Das Boot!
Station molds... Well, since
my last entry, the boat project has started. I cut the station forms from the drawings
after enlarging them on a drawing program (a given percentage that gave me the width
that I wanted for the boat) then printing them on a laser printer. I transferred
them to the plywood by cutting around the lines with an razor knife, then tracing
the margin onto the plywood with a marker. I built my construction stand (beam) out
of scrap 1" and 3/4"-plywood, constructed the station form risers out of
old plywood, pine and cedar boards, and a few 2" x 2" scraps for the bases
of the risers. The first thing that I noticed, is that I really started to zip through
getting the stations mounted on the beam. This haste got me my first look at the
upside-down profile of the hull with the bow spar fitted---- aaaahhhh! A boat it
shall be.
However, by being in a bit of a hurry, I noticed that most of my reference lines
were off a smidge and that shear line had a slight hump in at around station #b7.
This was not working as I had intended it too. So, I laid a straight edge on the
very bottom (now the top) of the station molds and used it to align the bow spar.
I then fitted station form #b9 into its groove in the bow spar and aligned itís bottom
(deck line) with the deck line of the bow spar; then adjusted (lowered downward toward
the beam) stations #b8 and #b7 slightly to get the shear to line to flow and the
center-deck line to flow properly. When mounting the station form to the upright
and the riser to the beam, I found that just using one drywall screw in each until
everything was trued-up made the whole adjustment process a lot easier.
Bow view (remember, the boat is upside-down, the bottom of the forms are facing up). The bow spar is, in part, the two pieces of luan mahogany plywood, clamped together and fitted into station molds #9, #8, and #7.
Stern view. The stern spar (form) has not been fitted. (I'm still working on the spar at this point.)