Planking begins!

Planking at last!  The bottom is on, all two layers of it (3/8" + 1/4").   I'm experimenting with building the boat on higher sawhorses than I've done in the past.  I figure that the bottom and garboards might be a bit difficult--I have to stand on something like a stool to reach them--but after that it should be smooth sailing as planking proceeds.  In fact, I'm going to see how much I can get done on the boat while it is still bottom-side-up on high sawhorses.  I've got the height set so I can stand up without crouching under the center of the boat, making for reasonably easy working conditions. One advantage is that sanding dust falls out of the boat rather than accumulating in the boat, which it will do once the boat is right-side-up.  So maybe I'll get the bulkheads in place and a few other items done before removing the hull from the setup and flipping it over.

So, once the bottom and garboards are in place, I'll then install the various floors rather than immediately proceeding with the rest of the planking (as tempting as that might be).  The floors with be back-fastened through the bottom, so by doing that first I can then go ahead and glass the bottom and garboards while the boat is bottom-side-up. I'm planning on glassing the bottom and garboards, but the rest of the planking (inside and out) will be coated with System 3 Clear Coat Epoxy rather than glassing. For gluing, I'm using West System 105.

But back to planking...

Before the big glue up, I dry fit the two layers, cut out the slot for the centerboard, and drilled for a few 10x1-1/2" bronze screws.  That said, epoxy does most of the work in this type of construction.

The centerboard case is positioned in "slots" in the molds.  The logs are about 1-1/2" wide, and they will be glued and
screwed to the two-layer bottom. 

Another view of the centerboard case.  Once the hull is done, the boat will be epoxy coated, inside and out, but for now it looks like a bit of a mess!  The sides of the case are 5/8", glued up from (again) 3/8" and 1/4" plywood.  To reduce the amount of scrap ply left over at the end of the project, all pieces will be made up of 3/8" and 1/4" plywood.  That would include the 3/4" transom and centerboard (two layers of 3/8" ply)...except I was fortunate enough to have some 3/4" (15mm) ply left over from another project that I could use.  So that saved a bit of gluing.

Speaking of the centerboard, I forgot to mention that, before I glued up the centerboard case, I made a pattern of the centerboard itself (using scrap luan ply) and drilled for the centerboard pin.  That way I'm absolutely sure that the centerboard will fit in the case and swing up and down correctly later on.

That's a lot of clamps!  Once I had covered all faying surfaces with glue, I drove the screws, starting at the centerboard case and moving to the ends.  I checked carefully that there were no "kinks" in the two layers, and drilled a few small holes in the outer 1/4" layer to let air and excess glue escape.  I also mixed the epoxy with slow hardener so that it would have a few hours to ooze out along the edges before setting up.  To apply clamping pressure, I used some 2x4s as cauls with a very slight curve cut along their length so that they apply pressure all along their length.  Oh and I piled some weight on top--a heavy pump and some lead bricks, among other things--making sure the weights were over molds so that the heavy weight didn't create a hollow in the bottom.  (In theory, I could have vacuum-bagged the two layers which would have been a clean, effective, and high-tech solution, albeit requiring some materials that I didn't have on hand and probably more time-consuming than the clamping operation.)

The clamps are removed and, voila, the bottom is laminated and securely glued and screwed to the stem, centerboard case, and transom.

This detail shot of the transom shows the two layers glued up.  I could have made the outer layer the same width as the inner layer, but that would have wasted some (expensive) plywood.  Using my lofting, I figured out how much narrower the outer layer could be at each mold.  This edge will now be beveled to accept the garboards, which come next. Technically, the aft part of the bottom will be chamfered and the forward part beveled, but I hope to get to that next time.

A la prochaine!

Plank laps and just a bit of varnish...

With the setup faired up reasonably well, I made up six battens about 16-17' long to lay out the plank lines.  On a lapstrake boat like Belle, these will show up strongly, so I wanted them to be nice and fair.  Plus I threw a quick coat of thinned varnish on the transom to protect it a bit from spills and hand prints etc.  Western Red Cedar is very soft and soaks up any kind of liquid like a sponge.  I think I'll add a second coat later too, just in case.

I'm really anxious to get planking, especially now that I've "seen" the planks using my battens!  But...sigh...I'd really like to get a couple of more items in place beforehand:  the centerboard case, sheer clamp, and a full-length seat riser about 6" above the waterline.  In theory I could put these into the boat after the boat is planked and flipped right-side-up, but I figured it would be easier to get them in place now.  Someday--sooner rather than later, I hope--I'll finish off the plans and post a copy here.  Then I'll be able to refer readers directly to the plans when I write something like "seat riser about 6" above the waterline".

Once I had the transom shaped on one side, I took it off and cut the other side to match.  To do that I recut the original transom pattern to the new shape.  Shaping pretty much by eye--but using battens to make sure everything looked fair--my "new and I hope improved" transom is slightly fuller than that drawn in my original plans.  I'm keeping the revised transom pattern, which I'll use to update the plans later.

A first coat of varnish really soaks into the Western Red Cedar...actually dry in spots.  A few more coats and this should have a nice glow.  My last boat had WRC thwarts and I thought they looked great.  It is a very soft wood, however, and shows every ding and scratch.

Here I'm tweaking the battens to determine the plank laps.  The battens are 1/2" thick by 1" wide.  My plank laps will be 1" wide--in other words, there will be 1" of overlap between one plank and the next-- so the battens show exactly where each lap will be on the final boat.  Once I was happy with the plank locations, I marked each mold and the stem and transom for each lap.  A sharp eye will tell that the sheer plank--the lowest one in this photo--is slightly wider than the rest.   This is because the final boat will have a half-round to protect the sheer.  I added width to the sheer plank so that it would appear to be the same width as the other planks once the half-round is added.   

A Bosch fan??  I guess so!

The bottom will be made up  of a 3/8"-thick panel and a 1/4"-thick panel epoxied together for a total thickness of 5/8".  The reason I'm not just using 5/8" plywood is I want to bend the plywood to the shape of the transom, and I figure 5/8" would be just too stiff for that. Or at least very difficult.  Dimensions came from the lofting.  The aft end of the panels (the end closest to you in this photo) look to be quite wide, but the aft end of the boat will be heavily shaped once everything is glued up on the boat.

The next steps are:  building the centerboard case (including a pattern for the centerboard) and notching the molds for the sheer clamp and seat riser.  Ripping out said sheer clamps and risers from Douglas fir and installing into the notches, ready (finally!) for planking.