Thursday, August 11

We began by fitting the garboards, one at a time, to the molds. The plank is clamped  to the center station (mold #4) at one point and adjusted for the best fit, moving the it fore and aft, tilting it, or moving the entire board up and down. Once the fit is satisfactory, the garboard is clamped, moving outward from #4. We made sure there was sufficient overhang on each end.

The plank is then re-spiled.  Lines are traced from the stems to the garboard. Pencil marks are made at each station indicating the correct plank edge from the marks on the molds.

The centerboard slot was also drawn in. The garboard was removed to the bench and re-faired using battens. The process was repeated with the other garboard. At this time, the squeeze-out epoxy from the scarf joints on the garboards was also largely removed using a heat gun and scraper.

Thickened epoxy was then made and applied to the keelson, floor timbers, and stems wherever the garboard would land. The garboard was again fitted in place from the center out. Using #10 bronze wood screws, the plank was fastened to the floor timbers, keelson, and stems. 1” screws were appropriate for the keelson; 1 ¼” for the timbers. Temporary screws were used at the ends of the garboard to fasten them to the stems. The permanent screws were all pre-drilled and countersunk. The keelson screws have to be placed closer to the outer edges since the center area will be planed.  The photographs of this process can be found here.  The process was repeated for the second garboard. It overlapped the centerline too much, that is, interfered with the other garboard. Geoff made adjustments in situ with a hand plane.

Next we began fabricating components such as the centerboard, the centerboard box, and the rudder. These parts are clearly marked on Oughtred's plans. Brian Miller and I worked on the centerboard box. We cut the sides from plywood and then milled douglas fir to the specified dimensions for the rails (the fore and aft support at the top) and the logs (fore and aft support at the bottom of the box. They were left overly long and will be fitted later.

The rudder was built up to specified thickness by gluing 3/8” and 1/2” plywood together. Many glued-up components were gravity clamped, that is, heavy objects such as batteries, were placed on them.  See two photo sequence here.

From here on, any planks glued in place had to have excess epoxy scraped from the underside of the hull. This task fell to our youngest (12, soon to be 13), and smallest classmate, Han-Ray Jahn. He does an excellent job.

Then it was back to planking. We bevelled the garboard (see photo). This is a rolling bevel. To guide the planing, saw kerfs (photo here) were made at each station by holding the saw parallel to the mold section corresponding to the next plank and then sawn until it touched a 3/4” line scribed earlier (this is where the next plank will overlap the garboard.

End of Day Progress

All photos of the Ness Yawl 2011 class may be viewed at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21597525@N00/collections/72157627358772597/