A Shipwright in Training

It does seem that this little blog likes to wander off into “what went wrong this week” territory a lot.  It occurred to me tonight that it might seem like life at school is just an unending series of screw ups and saves.  The saves are particularly important because they show just how clever I am.  Yessss.  Actually, if I’m being really honest, they’ll show just how clever the whole group is.

The fact of the matter is, I think it would be boring to just have a journal of how everything is going swimmingly.  It would read like a car repair manual.  The really interesting stuff is the ways that things don’t go how they’re supposed to.  That’s what normal folks (and even abnormal boat builders) run into every day, and I love to see how people work around these maddening roadblocks that just rise up in the way of what should be normal progress.  My guess is that folks get into this business as much for the opportunities to test their problem solving chops as for the love of boats.

So, wanna hear about the Plank That Would Not Settle Down?  Sure you do.

Ok, pop quiz time.Â
You put a plank on the boat that has the inside face varnished.  Every night you cover the boat with a plastic tarp and put water underneath it to keep it humid.  You would expect the plank to:

a) do nothing, it’s fastened to the boat
b) warp, curling in towards the boat
c) warp, curling out away from the boat.
d) shatter into a thousand pieces with no piece larger than 2″ long.
e) serve as a mocking reminder to seal both sides of the plank.

Here’s the answer:

Even though the answer is both C and E, let’s all just pause a moment and be grateful that it wasn’t D.

So, just when I was all set to get to work fairing the rabbet (see how the rabbet on the plank on the right is higher than the one one of the left?) down across the 2 planks, the longer plank on the right started to pull away along the top edge where it hasn’t yet been fastened down.  That rabbet doesn’t get fastened until the 1st broad is installed over it.  The problem went down almost the entire length of the aft plank.

See how the upper edge of the rabbet is out from the liner (the board with the blue tape on it)?  It should be flush with the liner.

So, even though the plank was being exposed to moist air every night, the problem was that the raw wood was drying differentially than the sealed wood.  It was cupping towards the drier part.  After all, the plank is exposed to a warm shop all day long. 

Therefore, the solution seemed to be to wet the heck out of the outer face of the plank. 

Attempt #1:  pack it with wet rags.

Staple a plastic sheet to the underside of the plank, add wet rags, and staple the top edge. 

Season with basil and lemongrass and allow to steep all night long. Mmmm.

However, this put me out of work, so it’s up to the top of the boat to find a job.

It was nice being up top.  Down below the boat it’s wet and you’re forever dodging poppets, staging, and all manner of obstacles.  Up top it was like a walk in an open field.

The task up top was to pattern out, cut, and install the quarter knees around the cockpits. That was easy compared to the garboard headaches.

Here’s the area where we install the knee.

We know that the knee extends 7 1/2″ along the large deck beam to the left and 3 1/2″ along the smaller deck beam to the right.  So, we take strips of wood and hot glue them together to mark out the boundaries of the knee.

The leftmost stick is exactly 7 1/2″ long, and it’s left edge defines the left edge of the knee.  The small stick to the right extends from the frame (that dark rectangle… you’re looking down at the top of the sheer) to the 3 1/2″ mark on the deck beam, and it defines the right edge of the knee.  The horizontal crosspiece defines the inside face of the frame, and there’s a little tab glued onto it that defines the aft face of the frame.  The diagonal stick is just there to hold everything stable. 

So, use this pattern to draw the outer boundaries of your knee.  I used the old knee and a french curve to get the swoopy inner curve.

And voila!  A quarter knee.  This gets fastened to the frames and sheer clamp later.  It’s just a support for the large deck beam aft of it. 

There were no problems making this fellow.  It fit like a glove.  Sorry.

Ok, back to the garboard.  The next day I went back and looked at the effect of the rags. 

Not too much. 

Time for attempt #2.  I took the rags out of the long plastic bag I’d made, and inserted steam hoses.

The Pony brand clamps have a handy hole in the handle that allows you to screw them to things.

It made a perfect clamp for the heavy steam hose.  So, let er rip for a couple of hours.  It was really quite pretty… like liquid fireworks.

That ended up making a difference.  It softened the wood and swelled it back against the frames.

As soon as I turned the steam off, I screwed wooden clamps down onto the rabbet to keep it from warping out again.

While it was cooling, I laid a batten along the rabbet to fair it out across that transition that I showed you earlier.

This transition:

When the wood had cooled, I removed the clamping blocks so I could get to the rabbet and faired it all into one long continuous sweep.

While the blocks were off, I put up some spiling stock and carefully spiled the shape of the broad. 

And then I quickly put the clamp blocks back in place.  Man, I don’t want this sucker moving again before I can get the broad installed.

As added protection, I shellacked along the rabbet in between the blocks to minimize moisture transfer where the wood was in the open.

It’s the dark area under the blue tape with the 3 lines there.  I didn’t prime the rest of the plank yet because I want to bung the screw holes before painting it.  That’s tomorrow’s job.

Meanwhile, we discovered what happens when you use a tig welder for things it wasn’t designed for.

That was one surprised orange.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 11:46 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.