Up goes the garboard

The spiling batten laid against a sheet of okoume

I swallowed very hard and bought 2 sheets of 12mm okoume marine plywood at an painful price of $138 per sheet (as compared to somewhat less painful $101 per sheet at Harbor Sales http://www.harborsales.net/. )  Harbor Sales is the cheapest I have seen anywhere, by a good margin, and they deliver for free to boot!  Unfortunately, my Harbor Sales order is backordered, and is not scheduled to arrive until the end of May.

The two sheets will get me through the garboard (already cut) and one additional strake.  By then, maybe my order will be in, or else I will swallow even harder and buy a couple more to keep me moving along.

The first step in cutting a strake is to lay the spiling batten against the sheet of plywood, ideally in the most efficient location.  At these prices, you don't want to waste any more than you must.  Using the compass set to the same separation as was used to mark the spiling batten from the moulds (previous post,) but reversing the position of the point and the pencil, marks are made on the plywood.

 After all mould marks have been transferred, you bend a regular fairing batten around marking awls set at each marked location.  Draw lines against the curve of the batten, repeat for the set of marks on the other side, and you have the lower and you have your cutting lines for the strake.

In my case, there will be 3 sections per side, scarphed together, since the garboard is about 21' long, and the plywood sheets are 8'.

Here is another view of the fairing batten in place on the curve I defined using the spiling batten, as described above.

After a few minutes with the bandsaw, and a few more with hand plane and spokeshave, the forward starboard third of the garboard is ready for test fitting.

Every time I do this spiling thing, I am amazed that it actually works.  Shop Assistant Bosco Brown is shown at left.  He is also amazed and, as usual, very impressed with the quality of my work. After a test fitting, the strake section can be used as a template for the equivalent section on the port side.  In his manner, I was able to lay out cut out, and cut scarph tapers for all 6 sections of the garboard, in one pretty easy day of work.

Here is a scarph taper being cut.  Following the standard of 12 to 1, I made the tapers 6 inches long.  They went very quickly with my power plane followed up, when I ran out of nerve, with a hand plane.

Next step is final fitting and gluing, all of which will be done on the hull.