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I could have called this post “little by little, strip by strip”. As the strip planks go further up the hull with planking, they (obviously) follow the curve of of the bulkheads and my clamps no longer fit, both because of length and because of the curve. The picture below shows the last strip fitted… Continue reading Going Round the Bend

When I looked out of the shed door, Sidney was outside checking on progress. He muttered something about me being so slow. I turned around to remonstrate, but he had already gone. I am working as fast as I can Sidney! It is slow work. Adding one strip takes me about an hour and a… Continue reading Planking Progress

But, sailing season is upon us and I need my Cornish Shrimper on the water. The sails are now on and I have the tough problem of splitting my time between sailing and boat building.

Given that strip planking will go on for some time, I decided to show the process in some detail. The first picture below shows the previous strip in place ready for the next to be fixed. I am using West System epoxy and they advise a two-step bonding process. First, the surfaces to be bonded… Continue reading Fixing on a strip plank

Finally on to planking. Strip planking of course, and the clue is in the name. Each plank is 30mm wide so there will be a lot of them. The first strip, shown below is fixed a defined height from the deck shelf. This allows (according to the plans) for the whole hull to the planked… Continue reading First Planks

Despite there being quite a lot of work involved in fairing, pictures do not do a good job of showing where the effort has gone. Below you can see the keel being shaped to match the profile of the bulkheads. At the same time as fairing, I am also preparing the strip planks. I could… Continue reading Fairing Well

I had a visit from one of my crew teams today (I have two teams. The other team is younger) to check on progress. The good news is that I have had a good test of the strength of box frame joints and it stood up well. The bad news is that my crew decided… Continue reading The Crew Visits

In boat building terminology “fair” is a term used to denote the evenness or regularity of a curve or line. The egg box frame – longitudinals, bulkheads, the transom and the stem all need to be “faired” so that the strip planks can be laid to give a nice even, regular surface. I use one… Continue reading Fairing the egg box frame

With the deck shelves in place, it is time to cover them, the end of the keel and the rest of the transom with a layer of Iroko. I glued the lower plank in place first so that I had could clamp all the facing planks together without having to worry about them slipping out… Continue reading Facing the Transom

Doing anything for a second time usually takes less time and that was the case for the second deck shelf.