Life after planking

It is a pleasure to be doing something other than planking, and especially satisfying to be working with "real" wood again.  I will certainly not complain about plywood; it is easy to work with, doesn't require milling, is perfectly stable and utterly predictable, and certainly saves money and resources. 

Plywood, however, has no soul. By that, I mean the very properties that make it a pleasure to use and cause it to be a great material for the glued clinker technique, give it a sameness and coldness that one cannot really fall in love with.  "Real" wood is often unpredictable. It checks, it moves, it warps, it shrinks and expands, it has hidden knots and blemishes.  It is also surprises and delights you when you least expect it.

As happy as I was during the past six months or so to be planking with such a predictable and reliable material, I am even more pleased to have a break from it and to be able to use some lovely mahogany to fashion the outer stem and stern.  It is also nice to be doing a completely different kind of fabrication than the repetitive process of making and installing strakes.

The stem is made from solid stock, milled to 2 3/8" wide.  I started with lumber that was a bit over 4" square, so I was able to capture the curve for the outer stem in three scarphed sections, while keeping the grain pretty much parallel to the length.

The mahogany stem glued in place, beveling partly done

  I glued each of the three sections of the outer stem to the laminated ash inner stem separately.  First I glued the upper (nearest the deck) section with thickened epoxy and temporary screws.  I scribed the scarph for the next section in place to insure that my curve was properly positioned, cut the scarph, and glued and screwed, and repeated the process for the last section which will mate with the keel.  Finally, I marked the bevel on the front face of the stem, power planed, and then hand planed down to  a 1 1/4" width.  


The process for the outer stern is easier because it is much shorter (about 36" compared to 80" for the stem.)  I glued it up, cut it out, and beveled it in the vise in the shop.  That made my back much happier.

The outer stern all tapered and ready to glue

The tongue at the keel side of the stern, in the foreground above, will join with the keel.  There is a trip to the lumberyard in my near future, to pick out "real" wood for the keel.  I am hoping for Douglas Fir, if the price is right, but since I intend to epoxy coat the keel, my options are pretty broad.

Stern in place, glued, clamped and temporarily screwed