July - August 2012

While attaching the keelson to the stem I found that I needed to make an adjustment to the stem. Since I had installed the stem into station mold # 2 and the keelson sat on top of the station molds I needed to add 3 additional 1/8 strips to the stem. Once these strips were glued in place with gorilla glue I could begin shaping the stem. What a job; the temperature outside was in the 90’s. I started with my trusty spokeshave but found that the white oak was so hard and fibrous that the best tool for the job was my 7 inch sanding disc sander. I used 50 and 60 grit discs and this accomplished this task in short order.

            In preparation for attaching the strips to the mold I applied gorilla duct tape to the edges of each station mold. On August 19^th I installed the first strips to the mold, one on each side. I attached all the consequent strips with #6 1 inch hex head spatx screws. I started to use gorilla glue to edge glue each strip to the next and this worked great until I reached the bilge or curvature of the hull. Once I started making the compound bends to the strips the gorilla glue did not work and I needed to start using epoxy to edge glue the strips together. So here’s the process that I used:

·       For the strips to make a compound bend I found that this worked best if I soaked the strips overnight. I therefore joined 2 eight foot pieces of 4 inch PVC pipe together to make a sixteen foot soaking tube. Each strip was about 10-12 feet long and therefore needed to be scarfed to make the 17 foot strips required to fit the boat mold.

·       If you have ever tried to scarf wet wood you will find that it doesn’t work. I therefore scarfed the ends of the long strips prior to soaking and also made 5 foot strips with scarfed ends that were also soaked overnight.

·       On pulling a soaked strip out of the soaking tube I attached the strip to the mold with the #6 screws and scarfed each strip in place with gorilla glue. I then let the strips dry which took about a day.

·       Once the strips were dry I than lightly loosened each strip for the mold, applied epoxy to the edges and tightened the strips back to the mold.

  

 

·       As I added more and more strips to the molds, I found that some of the epoxied edges would ‘open’ due to the drying of the wood so I applied more thickened epoxy to the edges/seams of these strips.