A Shipwright in Training

The boat is looking quite nice with her deck beams installed.

You’d never know that there’s LOTS more to do before she’s ready to sail. The sole (floor boards) and ceilings (the boards that go up the insides next to the sole) are next on the list. And then there’s the actual deck to be built and canvassed. So, don’t be fooled… miles to go before we sleep.

The Beetle Cat has a small ledge of decking that stretches along the sides of the cockpit, and it needs to be supported by something. For that, we use short deck beams and and a longitudinal member called a carlin. The little deck beams were relatively easy to make. You just have to make sure they will be tall enough and long enough so that you can do some shaping on them later. You can see them installed here.

Like the deck beams, they still need to be notched so that they fit snug against the sheer clamp and the inside face of the sheer plank. In other words, you can’t just throw them in.

We use really nice pine for our deck beams. It’s dead clear and just wonderful to work with. However, we are shaving a lot of end grain and that requires sharp tools.

Ok, you always need sharp tools. Period.

This is just one of the reasons you do. A sharp tool will leave the surface of the wood silky smooth after you cut it. A dull tool will leave you with a ragged mess. You probably know how nice it is to cut a tomato with a really sharp knife and how frustrating it is to do the same thing with a dull knife… it’s like that with your chisels and planes and saws too. A well-sharpened chisel will slice through the wood in exactly the direction you direct it rather than skipping around or following the grain. Here I’m just starting to take a paper-thin shaving in end grain.

And if you work inward from the edges you won’t get any tear out. Just nice even curls of shavings.

But really, I’m not kidding when I say your chisel should be mirror sharp. That means the back as well as the bevel. The two work together to make your edge. This is the back of my chisel reflecting the windows above. See? Mirror.

Ok, enough bragging about sharpening. Friggin’ tool geek.

Once you get your short beams installed, you need to cut them to length so that the carlin will make a nice sweet curve when it’s installed against them. To do that, it’s easiest to spring a batten along the tops of the beams and mark where it lands to get that curve. Here’s Kev clamping the batten along the right side (ignore the large camber mold laying across the boat). See the nice curve it makes? He’s already cut the deck beams on the starboard side, and you can see how they define a nice little sweep.

Once the batten is clamped in, we’ll mark and cut the deck beams. The
carlins will then be screwed into the end of the short beams. The side decks will rest on the beams and carlins.

We had the last week off for spring break (also called Easter in some parts) and I flew back to Madison to visit with Jan and all my loved ones there. And eat. Good god, we know how to cook. As much as I love being in Newport and doing boat stuff, I sure miss sitting up late nights and talking and drinking wine with friends.

And finally, I got a bit of the snow that Madison has been getting all year that I’ve been missing out on.

Thick, heavy, wonderful snow.

Sorry, lilacs.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Classes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.