Floors and Deck Beams

It has been a while since the boat was turned over and in that time I have been filling and sanding the inside of the hull. Waiting for the filler to dry so it can be sanded makes it into a one or two day cycle and because it is also boring I started working on the floors and then the deck beams.

Here is the start of laying out the deck beams. The aluminium box section is 100mm high; its top is at the waterline, its bottom is at the top of the floors. The cross pieces of scrap timber are where the floors will be.

This is how I found the shape of the floors. I could have obtained these profiles from the lofting but this is probably quicker. It isn't my idea, I saw it used in this thread on the Wooden Boat Forum. The pieces of cardboard are stapled to the crosspiece and then this assembly is lifted out and the shape transfered to a piece of scrap plywood.

The plywood should fit but if not can easily be fine tuned. Once the shape is determined it can be transferred to the real timber and cut out with confidence. In the middle sections of the boat where the shape changes slowly the sawn floor should fit. Towards the ends of the boat where the shape changes more quickly the sawn floors need to be bevelled to make a good fit.

In the next photo the two aft floors are in place ready for a pilot hole to be drilled on the centre of the propellor shaft which will pass through them. The drill is fixed in the end of a length of 16mm MS bar with loctite. The bar is long enough to reach through the stern tube hole and is held central in two bushes. The floor to be drilled is held in place by the pavers. Worked like a charm!

With the first pilot hole drilled the floor was removed and two wedge shaped pieces of ply glued either side to provide surfaces at right angles to the prop shaft. These provide the mounting surface for the flange mount bearings that support the inboard end of the propellor shaft. With the first floor complete a 50mm clearance hole was drilled through it. This allowed a pilot hole to be drilled in the second floor. Here are the two floors completed.

The rest of the floors were made and fitted through to the front of the boat. Since then I have been working on the deck beams at both ends. None of the floors or deck beams are glued in place yet but they are more or less ready to be fixed after the inside of the hull has some paint on it. 

While all of this has been going on it has occurred to me that the process of building a boat is one where large pieces of wood are reduced to smaller and smaller pieces. Here are a couple of photos of my scrap boxes. It is amazing how often I can find just the right piece of wood for a particular job in one of these places.