The fairing begins - Week 5

At the end of last week we had the keel fit on the frames, which means this week we got to take it back off again, before putting it on once more. In boatbuilding this is pretty much the rule: put it together to make sure everything fits right, then take it all apart again, apply some goop (epoxy, 5200, Dolphinite, etc), then put it all together again for good. This makes a lot of sense 'cause if you've got a piece covered in epoxy that doesn't fit, you've got a mess on your hands, literally.

While we had the keel off, we took the liberty of trimming all those plugs in the cheeks and giving them a once over with the sander.



Sanding the cheeks now is a whole lot easier than when the boat is all put together. You'd spend many an hour crawling around the bilge sanding in every little nook and cranny, so why not spend fifteen minutes with a power sander now instead?



We also took the time to sand the inside face of the stem for the same reason.



A little bedding compound on all the floor timbers and frame ends and we're ready for final assembly.



With the keel back in position, we drive the bolts home, and fasten it all together.



We can also secure the stem in position. The jig that Tim built last week has been secured to the floor, and the two blocks can now be fastened down to hold the stem plumb during planking. The two pieces running alongside the stem are there to help us see if the stem is moving as we're hanging the planks.



With the keel now fastened to the floor timbers, we can also replace all the temporary floor timbers with the final ones. In the photo below we've removed one of the temporary floor timbers using a clamp to keep the inner keel securely in position.



We've already got our guide hole through the keel...



So we can just clamp on the floor timber and drill down through for the bolt.



With all the auxiliary floor timbers in position you can see the structure of the boat here is pretty stout. This makes perfect sense when you consider that these floor timbers are the supports for the engine.



The transom is also fastened to the sternpost at this point. Just as the stem is being held plumb, the sternpost will also be held plumb by the transom, thus correcting for the slight twist in our keel.



The transom is first clamped in position, then we drill for the bolts that will hold it to the sternpost.



Once the holes are drilled, it's just a matter of driving in the bolts...



And fastening it together.



And a nice result. When we plug these holes, we'll be careful to match the grain of the wood, so they'll be almost invisible. You can't, after all, have a lot of obvious plugs in your varnished transom.



Once the transom is fastened on, we can finish the last piece of our back rabbet. As you can see in the picture below, the inner keel ends at the stern post, so there's no landing for the planks aft of the inner keel.



Just like we did forward of the inner keel, we'll attach a cheek block here to create the back rabbet that the planks will fasten into. This cheek block is a lot smaller than the other ones, but it serves the same purpose. Note also the curve of the cheek block. This mimics the curve of the knee at the sternpost, adding a little style to our functional little piece.



As we've seen, most of our floor timbers are secured using bolts through the keel, but along the centerboard slot, this isn't feasible since the floor timbers would have to be cut away to make room for the centerboard. At these frames, the floor timbers are secured using brackets.



You'll probably notice a couple things about these brackets. First of all, yes they're carbon-fiber. We laid-up these brackets as a single long angle, then cut out the brackets. The choice of carbon-fiber was for two reasons: one, it's incredibly strong, and two, they'll last forever. And for all you traditionalists out there, not to worry, they'll be hidden away down in the bilge, so no one will be the wiser. You might also notice that the brackets extend up past the top of the keel. This wasn't an oversight, but rather intentional, since the centerboard trunk will sit atop the keel here and then the brackets can be secured into that as well.



With all those little tasks now complete, we're ready to start fairing the frames for the planking. In a carvel planked boat, that is a boat where the planks are butted up against one another creating a smooth hull, the planks must all lay flat against the frames. Since the hull is curved, the frames must each be beveled to match the angle of the planking.



You may have noticed already that our frames are all square at the ends. Typically the rolling (changing) bevel on each of the frames would be cut into the frames so that they were already beveled when they went onto the building jig. In our case, after picking up all the bevels off the loft, we opted to leave the frames square and fair in the bevels later so that we could verify with a batten that they were correct. In retrospect this may have been a bit too cautious since so far we haven't had any glaring inaccuracies in any of the parts we patterned off the loft (knock on wood), but better safe than sorry, especially the first time out.

Now to get these square frames beveled.



To begin with, we measure the amount of bevel at each frame using a batten. We'll string these battens across the length of the hull every few inches, making marks to indicate how much material we need to remove.



In the following picture you can see that in order for the batten to lay flat, the frame needs to be beveled towards the left.



In the next picture you can see a few of the marks that we've made to let us rough in the bevel. Similar to when we were carving the rabbet, we'll bevel the frames at these marks and then fair between them.



The auxiliary floor timbers we installed were left proud, so they also need to be faired in. Here Jonas is using a short batten to eye the bevel on the floor timbers.



Where there's a lot of material to be removed, it's best to remove it as quickly as possible. On these floor timbers a power plane works great.



The amount of bevel varies quite a bit over the length of the hull. Here at station 14 there's not much material at all that needs to be removed, and at the boats widest point the frames are left almost square. In contrast, as we saw in some earlier photos, the frames towards the bow will have quite a dramatic bevel as the planks curve in to the stem.



Once we get down close to our mark, we want to re-check the bevel with a batten. Here we're getting pretty close. Just a bit more to take off.



We're checking the bevel periodically, but for the most part, fairing the frames is a whole lot of planing...



And planing....



And planing...



Luckily a finely honed plane is a wonderful tool to use. Even on this purple heart which has an annoying tendency towards tearing out.



The frames on the starboard side are getting pretty close now. Once they're done, we'll have the port side to do, and the cheeks and rabbet to fair in as well.



But it isn't too hard to imagine that we'll be hanging our first planks before long.