Cuts Complete, Building Begun

After all the work it took to loft the patterns onto my plywood, actually cutting the pieces out was almost anticlimactic.  It took two modest chunks of my weekend and required no help, whereas the lofting took a long evening and another entire morning with help from my kids.

I had thought about using the Japanese pull saw for much of this process, but that didn't work out.  I have trouble controlling the direction of my cuts as closely as I'd like with that saw, and it's not exactly gentle on the top veneer of the plywood, either.  My trusty circular saw is easier to hold straight, and chips the veneer less to boot.  By adjusting the saw for a pretty shallow depth, I was able to cut the gentle curves of the side and bottom panels with it.  I used my brother's jigsaw on the really curvy parts, like the stem and stern posts.

The only problem with the circular saw is that it has a very wide kerf.  "Kerf" is the portion of your wood that is turned into sawdust by the action of the saw.  My circular saw is fitted with a nice carbide-tipped blade that's at least 1/4" thick at the cutting tips, so it chews a good 3/8" path through the plywood.  The jigsaw was closer to 1/8" kerf, and the pull saw is even thinner than that.  So any time two pieces were really close together on the plywood, I'd set the circular saw aside and pick up the pull saw for that portion.

In the end, I am pretty happy with the accuracy of my cuts.  I think they're all within working tolerances, and I didn't make any expensive errors that require another sheet of plywood to fix.  I'm afraid I don't have pictures at this time, but I'll try to post some soon.

The end of the cutting process leaves one with six ~8' panels - two for the bottom and two for each side; a bow and stern deck; a number of delicate arcs to reinforce the midships end of the decks; scrap for butt plates and lashing pads; and two each stem post and stern post.  These last are duplicated because they're laminated to double thickness; Sunday night, with a little spare time on my hands, I decided to go ahead and laminate them.

I mixed a single-pump batch of System 3 epoxy, spread it liberally on both mating surfaces, and joined them.  After wrapping the whole affair in plastic bags to keep from accidentally bonding tools to the work, I clamped each set of posts with 4 clamps, 2 of which were on chunks of scrap wood to distribute the load.  A day later, they look pretty good - solidly joined and lined up correctly with each other. 

Next up, I need to build a way to stow the long panels when they're joined.  I plan to hoist them overhead into the rafters on the porch; I'll try to diagram or photograph that system for a future posting.

Table Saw Time

Well, thanks to the generosity of my good friend Ray, I was able to get my dimensional lumber cut down last night.  It wasn't easy.  Cutting a continuous 1/2" strip out of a 16' length required a 32' open space with the saw at the center.  So we had to move his table saw to the door of his garage.

The results were spectacular - not only is Ray's shop well-equipped, he's also very skilfull.  Everything came out as specified by the plans, and we both finished the job with the same ten fingers we started with.  Sadly, I don't have any photos of the process; we had our hands full performing the cuts with just two sets of hands.  Seriously, table saws are scary.  I'm thankful to have an experienced guide to shepherd me through the process.

The only problem we encountered was that the 16' 2x4 I brought had some knot issues.  It was the clearest piece I could find at the store, but we were unable to get any knot-free slices out of it.  One gunwale actually broke as we lifted it off the saw table, because the 1/2" slice was completely interrupted by a knot.  Each of the "good" gunwale cuts we got has at least one point where the wood is compromised.  So I may end up having to epoxy shorter pieces together to make my 16' pieces.  We'll see how they hold up when I use them as flexible straight edges to loft the patterns on the plywood.

In other news, my mother's garage - home to my brother's Teal project - is under contract to sell along with the rest of the house.  So we're going to need to get it... not necessarily finished, but weather-proof, at least, and quickly.  I think we'll probably epoxy-and-glass-tape the seams tomorrow, and try to paint the hull by mid-May.  Once it's painted, the final details can be safely completed in an outdoor work space without hurting the boat.  This push to "completion" on the Teal might pull me away from the Melanesia for a bit.

But while we're mixing epoxy for the Teal's seams tomorrow, I'm hoping to laminate the pieces for my steering paddle.  Then I'll have a shaping project to occupy idle hands in the little bits of time that occasionally become available.