I finished off sawing out the remaining sets of planks rather more quickly than the first couple of sets. By the time I had cut the fifth set I was reasonably happy that I was on top of the task. I was feeling so happy with progress that i went back and re-lofted and then re-cut one of the sets that I rather felt I had made a “pigs ear” of (now that's a phrase I have not heard in a long time - appropriate though).
With five plank sets now sawn out I had next to plane them to their lines. Planing a curved line seems just a bit disingenuous before you start and planing the inside of a curve even more so. However with a sharp block plane it can be done quite quickly. This was my final chance to ensure that my curves were fair (the canoe's you understand and not any personal love handles) and that the cut lines were square – giving me four half planks from each set that were as near as possible identical. By the time I had completed the last set I was really getting a feel for the tool. I suspect that a constant feature of this project will be the feeling that I am just achieving some measure of competence as I complete each phase. Is this why Paul described boat building as addictive? Not so much an addition perhaps but a desire to see what you can do starting out with better honed skills.
I now had to cut the scarf joints to make each pair of half planks a single full length plank. The scarfs should form a 1 in 8 ramp for optimal strength so, as each sheet of plywood is six millimetres thick, the ramps should be about forty eight millimetres long. The plans made provision for a one inch overlap on each half plank so I went for a five centimetre ramp – just about two inches long. Most builders cut their scarfs with a block plane but after a practice run on the discarded plank set I decided to try using a belt sander.
It is best to cut all four ramps for a plank set together as the staircase formed by aligning one plank end with the start of the ramp for the next automatically gives you the correct cutting angle. How cool is that?
Nearly half way through cutting one set of scarf joints. Just a bit wobbly but that can be corrected
Just checking that a finished scarf ramp is level
I made up a simple jig to help me cut the scarf joints on the oak lengths that will make up the inwales and outwales. This allowed me to quickly and accurately cut the 16 joints required in around 10 minutes (perhaps 20 if you want to include making the jig) – a lot less work than planing them or even using the belt sander. Now can anyone thing of a use for all those oak wedges?
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