Thursday, April 5, 2012

Building The Deck

As aforementioned, I milled the strips too thin to use cove-and-bead, and decided to go for the "rolling bevel" technique.And as always, the parts I thought would be difficult were easy, and vice versa.







The boat-length strips were the hardest. Each strip seems to take a twist aft of the cockpit, and it was difficult to get  the cut ends to meet neatly at the bow & stern. The usual motley assortment of clamps.

Starting from the King Plank, I was able to use C clamps for a while. I also used these little L-shaped brackets for subsequent planks. The tape and block is an attempt to hold the end joint flatter. I figured that I had enough thickness/ overlap to be able to fair those joints from both sides.
The "rolling bevel" is easier than it sounds, when I got to shorter strips and (softer) Red Cedar.
 A few strips a day. 
The rear deck was easier. I had some extra-wide material left over from when I milled the strips, so I used it for the first odd-shaped plank. 
And of course, the Obligatory Whiskey Plank Photo.


I managed to get the deck off in one piece, without sticking. It was slightly heavier than expected, due to the Yellow Cedar. I was actually surprised at how uniform the inside was, until it occurred to me that it should be, since I had laid nearly every plank flat on the forms.
The uneven areas at bow & stern didn't seem too thin after sanding, but I reinforced them anyway, with a little thickened epoxy.



 

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