Cathead

Hey CaptainSteve,
 
Check this toolbox out at toolchest-site.com
 
Matt

I'm hoping the bending iron helps with those inside frames as it's good at massaging interior curves into place.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

I found that using a flat metal file with one dull edge worked really well for fairing past the sheer tab. I held it vertical along the mold, with just a slight twist to the wrist, and was able to finish the fairing all the way down pretty consistently. The dull edge is important so it doesn't saw a notch into the tab.

Starboard frames are done. Had trouble at first, changed my methods and all went smoothly.
 
Started by soaking in regular tap water for a few hours, then using my bending iron. Worked fine at bow & stern, broke five trying to wrap around the middle molds. Switched to boiling water as described in the instructions. Five minutes in boiling water, plus the plank iron worked like a charm. Redid the whole starboard side with nary a snap. The iron really does help snug the frames down over the tighter curves; I tried it without and they didn't conform as easily. This is the best practice based on the manual, as he says he did the prototype with boiling water, but also praises bending irons to high heaven. 
 
Now I have to wait until tomorrow to do the port side, as (1) I'm out of clamps and (2)I don't dare dislodge any of these mucking around with the model.
 
Steve, I remember reading that discussion. My plans have the same discrepancy. I've decided to ignore it, as (1) the more detailed plan matches the keel, (2) it makes sense to have extra room for unshipping the rudder, and (3) it doesn't change the look of the final model, at least by the standards I've set for this first attempt. Appreciate you bringing it up, though, as it's well worth considering.
 
Also, since I decided to rebuild the transom from scratch, I made it the same thickness, so there's no worry about plank length.

Starboard frames are done. Had trouble at first, changed my methods and all went smoothly.
 
Started by soaking in regular tap water for a few hours, then using my bending iron. Worked fine at bow & stern, broke five trying to wrap around the middle molds. Switched to boiling water as described in the instructions. Five minutes in boiling water, plus the plank iron worked like a charm. Redid the whole starboard side with nary a snap. The iron really does help snug the frames down over the tighter curves; I tried it without and they didn't conform as easily. This is the best practice based on the manual, as he says he did the prototype with boiling water, but also praises bending irons to high heaven. 
 
Now I have to wait until tomorrow to do the port side, as (1) I'm out of clamps and (2)I don't dare dislodge any of these mucking around with the model.
 
Steve, I remember reading that discussion. My plans have the same discrepancy. I've decided to ignore it, as (1) the more detailed plan matches the keel, (2) it makes sense to have extra room for unshipping the rudder, and (3) it doesn't change the look of the final model, at least by the standards I've set for this first attempt. Appreciate you bringing it up, though, as it's well worth considering.
 
Also, since I decided to rebuild the transom from scratch, I made it the same thickness, so there's no worry about plank length.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

Pops, thank you, I went and looked at your log after posting that last comment, should have done so before. I'm tempted to try that (building my own transom) as I like the look much better.
 
On to the forms and keel, which I decided to share photos of because I think I set these up a little differently than other logs I've seen.
 

 
As I do a fair amount of home carpentry and woodworking, I have a ton of clamps and squares and such around. Here the keel form is held vertical with a rafter tie (on the left side of the image) while the cross-form being glued is held perfectly square in all three directions with two solid corner squares.
 

 
Taking a page out of my experience building Guillow balsa-frame planes, I mounted the keel plan on a sheet of wood, covered it with tracing paper, then used sewing pins to hold the keel exactly in place while gluing. The instructions say to ensure that the inner curved surface is exactly in line with the plans, never mind if the rest of the joints or surfaces are slightly off, so that's what I did.
 
The joint surfaces themselves were slightly off, such that if you clamped them together the keel twisted slightly. So I used paint bottles to weigh down the assembly, and inserted more pins at shallow angles to hold down the pieces (since I couldn't get bottles right on top the joints with other pins sticking up there). Closeup insert at lower right shows this. I've since taken the keel off and it's perfectly flat/straight.
 
Next update may be a while, as I'll be slowly clamping and gluing one form at a time, and we all know what that looks like. Will be carving the rabbet in the meantime, and we all know what that looks like too unless I do something especially right or wrong.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

Pops, thank you, I went and looked at your log after posting that last comment, should have done so before. I'm tempted to try that (building my own transom) as I like the look much better.
 
On to the forms and keel, which I decided to share photos of because I think I set these up a little differently than other logs I've seen.
 

 
As I do a fair amount of home carpentry and woodworking, I have a ton of clamps and squares and such around. Here the keel form is held vertical with a rafter tie (on the left side of the image) while the cross-form being glued is held perfectly square in all three directions with two solid corner squares.
 

 
Taking a page out of my experience building Guillow balsa-frame planes, I mounted the keel plan on a sheet of wood, covered it with tracing paper, then used sewing pins to hold the keel exactly in place while gluing. The instructions say to ensure that the inner curved surface is exactly in line with the plans, never mind if the rest of the joints or surfaces are slightly off, so that's what I did.
 
The joint surfaces themselves were slightly off, such that if you clamped them together the keel twisted slightly. So I used paint bottles to weigh down the assembly, and inserted more pins at shallow angles to hold down the pieces (since I couldn't get bottles right on top the joints with other pins sticking up there). Closeup insert at lower right shows this. I've since taken the keel off and it's perfectly flat/straight.
 
Next update may be a while, as I'll be slowly clamping and gluing one form at a time, and we all know what that looks like. Will be carving the rabbet in the meantime, and we all know what that looks like too unless I do something especially right or wrong.