Garboards

With the bottom in place, I can move on to the garboards...the first of six pairs of planks to go on the boat:

First I beveled the edge of the bottom to accept the planking.  This is a rolling bevel--that is, the angle of the bevel changes as you go from the stern to the bow of the boat--so reasonable care should be taken that the bevel is correct.  I tried putting a batten along the upper edge of the plank--already marked on the molds, remember?-- then used a piece of straight-edged scrap to check the bevel.  I started with a power planer and finished with a hand plane.  Note the notch in the scrap (right under my palm in the photo).  It is the same depth as the thickness as the batten.  Without the notch, the bevel would be off a few degrees. 

Next up, I used a rabbet plane to cut a gain (about 16" long) in the aft end of the bottom.  Each plank with have a gain like this one, except this one is quite a bit wider.  In BELLE,  the angle between the bottom and the garboard is very small at the transom.  Thus the joint is really more of a scarf than a lap.   I thus specified a 3" gain (i.e., 8x3/8" like an 8:1 scarf) rather than the more common 3/4" to 1" that I'll use for the other planks.

OK now I have nifty bevel and gain.  How do I determine the shape of the garboard so I can cut it out of my expensive sheets of plywood?  Many boat plans these days come with patterns  for all the planks, but BELLE is the prototype of a new design, so such timesavers don't exist.  Instead, I'll use the tried-and-true technique of spiling.  Too many details to cover here, but basically the idea is you make a spiling batten slightly narrower than the final plank and mark it with something (in this case a compass) to take the shape of the plank right off the boat.  Confused?  Spiling is covered in some detail in quite a few boat building books, including this one, or try this description.  Or see my list of recommended boat building books in the FAQ.  Sorry, gotta move on!

Here's the spiling batten--hot-glued from a few scrap pieces of luan plywood--in place, seen from the bow.  It is lightly nailed to a few of the molds and clamped to the stem, without any edge set. That is, it's important to let the batten fall "naturally" on the boat, without forcing or twisting.

Here's a beauty shot of the spiling batten on top of the plank I cut from it on top of the remaining 3/8" plywood for the other garboard.  Of course, I'll need two garboards, one for each side (I hear a one-sided boat gets a bit wet at times).  If you look carefully, you'll see a pretty pronounced reverse curve in the forward part of the plank, which is nearest the camera in this photo.  Garboards often have unusual shapes like this.  Just part of the game.

After test fitting the plank (not shown), it's time to glue.  Note packing tape on transom and edges of the molds.  Don't want to glue the planking to the molds, or huge gobs of glue on the varnished transom.

Here's the first garboard going on.  Blocks of scrap ply covered in packing tape, screwed with sheet-rock screws, make good "clamps" in places where clamping is difficult.  A tip:  use new sheetrock screws because old ones are often "torqued" and seem to break easier than fresh ones. 

The other garboard going on. Only ten more planks to go, five per side!

I'd love to just keep planking, but maybe there's a better next step for this boat. There's a bunch of floors to put in...I'm talking about nautical "floors", not the"sole"...which I'd like to back-fasten through the bottom.  So how about this:   install all the floors with their nice back-fastened screws, then 'glass the bottom/garboards, then back to planking.  Normally I'd install the floors after planking was completed and the boat flipped over, but then I'd have to flip the boat back over to do the 'glassing.  Better to do it now, I think...

Until next time.