The Fore Deck

With the bottom completed it was time to turn the boat over. I'm not strong enough to lift the boat and building frame and due to the Corona Virus couldn't round up a helper or two so I had to resort to block and tackle and pulleys. I've done this before with much heavier boats (~300 kg)  so had all the necessary bits and pieces to hand.  Here it is, hanging in the slings . The strips spanning the formers were to stop the slings crushing the edge of the strips inwards.

I had made three cradles to support the boat while the deck strips were added.

A number of jobs had to be done before stripping started. The spacers between the frames were loosened on the strongback and knocked sideways with a hammer to break the hot melt glue joints. I was surprised how tenacious the hot melt glue was but it all came free eventually. The wedges were put back in to reposition the frames and I checked that he frames were aligned along the part line and keel. Most were but a couple had to be knocked back into place. The inner stem and stern were cut along the part line. I lifted the bow end of the strongback to make sure that the bottom half of the boat was free and would eventually come off. Replaced the masking tape on the frames with less shiny tape hoping that t he hot melt glue would stick better. Hot melt glued to edge strip back to the frames.

I started stripping up on both sides; full length strips to begin with until the top of the stern was reached. Then continued with shorter strips - reaching back to the coaming opening - until the top of the stem was reached.

It was about this point that my 6 week old hot melt glue gun burned out iits heating element. I hope to get it replaced under warranty but have ordered a new gun and some sticks specifically for gluing wood, maybe this glue will work better than the unspecified glue I had been using. Here's the dead gun, there doesn't appear to be any temperature control at all and I suspect it just overheated when I left it turned on for a couple of hours.

I was a bit despondent over the dead glue gun but an early morning paddle on the Brisbane River near home raised my spirits again. The river is steaming because the air temperature was about 12C and the water about 20C. Very pleasant paddle in my CLC 16.

Stripping continued on the starboard deck until the centreline was reached.

When the PVA glue had dried overnight I marked the centreline and sawed off the excess and planed the edge back to the pencil line then eyeballed and trimmed it until it was straight.Then I had to plane it further back by half the width of the accent strip. Then glued the accent in place.

Strips were added on the port side fitting them carefully against the accent strip. This took longer that the starboard half where there was no fitting but it still went fairly quickly. Here's what the front half of the boat looks like now.

.Next is the aft deck, accent strips first the fill in with strips. There are a few different ways of stripping the aft deck so I will have to think about that.

The Whisky Strip.

At the end of the last post all the strips were on the port side bottom. The next step was to cut the ends back to the centre of the keel. The line was marked at each station and a straight line drawn through these points.  It's important (as usual) that the line is straight rather than simply joining up the dots so there is a lot of eyeballing needed. I cut the ends off with a Japanese pull saw and carefully planed the edge to be straight and vertical.

The main tools used to shape and fit strips are pretty basic. The secateurs might be a surprise to boat builders but they do an excellent job of cutting strips to length quickly and cleanly. The Stanley knife is used to hack off the excess when tapering the end of the strip. The block plane (sharp!) trims the taper until it fits. If you go looking for secateurs to do this you need the type with an anvil and a straight blade; the curved blade type split the end of the strip.

The first taper is fitted and the strip put in place temporarily, a couple of witness lines are drawn at the other end of the strip which is then pulled back slightly before marking the taper. When the taper fits nicely it is trimmed back a little at a time until the witness lines show it is the correct length. Then it is glued in place. Strips of tape hold it tight against the previous strip and small blobs of hot melt glue hold it down onto the frames where needed. Stitches of hot melt glue are added along the join so the tape and clamps can be removed ready for the next strip.

This is what it looks like at the end of two sessions. while the strips are long er they are easy to put in place. One end is positioned and the the centre of the strip can be lifted  bringing the other end in so that it can be put in place. Finally the centre part of the strip is put down against its neighbour and taped in place.

As the strips get shorter this process gets more difficult. Shaping them is the same but springing them into place just seemed to get more difficult to me.

At this point there are two and a tiny bit strips left to go strips left to go. Rather than try to make a tiny strip I glued two strips together to make the final strip from. However, after I added the second last strip I found that the extra tiny bit wasn't needed.







Here's the gap and the last shaped strip ready to be fitted.

This last strip is called the Whisky Strip because it marks the completion of the hull on a traditional boat and is therefore a cause for celebration. I think I have earned this!

