Building of a Fenwick Williams Catboat: Planking in full swing

We were right back into planking this week. The repair we made on the starboard side garboard last week turned out great. From the outside, you can't tell that anything was even done.

The view from the inside reveals our carbon fiber backing on the plank. This should prevent the plank from splitting again as we fasten it into place.

Speaking of fastening, with the plank repaired, it's time to do just that. Clamping the plank into place, we can lay out all our fasteners.

Then it's time to start drilling.

You can see here in this picture why it's important to lay out the fasteners accurately. We want to make sure our fasteners are as close to center as possible. We definitely don't want to split any of our frames at this point by putting a fastener too close to the edge.

With our plank removed we'll apply some bedding compound to the cheek pieces, then it'll be time to hang the plank.

The fasteners are countersunk into the plank. Once the holes are all plugged, the fasteners will virtually disappear leaving only a nice fair plank.

Note how the fasteners are staggered along the cheek (left side of plank in below picture). You want to do this so that all your fasteners aren't in the same grain line which could cause the plank to split at that grain line.

Once the bedding compound was applied, we clamped the plank back into place and fastened it on. Removing the clamps is a tense moment, but we didn't have any cracking, and the hood end that we repaired had no problems. We all breathed a sigh of relief after it was all done.

And with that we'd hung our first plank.

And it looks great.

With the starboard side fastened, work begins on the port side. With a few modifications we were able to reuse the starboard side pattern. Once the slight discrepancies in the hull girth are made up in the garboard and broad strakes, our port and starboard planks should be almost identical, so we'll be able to make two planks from each pattern and speed up the process considerably.

For the garboard though we've got a little fitting to do.

And just like the starboard side, most of the fitting necessary is right at the forefoot.

Once the pattern is refit to the port side, we cut out the plank. Now, we'll put the plank in the steambox for an hour so that we can twist it into place at the forefoot.

A little steam and a few clamps and the plank lays down nicely.

Once the plank cools, we'll be able to do the necessary final fitting.

The fitting goes pretty quickly, but clamping the plank in place between each fittings takes time. You quickly learn that it pays to make accurate notations on the plank so that you don't have to take the plank on and off the boat too many times.

Back aft the fitting is easier than at the forefoot, but you still need to clamp it into place to verify that it's laying down the same as it will when it's fastened.

With the rabbet edge fit, we once again use a batten to scribe the top edge of the plank.

With the plank fit and the top edge trimmed, we'll clamp it back into place to drill for our fasteners.

One last look at the forefoot fit...

And it's time to lay out our fasteners.

When drilling, we're relying on our layout, so it pays to take your time and be accurate.

It also doesn't hurt to have someone sight for you as your drill, just to make sure you're centered on those frames.

The yellow cedar cheeks are easy enough to drill, but the purpleheart frames put up a little more of a fight.

With the fasteners drilled, it's time again for the bedding compound.

Then all that's left to do is fasten it in place. Almost. As we were clamping the plank in place it started to crack at one of our fastened holes, which meant we had to abort hanging the plank. Similarly to the other garboard we're opting to try a repair on the plank rather than scraping it and starting again.

Simaltaniously as the garboard was being fit on the port side, we were also working on the first broad strake over on the starboard side. Here you can see the beginnings of the pattern for the first broad. Unlike the sheer strake where we had to fit to the rabbet, the remainder of the planks are fit to the edge of the previous plank.

Here Tim uses a scribe block to pattern the bottom edge of the plank.

For most of the plank's length this method works well...

But at the stem, the pattern gets a bit more complex. Here we'll make a full pattern so that we can be ensured a perfect fit.

The pattern at the hood end also takes into account the nib that we cut out of the garboard as you can see in this picture.

With the pattern complete for the first broad, the lines are transfered to our planking stock.

The full pattern at the hood end is simply traced onto the planking stock. The rest of the plank is drawn using the same scribe block with which we made the pattern.

Here you can see Tim transfering the line he scribed off the boat onto the planking stock. As long as you use the same scribe block, this method produces excellent results.

For the top edge of the plank, we're again using a batten to draw a fair line between the plank line marks we picked up off the boat.

With our plank laid out on the stock, it's cut out and planed to the line.

We'll leave it proud along the upper edge so we have some room for fitting, and also at the end of the plank. I liked Tim's note here at the end of the plank, "cut proud 1/16". I think that's a bit more than a 1/16", but better safe than sorry.