Keel runners and more battens going on.

Hi folks

The process of fitting battens to the boat goes on but I am getting quite close to the keel at the bow end so it's time to fit the keel runners.

These are battens well I've been calling them battens but I should really be calling them ribands, any way these ribands run parallel with the keel at a 1 1/2" spacing and provide a surface for the other ribands to butt to so they don't have to be joined to the keel. This is because the other ribands are set at 2" spacings and follow the curve of the sheer line.
The keel runners are slightly wider than to other ribands to make them strong enough for the other ribands to butt to. This caused a bit of a problem as they didn't bend in the same way as the other ribands which caused a low spot between the keel runners and the keel over the first three molds. I solved this problem by gluing strips of timber to this area and using the same batten I used to mark the keel curve to mark both sides of the runner. I then planed down to this line while using a steel rule held against the keel to check fair on the batten.

This done I continued fitting ribands to the mold this was a time consuming process that was not finished until the end of March 2007. The mold looks great it's a shame its not going to be part of the finished boat but its got to be right so it's worth taking the time.

First battens going on the mold.

Hello guy's

This work was started in mid September 2006, I had sourced some straight grained timber locally in 3m lengths 22mm by 100mm. I ripped this down to 22mm square battens which I scarf joined using PVA wood glue to make battens of 20' approx as shown in this photo.
As you can see from this photo I have marked the sheer line at each mold and have offered up the first batten at these marks using c clamps. The line was checked for fairness and any obvious high spots adjusted. These adjustments were transferred to the other side.

The positions and depth at each batten was marked using a purpose made marking gauge made from an off of batten. The slots were cut out with a coping saw. The batten was then clamped into position and adjusted for fairness using shavings that were produced when planing the scarf joints as shims. The batten was then screwed into place. The last picture shows five battens on the mold I was starting to run out of material now and was having trouble finding good quality timber that was straight without knots to made good battens. I got round this to start with by scarf jointing all the usable offcuts from the battens I had already made. This produced surprisingly good battens that produced quite fair curves but as the offcuts got shorter and the number of joints per batten increased until it took longer to make a good batten. This went on until mid December until I had to find timber from further afield at a much higher cost so no further progress was made until the new year.

Bonding and shaping the Gripe.

Hi guy's hope you had a good Christmass. This work was done in September 2006. I used the offcuts from the keel to laminate a blank for the gripe 12" long 1" thick. I marked a line across one end at 3/4" and planed one side down to it to give the gripe a taper. Using a bevel gauge I took the bevel between the stem and the keel and I transferred to the 1" thick end of the gripe and cut it with a pull saw. I offered this up to one side of the keel and marked the keel curve at this point onto the blank. I planed down to this line using a no4 smoothing plane. Finally I marked of a 45 degree bevel on the 3/4" end of the grip which I rough cut and tidied up with a block plane. The gripe was bonded with epoxy as shown in the photo.

A batten was used to mark the line the gripe would be planed down to. This was done first with a block plane then a spokeshave and final at the tip of the bow with a 1" chisel.

This came out quite well I was a bit relieved as I had struggled to see what it would look like in the lofting and had then decided to leave it to now and work it out. Phew!

Finally the blank I had left in the centre board slot could be cut out. I had already cut the side cuts but had left the blank in place to make shaping the keel easier. I made to end cuts with a coping saw and straightened up the edges using a block plane and chisel.

Job done.

Shaping the keel

This jumble of photo's shows the process followed to first rough fair then final fair the keel.
A batten was bent around the molds next to the side of the keel and the curve marked with a pencil to give a line to plane down to.
Then a power plane was used to rough fair the keel. Final fairing was done by hand starting with a no6 plane when a no5, no4, block plane and spokeshave as the twist of the keel got tighter as I got close to the bow.




Lofting the stem was a pain as in the final 6" of the stem and the keel I just couldn't see it shape in two dimensions. This was made worse by the stem and keel joining with a very tight curve, radius roughly2" at the forward end of the water line. So I left plenty of spare material there so I could fair it by eye.

I started by fairing one side by eye using battens as a guide to check fair with the molds. Then I used a profile gauge to transfer the shape to the other side.

Its not perfect but it is as close as I could get it and if you put the profile gauge anywhere on it and transfer it to the other side its a good fit.

That's about it next job is to fit and fair the gripe and cut out the centre board slot.

Shaping the Keel.

Sorry folks got my photo's out of order again.

Lines were marked at every mold using a rule, then a pull saw was used to cut along the lines following the angle of the mold. A chisel was then used to cut out the material between the saw cuts to give a series of angled notches showing the profile of the keel at each mold.

These notches would be used as a guide along with a flexible batten to shape the keel.

With the keel laminate cured It's time to cut the centre board slot. It's best to do this now using the the flat surface of the plank to mark out. I am going to use a wooden centre board 1 1/8" wide I need to cut a 1 7/8" slot to account for the 1/4" ply sides of the centre board case. I used a jigsaw to cut just inside both line but left the blank in place to make it easier to shape the keel.

