Fitting the Hairpin and Adding the Frames

Fitting the hairpin was fairly straightforward. It sits on the cross supports at the camber of the deck and is attached to the hairpin with blocks screwed to its underside and to the cross supports. The support at the stem was a bit fiddly to organise mainly because I hadn't thought it through! The forward end of the hairpin is in the photo below.

At the stern of the boat there is a laminated block glued between the ends of the hairpin. I had been glueing up pieces to make this block over the past week or so. Now it is in place I think it might need another layer adding to it. Most of this block will be cut away to make it conform to the shape of the hull.

With the hairpin in place the ends of the cross supports are trimmed off so they don't interfere with the planking when that begins.

Fitting the frames was straightforward; they stand on top of the hairpin and are attached to it with blocks screwed to it and to the frames. That all went smoothly and I was pleased that a batten along the line of the keel touched all the frames nicely. The three photos below show that the boat is taking shape and beginning to look like a boat!

With the frames in place I am reclaiming some of the space in the shed which was taken up with the stacked frames. Tomorrow's job is to do some more reorganising so that I have more working space and don't need to be continually climbing over things that are lying in the way!

Building Frame

With the hairpin finished I could lift up the lofting floor and put it to one side. If needs be it can be reassembled but finding enough space to do that would be difficult. Hopefully it won't be needed or, if it is, only part of it will be needed.

With the floor cleaned the building frame could be put together. Here is the basic ladder frame. I was lucky some months ago to find the 2 Glulam beams (200 x 50 x 6 metres) in the local Bunnings store where they were either surplus to an order or had been returned, either way Bunnings wanted them out of the way and they were cheap! They are like 50mm thick plywood, dead straight and will stay that way forever.

The frame is in the right position and the sides will be shortened so that the shed door will close and to provide space at the back of the shed to walk around. The shed is 6 metres and the boat is 5.48 so it is a tight fit. There is enough space under the sides for me to wriggle under and then sit up. This will be awkward  and hopefully not something that I will have to do very often but it will be possible.

The station positions were marked out putting the stern of the boat so it will almost be touching the tilt-a-door when it is closed. The ends of the side beams were cut off, a string line on the centre line and 100mm below the water line organised and the cross beams at each station fitted. Here it is:

More cross supports are needed to support the hairpin or deck shelf. These supports follow the height of the sheerline and are cut at an angle so that the hairpin sits at the camber of the deck. Each of these supports sits on 2 legs coming up from the station cross beams. Getting them centred, at the right height and level was tricky but a batten laid along the centre line touched them all nicely with no kinks!

Next step is to fix the hairpin to the cross supports so that it can be disconnected when the time to turn the boat over comes in quite a few months. This is one reason that I will need to crawl under the frame.

The Hairpin

Once the frames were finished I started on the first half of the hairpin or shelf which runs along the sheer line of the boat on the inside. The cross section of this timber is 100 x 19 mm and it has to be sawn to shape and made in 4 sections butt joined with blocks on the underside. The timber is marked out from the drawing on the lofting floor using nails laid along the line and then sawn and planed to shape. The 4 sections are laid over the drawing, the shape checked and the joining blocks glued in place with epoxy. Weights were used to apply moderate pressure to the joints. Here it is on the floor, bow in the distance, stern near the camera.

Next day I made the other half using the first half as a pattern to draw the shapes on to the Radiata Pine boards.

The next 2 photos show the pieces that will support the ends of the cockpit coaming. They are not glue in place yet and won't be for a long time!

 Finally a photo showing the whole thing laid out on the grass. It actually looks boat shaped already. From end to end it is about 5.2 metres, there is a semicircular block to be fitted at the stern end which will take the length up to 5.4 metres (18 feet in the old system).

 

The black stripes are overspray from when I painted one of the battens black!

This afternoon I made a pattern in scrap ply to the shape of the inside of the cockpit to use when I come to making the cockpit coaming which has to fit the oval shape in the middle. Again, it will be a long time before I need to use this pattern.

Finished the Lofting

The lofting is finished. Drawing the sections through the stem presented a bit of difficulty because my 2 books on the subject went about it in different ways. The Gougeon book was quite sketchy in its description, my book by Kopanycia was more detailed but presented a more complicated approach which was potentially more accurate. I steered a course between them.

The final step was to draw the true shape of the hairpin or shelf that runs along the sheerline much like an inwale. Because the sheer is curved in the vertical plane its length is greater than it appears in a simple plan view. This hairpin is a substantial piece of timber that has to be sawn to shape so we have to have its true shape. The process of drawing it isn't complicated but is hard to describe and, because it is 6 metres long, I can't take photos of it all. You will just have to read the books or wait for photos showing the hairpin as I make it and fit it into the boat, these will make its name obvious.

With the lofting complete (I think) I have started making the moulds or frames that define the shape of the hull. This is fairly straight forward; the only tricky part is transferring the curved edge of the frame from the floor to the piece of timber. This photo shows the timber laying on top of the drawing - 2 pieces about 200 mm wide but jointed with a screwed on strap.

 

The blank is laying on top of the drawing and obscuring the line that needs to be marked and cut so how to transfer it? It is simple and very accurate. A number of substantial (ie double diameter) flat head nails are laid on their sidesm head s on the line, and tapped into the floor. the blank is laid on top and either walked on or tapped with a hammer. Here is a photo of the nails on the line.

The marks on the back of the blank are faired with a batten, the line cut, cleaned up with a plane and tried against the drawing. The ends and notches are marked and cut. When on ehalf is done it is used to make a mirror image of itself. the two halves are joined with another butt strap and the frame is complete.

There are 11 frames to make and over the last couple of days I have made 5 of them.