Friday 5 September 2008

Keel Cap Blank Roughed Out




Hi folks,
Been a bit busy the last few days not in wife's best books she's become a bit of a boat widow but I have to get on or the boat won't be finished before I have to move house.

I rough planed two 10' sawn planks straight and square and scarf joined they to make one 20' x 3" x 5/8" plank. I need to made a blank with a 2 1/2" wide section for the centre plate that tapers to 2"at either end. The blank must be 3/8" thick I know this will lead to a lot of wast but it gives me plenty of material to true it up.

First I marked out the plan profile on the blank then roughed it out with the power plane and finished it with a hand plane. That done I plane the blank down to a thickness of about 7/16" with the power plane.

That's about as far as I got yesterday I need to hand finish it down to 3/8" tonight test fit on boat and make adjustments. This done I will mark and rough plane the side profile before gluing the keel cap onto the boat.

Sorry I haven't got photo's of the scarf joint being made I forgot to bring the camera that day.


See what you think.


3 comments:

woodtreks said...

Hi Steve: Fantastic project. The veneering looks tricky. The boat looks somewhat like a Thistle, a boat I once owned. I look forward to tracking your progress. Keith (www.woodtreks.com)

Steve said...

Thanks for the comment Keith the veneering was a bit tricky and did drive me slowly roud the bend. Still it looks ok now.

Thanks for getting intouch mate.

Meerkat said...

Hi Steve,
What a great project! I used to race J62 "Juno" with my brother at the helm way back in the 60's at Shotley Sailing Club.
We helped develop the original spinnaker chute, and even the class rules were changed to allow for it.
Lovely, beautiful boats. Still remember it with a great deal of love.
Steve Crowther