Monday, April 27, 2009

Or Scarfing....

Thanks to Jim Ledger from the Wooden Boat Forum for pointing out:
What about the plywood end grain in the butt? 
What about the flat spot in the panel where the thickness is doubled?
What about drainage on the bottom of the boat?
What about the ugly butt block showing on the interior?

And to kc8pql  for his comment:
Suck it up and do proper scarfs. You've worked to long and hard to chicken out now.

So I tried scarfing, or at least, I've cut the scarfs. 

I just stacked the 2'x8' sheets of ply with each 2½ inches back from the next, then I ran a power plane down the steps. I had a scraficial peice above and below as I've read that the top and bottom ones don't turn out so well.

Now I have to either
  • Glue them and put them on the boat.  or
  • Put them on the boat and Glue them
Handling 8 foot parts seems easier, but I am concerned about how well I can join the scarf when the ply is sitting on a curve.

I'm leaning towards gluing them in the kitchen/dining room (only dry place that's long enough) overnight on a friday and fitting them on a Saturday.

Wish me luck.

2 comments:

The Online Boat Parts store said...

IMHO I think the joining should be done on a flat surface. I haven't seen any images of this project so far, do you have any,maybe I can add my two cents. I have mostly worked on aluminum pontoon boats though.

Rational Root said...

I have no pictures of the scarfing yet.

There didn't seem to be much worth taking pictures of. So far all I have is the 2x8 sheets with a 2.5 inch bevel cut at one end of each.

You can see the general idea here..
http://www.boatbuilder.org/godzilliscarfing.htm