Cupid, who has otherwise proven himself useless over the last few years, has delivered quite a few gifts to my little boat shop.
There was the massive 2" thick x 8" wide, and roughly 9' 6" long board of mahogany. This is destined to be the keel and a few other parts.
There's the NFB rotary helm and bezel, as well as a Faria Euro Beige fuel gauge, to add to the dash hardware.
And, in order to make something of that huge mahogany board, there's the new table saw.
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| Faria Euro Beige fuel gauge, NFB Safe-T II rotary helm, and 90° bezel. |
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| Look at this mess. Seriously... I just bought this yesterday. Yes, I DID use the proper blade guards. Here, they are removed in preparation for re-sawing the 4" wide keel. |
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| The big chunk on the left is the current state of the keel... still a full 2" thick. The 2 stacked pieces on the right are 2-1/4" x 1" floor battens. The leftover piece in the middle is waiting to serve a purpose. |
So far, I have ripped the 8" wide board into 2 4" wide sections. One of these sections will become the keel. The Zip requires a 12' long x 1" thick keel, and this board is only 9' 6" long. My plan is to re-saw it into 3 strips, and butt-join & laminate pieces cut from that in order to obtain the full 12 feet.
The second 4" wide section had some problem areas along one edge, so I ripped that again into a 2-1/4" wide section + the leftover side. Then I re-sawed the 2-1/4" wide x 2" thick section into two 1" thick strips. These will be 2 of the 6 planned floor battens.
I'd scarf it rather than butt joint. The reason is that hardwood bent on a curve with have a high spot at the butt, and a scarf (6 or 8 to 1) will make a fair curve.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I think you make a good point about the scarf joint.
ReplyDeleteI had considered using scarf joints on the keel, but opted not to for a couple of reasons.
I knew that, whatever type of joint I used, I would be backing it with the 2nd lamination anyway. That, combined with the joints being made in an area where the Zip keel is flat. the butt joint just seemed like a simpler & easier option to me.
I could have re-sawed the 2" thick board into two 1" thick pieces, and combined those to get the full-length keel. In that case, I definitely would've used a scarf joint. However, one of my main motivations for laminating the keel was to facilitate an easier bend that the keel has to make at the forward end, where it mates to the stem.
I plan on laminating the chines and sheers as well, and will most likely use scarf joints on those.