Inner gunwales continued

Yesterday I was able to make the bevels for the other inner gunwale. Again, not perfect but as good as I could get them. Predictably, the last one was a bastard but I won in the end.

Today was finally D-day for joining the lengths. I spent some time sussing out how I was going to handle the job first. The only place under cover where I could do it was on our back verandah. I stuck some scrap timber strips in the gaps along one of the grooves in the decking, so as to (hopefully) make them as straight as possible. I also used a couple of old doors (weighted down with some of my gym weights) for either side of the scarfs, to give some clamping stability.

Well, at least the dry test run looks like it'll work.

I tried to chock the ends as best as possible too.

Deep breath, here we go. After laying down some plastic, I mixed up a little bit of epoxy with the additive which makes it more runny. I applied this to the bevels, allowing it to soak into the end grain a bit.

Then I mixed in some of the glueing/filling powder and applied it liberally to the surfaces, and matched them up. Bit messy, but hopefully I've got them aligned properly. It's a bit hard to see once the epoxy and plastic is all around, but I reckon it's ok. I fired a staple into the top joint to stop it from sliding, and covered it up.

Because the job is now laying across a high-traffic area, I took some steps to increase visibility. I'd hate to have to violently eliminate a member of my family for tripping over it and wrecking the joints.

I'm going to leave it like this until Saturday, when I will hopefully be able to clean them up and fit them into the hull. This has been a big mental hurdle for me. It is so good to now be moving again on this project. Hopefully I will be able to get some real momentum going again.

First scarfs

Today I finally got around to making the first of the scarf joints for the inner gunwales. I set up under our big Jacaranda tree (with some cool tunes playing) and started nutting it out.

To save time, and in a gesture toward accuracy, I clamped all four of the lengths together and measured/marked out the bevel angles simultaneously.

I was hoping to bevel two lengths at a time (staggered so that the bevel marks line up), but unfortunately my sharpening guide can only really fit around one strip at a time. Oh well.

Next I needed to work out how far back from the end I'd have to place the guide, so that the correct angle for sanding would be maintained. I used a straight strip of wood to eyeball something approximating decent alignment (should be right, shouldn't it?).

Because the strips are pretty long, I figured I ought to try clamping the strip, and work the torture board back and forth.

I also tried to support the very end as much as I could, since theoretically this edge would be getting more and more flimsy as work progressed.

Long story short, this approach didn't really work very accurately, so I reversed it and tried again.

Still not ideal and a bit fiddly, but much better. I continued as carefully as I could, stopping regularly to check my results. The following picture is what I ended up with.

Again, not overly perfect, but way better than I thought I was going to be able to achieve. The mating surfaces still had a very slight curvature cross-wise, so I used a bit of sandpaper and a timber strip to flatten it out as best I could. The next photo shows the bevels put together.

So after all that, I have my first scarf joint. Not ideal, but should suffice. Bit of a gap here and there, but about as good as I can get it. I'm told that epoxy can be quite forgiving with stuff like this. Hopefully my next scarf (for the other inner gunwale) will be better.