Sunday, November 15, 2009

Planking the hull




Planking the hull has been fairly straighforward. First I had to assemble my new band saw and learn to properly adjust and check it. That proved a bit more difficult than expected since it was shipped to me minus a screw (which took a while to discover) needed for proper tensioning. I also needed to choose which wood to use. Surprisingly, I found a local source in Colorado for cypress at moderate cost. I resawed the boards into a 3" by 3/16" cross-section. Most boards have some kind of curve to them; so I had to be careful to mark and maintain a straight line when laying them out on the curved hull surface. Then it was simply a case of coating each board and the underlying hull plywood with epoxy and temporarily stapling them in place with minimum mess. I used a bit of excess to make sure that they were thoroughly wetted and bonded which then required that I sand the entire hull to remove blebs and discontinuities.