Monday, Jan. 25: This morning my friend JT and I cut out four longitudinal pieces on his far superior table saw, for the chines and sheer clamps. We ripped them from wide boards of clear fir one inch nominal thickness. Two of them are 1 3/4" on the flat, the other pair 1 3/16". My thought is to use the wider ones for the chine, ifs I am able to bend them to the right shape.
I cut the topside panels to the finished shape, leaving an allowance for bevel and final trim.
After cutting notches in the molds so the chines will lie flat, I clamped in place one of the narrower stringers I cut this morning, just to see how well it will bend. It went easily enough that I decided to use the wider pieces for the chines. They need to bend around the boat's side, and bend edgewise to follow the side profile, and twist as the flare of the sides increases toward the stern. When I clamped on the wider pieces, they seemed to say they were willing to bend which ever one way I wanted, but not two ways, and certainly not three. It is apparent that the chines will need, if not torture, at least stern discipline before this part of the project is done. In any case, I bent the chines approximately to their final position, and will leave them there overnight so they can get used to the idea. The photo shows the chines held in place with all the clamps I own. Somewhere I read that the difference between a professional boatbuilder and an amateur is how many clamps he has. I rank as an amateur in every way, including my clamps.
The next few steps will be to mount the transom in place, attach the stem to the sides with screws and epoxy, bend the sides around the molds, and secure them to the transom.
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