Sunday 4 January 2015

Almost done planking

With just the bow end of the top plank to do, I figured it'd be nice to show my "look ma, no screws" method of planking. It relies on the fact that the Navigator has reasonably narrow planks (hey, that what gives her such lovely lines), as I have to be able to get a clamp over the top of the plank with a bit of wood placed in such a way that it puts roughly equal pressure on the stringers on each side of the plank.

Anyway, pictures. First here's a close up of a clamp in place. If you look closely on the stringer side, you'll see a simple length of wood spanning the stringers:

Here's a view of the inside (complete with sleeping cat) showing the temporary braces. These are just held in by the clamp pressure. I've got to be careful not to get any goop on them, or else they're rather hard to get out afterwards (ask me how I know this!).

This picture is probably more illustrative, but has the disadvantage of not showing my cat sleeping on the forward thwart:

I took all these clamped up photos while test-fitting, before mixing up epoxy. When I've got a batch of epoxy going, I keep the camera well away. That stuff sticks to anything.

Anyway, it's getting to the point where it looks like it might even float. Here's the stern section, with the cockpit seats all buttoned up and all the planking done. I resisted the urge to paint out the inside of the cockpit seats. I gave it a thorough coating of epoxy and left it at that.

For the join between the aft and midships section of the top plank I elected to do a scarf rather than a butt-join. This is purely cosmetic - this join isn't hidden behind seats so I don't want an ugly lump of wood showing.

Up front you can see where the final plank piece goes. I moved the midships-bow join for the third plank one frame forward from plan - this hides it forward of bulkhead 2. I haven't done anything to hide the join for the midships-bow section of the top plank (just aft of bulkhead 4), as that's where I'll be putting the chainplates for tying the shrouds off to, and a double thickness of ply there will reinforce things nicely.

This is the view I get now when I walk into the garage. I get a lot of pleasure from seeing this every day.

5 comments:

Joel Bergen said...

Brilliant!

Lorenzo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lorenzo said...

Well done, such a neat and clean piece of work

Unknown said...

Nice one Suzy, coming together and see you on the water soon then !

John's Big Cancer Adventure said...

HEY! Quit it! You're giving me anxiety. All of the sudden I find I'm competing with you and YOU'RE winning! Whats up with that???

Just joshin' yer taters, Suzy. Looks fantastic. I've got a severe case of jealousy on your amazing set of skills. Seriously, is there anything you can't do well?

I just flipped my boat over and am cleaning up the bottom and getting ready to 'glass it. Would love to be in closer contact now that we're at roughly similar stages of build. Although I cannot guarantee that I can keep up with your pace.