2nd Sheer Lamination/Started Fairing

This week I have been gluing the second sheer lamination on the port side. I have not been making a lot of progress just an hour here and there. Nothing exciting or new with the lamination process its the same as the previous post.

While waiting for the epoxy on the sheer to dry I picked up my Stanley hand plane and began planing the port chine. 3-4 hours later i was close enough to where I think the finished chine should be that I stopped in fear of planing off too much wood. I enjoy the planing/fairing its kinda fun in the way that widdling wood could be called fun.

I got to thinking about how much time I could save with a hand held electric power plane and remember seeing one at Harbor Freight, my favorite el cheapo tool store. The next day I bought the electric plane for $29.99 thinking it could be a total piece of crap or work really well. (seen in the pic below) It actually works really well. I am impressed, especially for $29.99. I bet I can do the other side in half the time of the manual hand plane alone. You actually need to stop after 5 or 6 passes with the electric plane and do the rest by hand because its easy to take off too much material. In those 5-6 passes with the electric plane you take off what would take about 2 hours worth of material with a hand plane. I actually splintered a corner of my transom at the chine joint because I used the electric plane too long and it caught the edge of the transom. No big deal since the transom will get a nice veneer over the ply later. You can see the nice mess of Purple Heart shavings on the floor in the picture.

Chine Lamination 2

This week I have been gluing the second chine laminations to both sides of the boat. Its taking a long time because I only have enough clamps to epoxy 1/3 of the length of the chine at a time. Then I must wait 12 hours for cure before moving on. Pretty boring stuff but here is a picture.

Sheer Lamination 1

After spending the weekend fitting the chine lamination I moved on to the 1st of 2 sheer laminations around the bottom of the boat (top when upright)

The sheers were much easier than the chine because there is no twist on the sheer just a big bend. The bend is quite severe so that is why two laminations of 1/2" thick wood is used instead of one 1' thick piece. Even so I still had to use towels soaked with boiling water to bend the wood without fear of it breaking in half. It is also tricky to cut the perfect angle in the frame notch to recieve the long sheer but I got it as close as I could and used lots of epoxy. I even tested two scraps of wood and epoxied them together, one was a piece of mahogany the other was the purple heart. The next morning I put the scraps in clamps and tried to break the glue joint. I broke the African mahogany in half and the joint held strong. Purple heart is a really strong wood, the more I work with it the more I fear sanding it, its going to eat sandpaper.

Anyway, to install the sheer I cut the proper angle in the sheer where it meets the stem to get a nice joint. Then I epoxied and bronze screwed/countersunk the sheer to the breasthook and bent the sheer to frame 5-1/2, the first frame aft. I glued/screwed/clamped it and let it cure then did the other side the same way. 12 hours later I glued/screwed/clamped to the next frame aft and thats where I am now.
I just need to do attach the sheer to the last frame and cut the end to fit into the transom notch.