Hi Guy's

I have just looked at my last post the spellings terrible probably made worse by bad typing but never mind. Anyway the work shown in these pictures was done around September 2006 the transom and stem had been fitted now the keel was next. The plans show that the keel is 6" by 1" by 18' long. When I had been researching the project I had read in the Gougeon brothers book that you should laminate the keel with some 1/8" marine ply in it to give it some cross grain strength. I had to source this material in metric measurements 25mm to1" so I ordered four 3m by 160mm by 11mm lengths of utile and one 2.5m by 1.2m by 3mm sheet of marine ply. these were to be scarf jointed into three keel planks to be laminated into one 25mm keel 11mm + 3mm + 11mm=25mm.

I used a string line to mark the centre line of the utile planks, I had ordered them planed but they weren't straight. I marked the width of the keel 6" from this centre line and planed the planks to size using the bench as a shooting board. I used the same method to cut the material from the 3mm ply sheet.

The planks and marine ply sheets were joined with scarf joins, I ensured all of the joins were offset to avoid weak points in the keel. I used some shuttering ply and a batten to make a template of the keel for the first three molds where the keel tapers. This showed that the curve was not fair at mold 2 and the tip of the stem. I adjusted this by planing an 1/8" off the top of mold two which gave an extra 1/4" width to the keel there and by using a spokeshave to reduce the with of the stem at the tip by an 1/8" to give a fair line. I took the chance to check the fairness of the first three molds with the stem using a batten and found mold one was 3/16" to wide on both sides so I used a straight edge held to the face of the stem to project a straight line onto mold one which was marked. A flexible batten was used to mark a fair curve through these marks and the mold planed down to this line. This was checked with a batten.

I test fitted an marked each keel plank in place and used the template to rough mark the outline of the keel at the bow. The first plank was then fitted to the mold and bonded at the stem and transom and left to cure. The two remaining planks were bonded in the same way. I again used a batten to check the marked curve on the keel for fairness and block planed the keel to this line.

Hi guy's

the next step in the build was to build the transom and the stem and mount them on the mold.

the transom was made from a piece of 3/4" marine ply the inside profile of the transom and it's inside bevels were transfered onto the material. This profile was routed out to a depth of 1/2" to form a rabate and the bevels were cut with a chisel using templates from the drawings. This left a 1/4" overlap to cover the endgrain of the veneers when fitted. Cheek pieces were made from 1/2" by 2" lenghts of utile hardwood to increase the glue area for the skin veneers the bevels were transfered onto these using a block plane. The transom was then mounted onto the frame in the same maner as the molds.

The stem was laminated out of two 1 1/8" by 4" by 24" utile planks. Templates of the stem profile were taken from the drawings and marked onto the blank and the stem bevel cut uing a block plane and a spoke shave. It was hard to loft the exact profile at the tip of the stem due to the angles to the skin veneers thickness being quite shape so extra material was left here to be faired up later.

First boat photo's

Hi guys these are some of the photo's of the work done that I described in the last post but I was still working out how to post photo's. As you can see I still haven't got the hang of it because they arn't in order.

As you can see I set up the frame first and marked the centre line with a plumb line made out of mig welding wire.

The main center mold was set up first using a spiritlevel and wedges with a 1" by 2" framework to hold it. The rest of the molds were then setup a 21" spacings.

Mold one is at an 18 5/8" spacing with the

mold stem attached to it at the top with a spacing

of 7 3/16" at the bottom.

Starting to look like somthing now this work was started

in June 2006 and completed by the end of August.

I had never built a boat before but had read number of books

and was learning as I went along. I generally solved each problem

as they came along proving my old boss right when he said there's

always a way.

Steve's boat

Hi

I'm Steve and this is my new boat blog. I have been working on this boat for 18 months now
Its being built to plans of a 1955 Jollyboat designed by Uffa Fox. I sent off some pictures to tony Dixon who is Uffa Fox's nephew who put them on his wedsite, this generated some interest so I have started this blog to show how I'm going on.

There arn't to many jollyboats left in the UK now so I thought it would be a worthwhile project to build one. I had just finished an HNC in Engineering and wanted a project to keep me ticking over. I transfered the plans onto CAD and carried out the lofting process on my PC which was alot easier on my knee's. This worked out quite well I only had a 1/4" error on one mold which turned out to be my marking out when I made the mold not the lofting.

In Cad I made offsets at 2" spacings vertically and horizontally for each mold. I transfered these onto 3mm shuttering ply and cut these templates out suing a jigsaw and finished them with a block plane. To these I glued and screwed 6" wide lenghts of 18mm MDF to form the frame work of the mold. I cut these to size using a router with a straight cutting bit with a bearing to follow the plywood template.

I then build a 20' x 4' frame to mount the molds on using 2"x4" pine then mounted the molds, transom and stem.