Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Never enough clamps

I've started putting the frames together...

This is a big step. I am going from a pile of funny shaped bits of wood to things that are starting to look like they may belong to a boat.

Part of this is the drawing out of the frames on the layout board (the crappy 6mm "marine" ply that I bought before I knew better - came in useful after all)

Given he half plans, you draw a center line, then draw the plans out on both sides, and measure a few times to make sure that you are symmetric.

A word to the wise, Do this before you cut your frames. Cut the side frame parts from the patterns, and then cut the bottom frame parts to fit. Otherwise, you can end up with your bottom members too short. (I cut mine long on purpose, so I just have to trim to fit)

Since I am using Balcotan PU glue for the frames, I need LOTS of clamping pressure, the nails are fine for holding things in place, but I use about 10 F clamps per joint. Since I only have 10 f clamps - this means one joint at a time. I see more F clamps in my future.

The Balcotan is great for flat surfaces, but it had no strength in gaps.

Horses for courses - it has no fumes to speak of - so I can happily glue up on the kitchen table, if I were using Epoxy, I would need to set up outside, in the garden, and given our biblical summer (raining for 40 days and 40 nights), setting up in the garden is not always easy.

Once I have a few of them glued up, I'll post pictures.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

interesting blog. thinking of starting a boat myself this winter. keep going with the posts and pics - its good inspiration!!