This morning, I started with beveling the stem. It took me about 40 minutes to finish the beveling and get the stem the right shape.Later, the stem was fixed to the jig and ready for the bottom.
Sebastien continued working on the midship section, while Kenny and Tian continued working on the transom.
Later in the morning, Jade and I worked on the beveled frame. Using batten and wood block to measure the bevel of the frame (for the topside of the dory).
In the afternoon, we put the bottom on the frame. Clue it to the stem and transom. We also used crump and screw to fix it to the frame and bend it to the right shape. We had a small problem with midship section as we found a gap between the midship section and the bottom. Vaughn's recommendation was to bevel the midship section's surface which was attached to the bottom.He showed us how to use 'plane' in style: quick and accurate. It only took him about 10 seconds to fix the problem and get the midship section the right shape. I did not even got a chance to make a video. Quick hand Vaughn.
It seems we are a little bit behind as there are only two weeks (8 working days) left for our dory. Tomorrow we plan to finish the topside which include 4 pieces of plank (scarf them and glue them). And we will also finish the transom fashion pieces. Hopefully we can turn the dory up next Monday and start to work on the inside.
Tuesday
Our goal for today was to scarf topsides and glue them together. So we can put them on the bottom and frames tomorrow. This goal made today a combination of good day and bad day. Anyway, it is a challenging goal.
The reason why this is a bad day is quite simple: we made an big error on scarfing. We scarfed the wrong side of the plywood. Which means that we can not put two pieces together. We forgot what Chris told us: check twice, cut once. I think this is because everyone in the team put too much attention on the shape of the topside as this is our first time dealing with flattened developable surface. We ignored basic skills on scarfing: mark the scarfing side, and flip it over to check it. We did not notice the error until we started to put scarfed pieces together. This is really a bad news for the team.
Luckily, after discussion with Chris, we found that we still have enough space to fix the error: cut off the wrong scarf surface, and make a new one. The plywood is just enough for this cut off. This again proved Chris' advice: always make it bigger than the plan. this second chance is quite an encouragement. The team decided to work on the scarf and finish the gluing today. Although this made us stay in the workshop until 6 pm, but this is definitely worth it.
Another exciting thing is the sanding machine. This powerful machine speeds up the scarfing and helps to save a lot of time.
Kenny glued the transom fashion piece. It took him lot of effort and time to fix the shape of the fashion piece.
Wednesday
Today's major task it to glue two garboards (lower topsides) to the bottom and midship frame. In the morning, we cut the garboard to its shape on the bandsaw. This process includes two steps: first, we cut two boards to it approximate shape; then, we nailed two boards together and cut them to the exact shape at once.
The next step is to plane their edges to make them nice and fair. Then, we put the garboard on the temporary frame, locate a fix position by screwing a hole through the garboard and the midship frame. There are several preparation work need to be done before we start gluing: put tape on the edge of the frame to prevent to glue the frame to the garboard; spread two layers of glue (first time without powder, and second time with powder). And then, we push the garboard against to the bottom and use nails and tape to attach garboard and bottom.
There are two ways to attach garboard to the bottom. One is to use nail and the other is to use tape. We decided to use the combination of these two method. On one hand, we can get less nail holes than simply using nails; on the other hand, as we are not confident (giving consideration that this is our first boatbuilding experience, we think nails, as a more conservative way to fasten the garboard to the bottom, is safer). After fastened two garboards to the bottom, we also glued the out edge between them.
Chris (tutor) also showed us an efficient way to fasten garboard to the bottom. Use a wood block, and put it between the garboard and bottom, screw through the garboard from outside to the wood block. So the block and the screw play roles like a cramp which helps to push the garboard and bottom together.
This is not the last working day of this week, as we decided to continue our work tomorrow.
Thursday
Got to the workshop at 10:10 am and started today's work with beveling the garboard. It is a little bit confusing with the bevel edge. Consulted with Chris (American) and Chris (tutor), and got several helpful advices. We used saw to cut a small gap on the garboard edge at each station (except station 0,1,2, this is because of the bevel angle of these stations, the intersects will be too high) and the transom. This gap plays as a role of the extension of the frame, and its end point is the intersect of the garboard and the frame edge. Then we used a batten to draw a line through these points. The first line was too high for bevel edge and the second was little bit low, so we decided to take the middle.
After beveled the edge, we measured the size of the strake (the upper topside), and lofted it on cut board. After several times of checking and arranging it on the plywood sheep, we get our strake (as the process is exactly the same as the starboard, so this time it is much easier). One thing needs to be noticed is that we are also going to cut the bulk head from the same sheet, so it took us a while to arrange the cutting plan in order to get the most out of the plywood sheet we have.
Then it is time to scarf the strake pieces. This time we double checked the scarf surface and make sure that they are the right sides that should be scarfed. We marked them and used the belt sander. Then, we planed them by hand.
After scarfing, we spread glue on scarf surface (twice, one without powder, and the second with powder). Fixed them on the table. Next Monday, we will cut them to the exact shape and attach them on the boat.
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