Cutting out Planks

This weekend was spent lining out the planks on the 1/4" marine plywood and cutting them out. I measured out and marked the points showing the shape of each plank. Then we bent a batten around the shape made by the points and drew the lines for each plank. We made sure all the lines were fare...

and then cut them with the jig saw.

We had laid the 1/4 inch plywood over the 3/8 inch plywood used for the bottom so we had a stiffer work surface. We moved the 1/4 inch piece around and clamped it to the 3/8 inch piece in order to create a clear cutting area. This worked pretty well most of the time. One of us held the cut strip while the other sawed. We got three of the planks sawed out yesterday and today we used those for a pattern and traced out the second set of planks.

After completion of the plank cut outs, we cut out the 3/8 inch piece for the bottom.

And here is one of the garboard plank...

We have now completed the construction of all the major pieces for the pram and are ready to construct the building jig. Wow!

Building the "Done" Pile

Yesterday, we paid a visit to our local lumberyard and bought three sheets of marine plywood to make the bottom and the planks for the pram. The price was great but the quality was not. Oh, well! Then we tripped off to Portland for our annual visit to the Maine Boatbuilders Show.

Today, fresh from our visit to the show, we went about our own little boat building tasks with new enthusiasm. First, we screwed together the mould station #3 with our newly acquired 1" screws. Then we cut the pieces and put together mould station #1. This is the last of the mould stations. We positioned the cleats that will rest on the building jig and screwed them onto mould station #1 and #3. Those two stations are done and ready to go. Below you see the last screws going into the cleat on the #1 mould station.

Next we cut the angled edges of the laminated midships mould. This was not something that either of us really wanted to do for fear of messing the thing up. It came out pretty well despite of our misgivings. Then we laid it out on the plans and attached the cross cleat to it where it will sit on the building jig. There is still some sanding to do on the laminated mould as we cut it fat rather than thin to allow for screwups. I'll get the sanding done sometime this week.

With this accomplished, our done pile is getting bigger.

Next we put the 3/8" Marine plywood that we bought yesterday on two sawhorses and lined out the bottom piece of the boat. We drew a center line and then marked the points designated on the plans for the curved sides of the bottom. Then one of us held one of our 1/8" strips left over from our laminating project up to the points on the curve and the other drew the curved line. This gave us a nice shaped bottom piece. Now all we have to do is cut it out! The centerboard housing and the rudder also come out of this piece of plywood, so we will probably lay them out and cut them too.

Station #1 and Midships Frame

We didn't really accomplish a lot this weekend. Saturday afternoon we went to work on the two mould stations that we have left to build. We are building them out of boards instead of plywood and it involves cutting angles on the outside of the boards and then putting cleats in to hold them together. We got mould station #1 to the point where we were ready to cleat it together and discovered that we didn't have any sheetrock screws that were short enough to do the job. So the mould station is sitting on the work table ready to be finished.

Today, we brought the plans for the laminated midships mould up and spread them out on the livingroom floor and marked the line where we will cut out the frame with the angles for the side planks. I had laid the plans on top of the mould and using my pin prick method, tried to lay out the correct lines for the frame. The result wasn't really good. We brought the frame up, laid it out on the plans and then using the line drawing on another depiction on the plans, we lined out the outline of the frame. We think we have it down okay, but it will probably have to be adjusted when we are planking the pram. Also, who knows how this frame will line up with the mould station #1 and #3 when we get it all on the building jig? We have a friend who is a wooden boat builder. He will tell you that you can make five boats out of the same set of plans and they all will have a slightly different shape. I can see why after this weekend's efforts.

Laminating the Midships Frame

This past week was a busy one, so I didn't get to copy the shape of the midships frame curve onto our jig until Saturday morning. I cut it out with the jig saw and sanded it so that it was ready to go in the morning.

We put cleats under the bend edge of the jig and 8d nails to use as holding pins when we were spreading the epoxy and placing the strips.

Then after lunch and other obligations, we cut the 1/8" strips we would use to laminate the frame. These were longer than the ones we used in the fore keel so they were somewhat more difficult to cut. It took all four of our hands to accomplish this task. We cut twenty of them.

Today, we spread the epoxy on the strips and placed them on the jig inside our 8d nails. After we had all of the strips to make a piece two inches wide, we applied the clamps to hold them along the curve of the jig. We used 18 of the strips and all 14 of the clamps we had on hand and two more small ones to clamp the jig to the table.

We were pleased with the result and now have all the laminating of pieces for the pram done. We will sand and shape this one after the epoxy has set up and hardened. We didn't snap any of the strips along the way either.

Almost Finished Fore Keel

Here is our finished laminated fore keel. It came out pretty well. It only has to have a half inch hole drilled in the forward (right hand in this picture) part of the keel which will be used to secure the painter once the pram is done. We are really pleased with our piece we made out of 1/8" strips. I took advantage of a snowy day to do the sanding and smoothing.

Planning

We have discovered that one of the reasons that Wooden Boat would like you to build your Nutshell Pram from one of their kits is the amount of time that is consumed making the parts yourself if you don't. There is a lot of time spent figuring out exactly how you are going to make each piece needed to begin actually putting the boat together. And the construction sequence is, for us, important too. We have limited space in our cellar in which to build a boat. We have chosen to get all the pieces made before we even build the building jig for the boat because once that is built, our maneuvering room is going to be cut severely.

Most of this weekend was spent planning for the next big project in the pram construction. The next project is laminating the midships frame. We were pretty pleased with the way our laminated fore keel came out. We have cut it to shape and now all that needs to be done is sanding and smoothing the square edges. It isn't perfect, but we have learned a lot about what we will and won't do with the midships frame.

We know we will need about fourteen clamps to hold our laminated strips together. We were reluctant to buy all of them, so we resorted to borrowing. My brother claims, "A man can't have too many clamps", so he seemed like a good source of several. He agreed to lend us some and so we went on a trek to a spot half way between his house and ours, met him, took him to dinner and picked up seven clamps. That gave us a total of twelve, so I bought two more. We also stopped at our favorite marine supply store and picked up the fasteners we would need for the first phases of construction.

Then this afternoon, we thought through just how we would build the jig on which to bend the strips to be laminated. These strips will be about twice as long as the ones we used for the fore keel and the bends are much more severe. We made a U shaped frame out of 1" x 5" boards and joined that together with temporary cleats. We set the plans on top of the frame and tacked it in place. This week, I will make the outline of the curve we will be bending to by making pushpin holes along the curve line on the plans. Then I will connect the pin holes on the frame and we will cut the curve out with the jig saw. Hopefully we will be able to get that all sanded smooth and set on a stabilizing board so we can do the gluing of the strips next weekend.
It is slow work, but we are making progress.