I got up to Rick's factory to find he'd been busy in setting up his router for my little milling operation. It was all aligned properly & he'd made up a brilliant jig which completely enclosed the spinning bit & held the planks perfectly against it. I was spewing I'd forgotten to take my camera. It only took me about one & a half hours to mill all of the planks & they came out great.
Rick had also sussed the fact that the beaded edge of the planks aren't exactly a true radius. Plus the fact that one edge of the newly milled coves tended to be very slightly rougher than the other (if that makes sense), so he made a point of showing me how to select which way to slide the planks into his router jig, to obtain the best possible fit/finish when eventually fitting the planks onto the molds. He further instructed me to mark the best face (which will end up on the outside of the boat) with chalk, so as to simplify things for me later. How's that for attention to detail? Man I owe this bloke, big time. I reckon I would've botched this job if left to my own devices. As if all that wasn't enough, he even delivered the planks that I couldn't fit into my car, to my home after he finished work.
Anyway, the rest of the day/night was taken up by a combination of the usual kid's stuff, a trip to our financial planner and dinner/movie for our 15yr wedding anniversary, so not much more canoe action. Still, a very productive & satisfying day.
It was with much anticipation that I uncovered the canoe this morning. To my amazement, the clamps did come off (with a bit of gentle persuasion). Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the permanent stems. It would seem that the overly conscientious application of 350, 000 mega-liters of glue is not the method of choice for laminating up stem assemblies. Who knew?
Never mind, at lease it seems the glue DOES work. I spent most of the day getting the stems off and cleaned up a bit before refitting them to the molds. The short vertical bits did break off, so I had to re-glue them, meaning that I can't start beveling (to receive planking) until tomorrow now.
Whilst all this was going on, my fiber glassing supplies finally arrived. I got real excited when I realised that pretty much everything I need to build this canoe, is now on site. My only limitation now is time.
One canoe.......(some assembly required).
In preparation for planking tomorrow, it was time to tape up the molds. I'm really hoping to be able to get the canoe off the molds relatively easily afterward. See how it goes anyway (maybe control myself a bit with the glue this time).
Tomorrow's plan is to start the bevels on the stems and......(deep breath)....start planking!
Scott,
ReplyDeleteGreat work so far! I'm following closely until I can get a space to build an Ulua. Something I learned when building a small cedar strip canoe is to watch the glue overflow on the inside. Not only is is a pain to scrape and sand off a convex surface, but even when you get it all sanded smooth, there is still glue in the grain. I glassed over it and can see the discolored drips. Found out that before you glass, you should give the hull a good wipe with a damp cloth, and that glue is visible so you know where to sand a bit more.
Best of Luck and Have Fun!
Jon
Hi Jon, glad to have you aboard. Thanks very much for the tip on the glue overflow, I'll try to make sue I'm not so heavy handed with it next time. Please let me know how you get on when you get to get into your Ulua.
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