Garboards

Fairing and Garboards

The first garboard plank gets glued onto the hog - planking is underway!

Yesterday we got the laminated stems and hog faired to the moulds and each other to ensure smooth fair curves for planking.

Boat builders and owners need something to worry about; my worries today all concern temperature and glue strength. We can get the workshop warm for a couple of hours after applying the epoxy but it is not practical to keep this up overnight for the full cure time. The first cold snap of the season has arrived so in future, I think glue jobs will need to be limited to the morning.

Anyway the last 3 or 4 days has seen some progress and canoes must wait for a week now as I head to the coast, for hopefully a couple of days of winter sailing (not to mention an engine service in the ‘other boat’). Then back to work, to pay for it all!

Hog & Stems

Hog & Stems


Indestructible epoxy - epoxy stronger than the wood! Not so! When I cut through the laminated stems to form the scarf to join the hog to, the glue line failed on the uppermost laminate and it sprung apart. Not a huge problem as the addition of more components will only serve to strengthen this, but surprising.

Moulds

Moulds marked and cut out

Setting out mouds on strongback

Fitting the hog (the timber which will eventually take the keel). It must be straight!

As for the instruction book - what's this all about?

Laminating Stems

Laminated Stems

The 4mm iroko thick strips are epoxy glued to the pre-shaped moulds. These will form the curved stems at both end of the canoe and join into the hog and keel.

Plywood moulds

Springing the curve to mark the hull shape on the moulds

The moulds to form the exact hull shape at each of the stations are marked out, in this case on 9mm birch ply. These are then cut out on the bandsaw and will eventually be mounted on the building frame.

Design Plans

This morning to Bristol to collect sheets of top notch 4mm marine ply. At £95 per sheet will I ever dare make the first cut?



The Plans have arrived





The drawings had already arrived several weeks back, so it was good this afternoon, to finally unroll them and plane up some iroko for the hog, keel and laminated stems.




For anyone wanting the drawings the original 19th century design by John MacGregor has been re-drafted by Iain Oughtred, to a modern lapstrake plank epoxy construction. These can be purchased from http://www.woodenboat.com/

Strongback

Two new ventures:


1] A home build MacGregor Sailing Canoe

2] A wife encouraged/enforced blog



Here goes!




The project in hand (canoe not wife or blog)

The credit for this beautiful canoe (above) apparently goes to Tom Moen (for more details http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=1634 ). Hope you will not mind us admiring this image Tom, until our own project kicks off further.

Ready to Build!

So far, we - oh by the way 'we' is my father and I (more on that later) have got the workshop cleared and the strongback built