There are actually more strips still to go on the top of the boat so perhaps the celebration is  premature but I enjoyed it!

First Half of the Bottom Done.

After adding a couple of strips below the waterline I was approaching the chine. It isn't a sharp corner but on some frames it has a small radius. I thought about cutting a few strips in half so the narrower strips would better fit around the corner. In the end I continued with the 16 mm strips and think I got away with it. towards the stern I had to bevel both strips to get a good joint.

As the ends of the strips passed the centre line they became shorter and easier to fit particularly on the flatter section of the bottom. A quick swipe with the Robo Bevel ensure a good fit for the next strip. Here's a photo at the start of the day after the previous days clamps and tape had been removed.

In the next photo another strip has been fitted. The tape is closing up the joint until the glue takes hold which might take a couple of hours. The spring clamps are holding slotted pieces of plywood to hold the strip down.

The tape and clamps can't be removed until the glue has set enough to hold the strip. To speed things up hot melt glue "stitches" were used to hold the joint together. The stitches are simply blobs of hot melt glue placed across the join every 60 or 70 mm. These hold the join together and allow the tape and spring clamps to be removed. This speeds up the process a lot allowing a couple of strips to be added in an hour.

Here's a photo with all the port side strips in place. Tomorrow the centre line will be marked and the excess material cut off with a hand saw and the cleaned up with a plane.

Adding Strips.

The boat is being built upside down: the first strip is put on at the part line (where the hull and deck sections are joined) and the following strips work upwards towards the water line where I intend to change colour from dark to lighter strips.

The part line in this boat is straight and to get the first strip in the correct position I clamped a short piece of strip against the part lines and centre line on the forms. The forms were adjusted up, down and sideways until all these short strips lined up. A strip resting on the short strips helped with this process.

When I was satisfied with the setup I glued the first strip to the end pieces at the stem and stern and tacked it in place at each form with a small blob of hot melt glue.

The edge of this strip was beveled with the Robo-Bevel tool and the second strip was glued to it.

The green tape clamps holding the strips together worked well and more hot melt glue was used where necessary to hold the strips against the forms.

I noticed that the hot melt glue wasn't sticking well to the green (Bear brand) tape so I tried some tests with scraps of strip material. I had another roll of green tape (Scotch brand) so I tried both and found the Scotch brand tape was slightly better. I thought the surface of the tape was slightly waxy and so wiped it with acetone. The glue bond was better on both tape. Coincidentally with this I found a list of tools and materials below one of Nick's YouTube videos. The green tape he uses in Scotch brand and is specifically for rough materials so I put this on my shopping list.

I added more strips until I passed the waterline. The last strip (number 5) then had to be cut back to the waterline. A simple tool is used to transfer the line from inside to outside. A mark is made on the outside of the strip.

A strip was clamped in place at every second mark, above the marks so the clamps would not interfere with drawing a continuous line joining the dots. This strip was adjusted and eyeballed until it was straight and a line drawn.

I cut off the excess with a Japanese pull saw and then planed it down to the line. I found planing quite difficult, particularly past the forms. The first stage in the planing is to get the edge straight and level. I used a Veritas Bullnose plane (blade right to the edge of the sole) with my fingers acting as a fence. This worked but was not ideal. There must be a better way! With the edge leveled and straight (eyeball) the Robo-Bevel was used to add the necessary bevel  but taking care to keep the outside edge straight.

I wanted to add an accent strip along the waterline.  I had some hoop pine (almost white) for this and cut some strips 6mm wide. To separate the white hoop pine more clearly from the light coloured cedar I added a 1.5mm strip of the darker material. Cutting this narrow strip was tricky because it was very fragile. I lowered the saw blade, put a strip on the saw table and clamped a piece of scrap pine to the fence to hold the strip down. With the strip removed I raised the rotating saw blade until it cut into the pine hold down. This worked well with a finger board to hold the strip against the fence.

I glued the white strip in place, applied glue to it and put the narrow dark strip on. Added tape clamps and stopped work for the day.

With two more light coloured strips added here's what it looks like. In time I will know whether this accent strip is a success or not!

Adding the strips one the chine was tricky because the bevel is quite pronounced where the turn has a sharp radius.  There isn't a hard corner at the chine but at some stations the radius is small. I think I have got it right. Stripping from here to the centre line should be easier.