Nov
26
Written by:
Tom
11/26/2011 11:15 PM
The students have been off on Thanksgiving break for the past few days, but right before that, everyone was bending in frames.
Some people really liked milling up stock, and so they did that. A lot.
For one thing, you get to work out jigs to make production jobs go faster with consistent results. Here's a setup for routing a slight radius on the edge of a frame.
With so many boats all needing frames, it becomes necessary for someone to take on the task of organizing all the stock as it gets steamed. This student keeps tabs on which frames go in at what time, and then lets folks know when their frames are ready.
Just because it's not glamorous doesn't mean it's not critical.
So, here's the sequence that the first year student go through for every frame in their boat.
Prep your boat. Put clamps everywhere they'll be needed so that people can grab them without hunting around.
Steam box opens up,
grab a hot hot hot frame.
Give it a quick pre-bend.
You're moving quickly now, and other students are coming to your boat to help out.
Get the frame to your boat,
and feed it up and under to the person who has crawled underneath your boat.
While that person presses the flexible frame up against the planking (hopefully someone has marked exactly where the frame will go), people outside the boat start clamping it in place.
Once everything is clamped in place, you can take a breath and relax. If you had an infinite number of clamps, you could skip this next step, but there if there is one constant in boat building, it is this:
There are Never Enough Clamps.
So, to free up clamps for the next frame, we use wire ties to hold the frames in place. After they've cooled a bit, and the frames are becoming set in their ways, the clamps are removed one by one, and replaced with wire ties.
These are the same ties used in the concrete industry to hold sections of rebar together prior to a pour.
A few frames aren't bent in place on the boat. These are the two frames closest to the bow. These frames have a lot of twist in them, and it's easier to clamp them on a dedicated jig.
After they cool, they're installed in the boat.
Over on the WH 15, the frames are all bent now,
and the floors are going in.
There's a fair amount of fine tuning up to be done on the frames to make sure that they sit perfectly flush against the frames.
You can see the slight difference in color where this student has planed off a bit of frame where it meets with the floor.
The sailing dinghy gets her planks on first, and the framing will come later. Here, the garboards are being fit to the keel.
It pays to be careful at this stage. After all, your fit determines how watertight the plank seams will be.
By the way, the little arch-shaped clamping blocks are called Whompers around the school.
I'm not sure if that's a common name, but if you use it at IYRS, everyone will know what you're talking about. They work better than a flat block for holding planks down, because they distribute the clamping pressure to to outer edges of the plank. If you used a flat block, the clamp would only press on the middle of the plank where the curve is highest, and the edges wouldn't be held down at all.
The transom frames on the lobster boat have been steam bent and are getting a final tune up.
Upstairs, there's been a lot of discussion over how to shape the keel / deadwood / horn timber assembly.
By the way, you can see that the rabbet has been cut into keel almost to the very front where it will intersect with the stem. This student is cutting the rabbet at that end.
The rabbet at the stem / keel joint is only cut after the parts are joined together.
Checking the fit of the rudder...
And while some people are talking, others are finishing up the rabbet in the aft section of the keel.
You can see how wide it gets in this area as the planking is meeting the keel almost vertically.
Just yanking your chain, Warren. We all agree that getting the shape just right around the prop shaft is critical.
You fellas just go over this as much as you need to...
And finally, the student who made that first coopered box, has made another one, this time with a carved and painted butterfly.
Taking advantage of a high-end shop like this to explore your woodworking limits is a great idea.
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