn't bend, too long and it splinters). I happen to have an old copper pan from a window planter that holds water and is long enough to hold the ribs and will fit on the grill... Should work! I'll let you know.
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