More Planks

So there's been a bit of a break in posts here because I've just been doing more planking. It turns into a bit of a procedure you get better and better at. I cut a template for pretty much every strake except one where I was left with a bit of marine ply the size of a blank template. The instructions say you only need to do templates for the first few planks but a sheet of 4mm Okume marine ply is a bit over $100 and as each post reiterates I'm a tight arse. If I'm going to make a mistake it'll be on el-cheapo MDF.

This is such a small boat I found I could make templates, cut two planks from the good ply and then attach them with epoxy (one either side) in a three hour burst. A bigger boat would be a much bigger procedure. My dad is finishing a 5m Thames rowing skiff and I'm stuffed if I can work out how he managed to do the planking by himself.

Epoxy is so versatile I mixed a bit of extra filling powder with any epoxy left over from each gluing and did the hole filling (where the previous planks were temporarily screwed as I went.

The instructions say each plank doesn't have to quite have to touch each mould. Apparently a deviation of up to 5mm to ensure the planks curve smoothly is fine. I may have just exceeded the 5mm but the planks are nicely curved (fair). As well as the curve from stem to stern there is the up and down curve to consider. This is much harder to predict when planking a boat you've never actually seen and doing it upside down. The second photo (below) shows how the plank widths and angles vary a bit as the reach the stem. Don't tell anyone.

Some texts say you can use almost anything powdery as filler with epoxy so I thought I'd try this using some some of the fine saw dust from the random orbital sander. Turns out you can take the tight arse thing too far. The result is OK but sort of coarse and doesn't smooth well before it sets so you have lots more sanding to do later.

When all the planks were on I bought some more meranti architrave, ripped it down and attached two rubbing strips, at the top and bottom of the sheer strake, a-la working boat.