Today I managed to get my neighbour’s table saw and have enough time to cut the centreboard slot.
Continue reading Caledonia yawl project: prepping the keelson
Caledonia yawl project: prepping the keelson
Tag Archives: apron
Caledonia yawl project: placing the aprons
This was a scary set of cuts to make. The laminating and dressing of the aprons took so much time it seems that the act of shaping them to be ready to mate with the keelson was trepidatious.
I also did some work on two pieces of cherry I picked up to see if I could make cleats and other rigging out of it.
Caledonia yawl project: bevelling the stems
Today my brother Maël helped me with the beveling of the stems. This will create a bigger mating surface for the planking. This will provide a mating surface for the planks.
We did the bulk of the work with the power planer and then finished with the block plane and the spokeshave. I did notice that because the laminated stem has alternating grain, it is important to have a sharp blade to avoid ripping out any of the grain.
I also managed to do the glue up of the rudder assembly.
Next up will be setting up the station molds and getting ready to bevel the keelson. This boat will soon finally be taking shape.
Caledonia yawl project: planing the stern apron and stem to size
I started this morning with a borrowed thickness planer, which allowed me to get the apron down to the specified 2″ thickness and the stem down to 1 3/4″ width.
The challenge was to keep checking the length of each piece to make sure it was square. I had to use the hand planer a couple times to get it nice and square the whole length so that the thickness planer did not perpetuate the wrong angle.
Once I finished the getting the stern apron and stem to the right width, I started on the bow apron glued up with epoxy and microfibres for better gap filling in the lamination and strength.
Caledonia yawl project: dressing the stern apron and stem
On Saturday my assistant and I went to the lumber yard to get one more 2×3 to rip for the bow apron lamination and a couple 2×4’s that may end up being used for the floor timbers.
Caledonia yawl project: Making more sawdust
The process of cutting thin strips for laminations is a reductive one. As I don’t have a band saw, I’m using a table saw with a blade that is just shy of 1/8 thick. So for every 1/8″ thick strip I cut, I loose as much in sawdust.
I have just two more 2×3 boards to rip and I’ll have everything I need to glue up the bow and stern apron and stem.
Ripping the strips to make the stem of my Caledonia Yawl
I’m finally making headway and ripping the VG douglas fir into 1/8″ by 2 1/2″ strips for the apron and 1/8″ by 2″ strips for the stem of the stern.
I’ll have to repeat the whole process for the bow apron and stem.
Last scarf, moving on to the aprons and stems.
This weekend I was able to get back up to speed on my Caledonia yawl project after missing a week. I glued one of the two scarfs on strake 2 and will leave the other to do when I’ve got the station molds up as there is the most twist in the forefoot of strake 2 and it will be easier apparently to glue it down first and then do the scarfs.
It was then time to tackle the apron and stems of this Caledonia Yawl. I’ve decided to try the method of laminating thin strips 1/8″ of Douglas fir with epoxy and West system 403 microfibre additive. The part I’ve been struggling with is that in Ian Oughtred’s plans the apron is 2″ wide. So I need to find a stock of wood that is at least 2.25 or 2.5 inches wide so that after it is laminated I have a little margin to plane it down and fair it.
But all the standar lumber jumps from 1.75″ to 3.5″ and it seems wasteful to rip down a 4×4 timber just to get something 2.5″ wide. After a visit to a couple lumber yards I decided to get a few vertical grain clear 2×3’s and rip them along the wide edge to get the width of strips I need.
The stems are only specified to be 1.75″ wide and so I am able to use rough fir 2x4s to cut the lamination strips and I’ll have 1/4 inch of material to plane off and to keep it true.
After using my full sized plans of the bow and stern apron and stem to punch through all the reference points onto my pattern board. I traced it all out again.
laying out the blocks I will use to clamp the laminated wood. Note that I’ve also put down packing tape to make sure the epoxy won’t stick to the pattern.