Making and Fitting the Rowing Thwarts

Tuesday, Sept. 21.  Fall is here, and it is welcome.

I had two projects planned for today, but didn't get to either of them.

I intended to make a sprit by laminating pieces of fir left over from making the mast, but there was not enough sound wood remaining in the fir offcuts; I'll have to shop for timber for that.

On the centerboard and trunk, I meant to glue and screw the headledges to one side panel, and do some epoxy fairing on the board, but those are small "wet" jobs; I didn't want to do them and then have time for another project which would generate sawdust. So before doing them I started work on the thwarts which will support the centerboard trunk. I had made patterns for the thwarts a week or so ago. Today, starting with yellow pine 2x10 lumber, I cut the planks to the rough length of the thwarts. The forward thwart is to be 8" wide, so I ripped it to that width. The after one is 9", and the nominal 2x10 is 9 1/8" wide, which was close enough. The nominal 2x planks are about an inch and a half thick, so I used the thickness planer to take them down to 7/8", which the plans call for. That generated an unbelievable volume of planer chips: a whole trash can full. Then I followed the patterns for the angles and bevels of the ends. The longer of the two thwarts, the after one, also needed to be cut away on each end to fit around frames. After all that cutting, the after thwart fit pretty darn well, and the forward one fit just right with no tweaking. They are both long enough that they fit tightly against the sides, providing lateral support which nothing else does. All told, it took half as long to make and fit the thwarts as it did to make patterns for them. Having dry fit the thwarts by screwing them down to the risers, I unscrewed them and used the router to round off the edges of the after thwart. I was about to do the same to the forward one when I needed to stop work to take care of an unrelated chore. I never did get the "wet" work done on the centerboard and trunk, but I am pleased at how the thwarts turned out. I'll post a picture in the next day or two.

I did nothing as planned today, but nevertheless I made a detailed plan for tomorrow.