October 13, 2002 - Frames and Filleting.

Today I started work on the frames that will hold the decking. I've begun with the bow (front) of the boat as a practice run before I work on the stern, which has a larger deck underneath which it should be possible to stow things.

Just cutting out the two side struts and the cross strut took about an hour, and I still got it a bit wrong. There are two angles to cut the edges of the cross strut on - the vertical sloped slightly in as the boat is narrower at the bottom than at the top, and the horizontal also slopes in as the boat is narrower at the end than in the middle.

The side struts also caused problems, as at the end there is the end-piece and also the glue of the seam gets in the way, so again I had to make two diagonal cuts.

Then I cut 18mm but 25mm chunks out of either end of the cross strut, so that the side struts fit in nicely, and this is where I made a mistake, because I forgot the fact that the pieces slope inwards. So there are two wedges missing in the struts, and when you sit in the put you will notice this under the front deck. So perhaps I will cut out a thin strip of ply and stick it on the end to cover the missing gaps. I don't think the gaps will cause any structural problems.

So, having cut out three pieces of wood I then had the scary task of routing out a 6mm deep drop at the inside edge, for the decking piece to slot into. The end of the boat took a lot of routing, as it not only had to go 6mm deep, but also about 15mm in, to smooth off the end of the boat. There was so much sawdust that I had to get the vacuum cleaner. The 6mm deep drop by the side of the side struts was a lot easier.

Then I epoxy coated the first third of the inside of the boat, up to the first frame, for added waterproof protection. I'm kind of wishing I had epoxy coated the underside of the boat too before varnishing, because some websites of boat builders say this means your boat will last for decades instead of years. But it is too late now. Then I used the rest of the glue to fit the side and cross struts, as the picture above shows. The clamps should hold it all in place while it dries.

Now that the boat is the right way up you can see the two frames I built but forgot to photograph, way before I varnished. These frames hold the structure of the boat more rigid. There was the same problem of getting the angles right as I had with the small decking struts - and with the end frame I had to have two goes because I got it completely wrong the first time around.

The plan describes the whole process of frame, filleting and decking fitting as "fit the frames, filleting and decks." Honestly, that's it. Not exactly verbose instructions for a process that I estimate will have taken me 20 hours by the time I've finished.

Here's an example of one of the mistakes I've made - this is glass fibre and epoxy plugging a hole in the side of the boat that I drilled in the wrong place when fitting the second frame. Rather than measure and mark, I held the inside piece in place, tried to remember where it went, dropped it and picked up the drill and guessed. Big mistake - I was about three centimetres out. The screw to the left of the plug shows you where I should have drilled the first time. But boat building is not an exact science, and you can fix these mistakes. The error is hardly noticeable unless it is pointed out to you.