Sunday 23 November 2008

Chine stringers, steaming bending and frame fixing







April 2006 : a lot of work completed during the latter week of March and the whole of April. We decided to fit the chine stringer before fitting the frames as we felt it would be much easier than doing it at a later stage. It was obvious that we would have to steam all the stringers in order to get them to fit and to try and reduce the stresses on the frames. This would be especially true of the chine stringer which was all 'edge set'. A Heath Robinson affair of copper kettle and hose pipe did the trick in the first instance but we became more sophisticated and effective later on by using a cheap commercial electric wall paper stripper and an insulated steam box made with ply offcuts. This allowed us to steam full length scarfed stringers before fixing on to the frames.

Anyway, I digress. The chine stringers were steamed and then clamped in place (24 clamps per stringer) for a couple of days to take up the shape before finally epoxying and screwing in place.

Fitted the centreboard case into position using Sikaflex, then screwed and epoxied the stem girder and frames #3 , #4 and #5. It is starting to take shape or do we have active imaginations?

Two days later, glued and screwed in frames #1 and #2. Experimented with dry fitting of frame #6a (now 21mm thick) and seat fronts. All looks good.

Fixed all the doublers on the stem girder and decided also that we would have additional bunk flat supports to make them less 'bendy', so altered the frames and plans accordingly.

Started thinking about outboards - make, size, fuel type etc. Critical, as we needed to start building the outboard well and it had to fit! Eventually chose the Yamaha 4hp 4 stroke - the largest we could fit in a mock up of the well.

No comments: