Build A Boat Part Two

OK.  After our wood was stretched and bent we could really get started.  We sliced our plywood to the width that we wanted, 40 inches and then it was time to attach our framework.

We glued, screwed, and clamped the one by twos onto the plywood bottom, trying to maintain that curve in it the entire time. Then we had to wait a day or so for the glue to dry. And we quickly discovered that waiting sucks.  And we also discovered that when you are building boats made of wood, you will do a lot of waiting for glue to dry.

Surely there must be something for us to do in the meantime?  And there was.  We cut two pieces of 3/8 inch plywood, glued, screwed, and clamped them together.  This was going to be our transom and we left it a couple inches oversize all the way around.  It is always better to discover that you have too much material and only need to trim off a little bit in order to make it fit rather than find out that your piece is too small and you must somehow find a way to make it bigger.  It is often impossible to make it bigger.

We also screwed and glued a 2 x  2 across the rear so that we would have something to screw that ransom onto when the time comes.

After both one by twos were installed, we piled a few two by sixes under the front to lift it up then put more weight on to the plywood to keep it bent.

Then we clamped a couple of two by fours all the way across the table, one of them on top of the plywood and the other one beneath the table in order to pull the middle part of the plywood down at the same time the front of it was being pushed up.  This increased the pressure greatly.

Here is one of the sideboards.  We glued and screwed a one by two along the top of it to stiffen it up and it will also serve as a rub rail on the outside of the boat.

Since my nephew doesn't live real close and he only came over about one day a week to work on it, progress was slow.  This was going to be a multi week process.  And after a couple of weeks went by a double tragedy struck.

The first one was that he lost interest.  This was bad enough in itself but then the second one hit.  It was now just a few days before Christmastime.  My mother desired to decorate the room.  What's even worse, she desired to decorate it without being hampered by the presence of a boat.  And also without the presence of a partially completed boat.  That just goes to show you how unreasonable women can be.  We were going to have to move our project.

No problemo. We temporarily screwed a two by two across the front and fastened a piece of paracord on each side front and rear.  In the middle of each piece of paracord was a 2 by 2 twisted into the strands, as the paracord stretched and let the wood relax, we merely had to give the two by two another twist or two to remove the slack and tighten it back up.  Paracord is nylon and it does stretch, so this would need to be done periodically in order to preserve the curve that we had put into the wood.  Then we simply carried it out into the shop and left it until after New Year's.

Here is another view of it.

Stay tuned for part three.