all the Beetle cats were flipped upright!
(Hopefully we'll get some pictures of folks flipping their boats soon... I'm nagging the students.)
The boats look completely different when they're right side up. After so many months of seeing this boat
this boat seems so small
But you can only stand blinking in wonder for so long before it's time to get back to work. Here, first year instructor Jen McNally shows students how to use the deck camber mold to establish the proper bevel at the top of the sheer strake.
Here, two students are working on the sheer clamps (those two long pieces of wood going from front to back).
In the background, see steam coming out of the steam box? The box is filled with other boats' sheer clamps getting softened up to make the bend you see at the front of the boat.
These students have their sheer clamps installed and painted.
These wooden pieces going across the boat are called cross spalls. They are fastened to some of the boat's ribs, and they maintain the hull shape until the deck beams take their place.
Here you can see the way that the Beetle cat's ribs run continuously across both sides of the boat (except where the centerboard trunk gets in the way). You can also see the little wedges that go between the ribs and the the planking near the keel.
These wedges support the ribs where they transition between the planks and keel. They're also cut a little short to provide a passage for water to flow freely in the bilge. This allows you to pump out the boat from one location instead of having to individually pump each little area between the ribs. These gaps are called limber holes.
Soon the deck beams will be installed and the cross spalls can be removed.
Many of the students have finished their spars. Here you can see (from L to R) a gaff, mast, boom, and another mast.
The gaff looks pretty much like the boom, only smaller.
Meanwhile, the second year students continue to work on the 12 1/2 on the other side of the shop.
Here, a student is working out the final sections of decking on the 12 1/2. This is tongue in groove decking, so new planks are slid up next to the previously installed plank, and then fit to the curve of the covering board. The student is using a bevel gauge to get the initial angle between the decking and covering board.
After checking the fit of this plank, he removes it and fine tunes the edge to account for the slight curve in the covering board.
He then slides it back into place, and checks the fit again.
Almost there... just a little more to take off the forward edge and he's got it.
Jump forward a few days, and the deck is now finished and canvassed! The coamings have been installed, and a few of the other crew members are now fine tuning them.
The trick here is to have the coamings tops join up smoothly with the backing piece up forward.
What they feel is just as important as what they see when judging if the line is fair and sweet.
People distribute themselves all over the boat to work on whatever little area needs attention. Some areas get a little more paint,
while others get some final sanding in preparation for varnishing.
and still others enjoy the pleasant work of fairing out the deadwood in a low, cramped space.
Mmmm. Lucky.
And if you're not working directly on the boat, you can work on accessories for the boat.
Here's a metal rub rail being fabricated...
Elsewhere, a student is making a pair of oars that will stow beneath the seats.
The circles show what the oar will look like in cross-section at each location.
By using these circles, a woodworker can work out how far down to cut each corner in order to make a square cross-sectioned shaft into an 8-sided, 16-sided, 32-sided, and eventually round shaft.
Here's a first year student working on her mast using exactly this method.
The tool she's using is a large, heavy chisel called a slick.
The slick is a great tool for taking off large amounts of wood quickly. When you're hogging off large amounts of wood, you get some massive, thick chips.
But don't be fooled into thinking that a slick is just for rough work. A sharp slick can also do very delicate work as well. They're really wonderful tools.
Over on Corsair, I have a bit of apology to make. I previously wrote that the transom was mahogany.
Um, that would be Teak.
For everyone who read that previous entry and said to themselves, "Hmmm, that looks too light to be mahogany, but he must know what he's talking about," you are encouraged to write your thoughts in the comments section. You won't be mocked, even if you're right.
In the last entry you also saw the jig used to cut the tops of the floor timbers for the massive engine beds. Well, here's those timbers from start to finish. (Thanks to 2nd year instructor, Warren Barker, for the bulk of these photos)
We begin with some massive white oak stock.
We cut it in half, place the pattern for the engine bed on the board, mark it, and cut it out.
Meanwhile, folks inside have been preparing the floor timbers to receive the engine beds. They start by placing a large router jig on top of the timbers.
This jig allows them to rout an arrow-straight series of notches along the tops of the floor timbers. In addition, the jig is set up to be level, so that even though there may be some slight variations in the heights of each of the timbers, the notches will all end up being level.
Here's the result: straight, flat, level notches.
Once the rough-cut bed is brought into the shop, the pattern is used again with a router to bring it precisely to the shape they want.
Notches are cut in the bottom of the bed to mate with the floor timbers.
The end result is a very solid fit.
The next big task is to drill the long, angled hole for the prop shaft. This is trickier than it sounds. For one thing, they don't really make 7' long drill bits, and even if they did, they'd cost a fortune. So, we use a home-made drill bit called a boring bar. That's boring, as in "boring holes," rather than "boring me to tears."
The usual boring bar is just a long metal bar with a couple of small cutters that extend out of the sides of the bar. These cutters can be adjusted in and out, and you can thus use the same bar for many different sized holes. The problem is that you need to drill your initial hole for the bar to go into first...
In our case, we decided to modify the boring bar to make it into a long drill bit. Here, a student has used the lathe to drill a hole exactly in the center of the boring bar.
The shaft of a drill bit will go into this hole. In this photo, he's drilling another hole perpendicular to that first one. He'll thread this hole and put a set screw in there to hold the drill bit solid when the bar's in use. Here's a drill bit installed in the boring bar.
Now that they have this long bar with a drill bit on the end of it, they need a way to guide it. And you can't just wing it here. The task is to drill a hole right though the keel from the inside of the boat and have it come out precisely in the center on the outside of the keel. For this, you want another jig to guide your bit. This is what they came up with.
This jig has bearings, called "pillow blocks" that are used to guide the boring bar in a straight line as it drills. The metal tabs on the sides allow it to be bolted down to the floors to keep the whole thing aligned and solid.
Once it's lined up in the boat and mounted, it's time to get drilling
Looking down through an opening in the jig, you can see the bit just starting to engage...
Right on centerline.
The driller keeps on centerline, and the helper squirts a little oil on the pillow blocks and the bit to help keep things running smoothly.
And the drill slowly makes its way down into the keel at a very shallow angle.
And so it goes, carefully drilling bit by bit.
Of course, you can't do a thing like this without attracting a crowd.
They're helping, really they are.
When the bit goes in a certain amount, you add on an extension to the bar and keep drilling.
And the crowd grows a little bigger...
The drill goes in a little, and then back out so that the helper can use a vacuum to clear chips from the hole.
At some point, the drilling jig is removed, as the hole itself becomes a guide for the drill.
And the crowd grows a bit bigger...
They're all helping.
They can hear the bit working its way through the wood, getting closer and closer to exiting. The big question on everyone's mind is, will this actually come out on center?
And then, here come the chips!
Dead center. That's what I'm a talkin' about.
Phew.
Here's the final length of the boring bar to give you an idea as to just how long a hole they had to bore.
The job's not done yet, though. The hole has to be just a little bigger diameter than the one just drilled. So, they rigged up this odd little contraption to go on the end of the bar.
This uses a counterbore mounted inside a hole saw to both guide and open up the hole.
With the bar coming out through the hole, this cutter is attached
And then pulled through the hole as the drill runs.
A little lubrication helps it along.
The process is a little harder now as they have to pull the drill as the bit works back up into the boat.
At the end of the day, they had a long, straight hole for the new prop shaft. Everyone was very happy, and not just a little impressed.
Every now and then, the students get a break from woodworking.
On this day, they had a chance to learn about rigging with with guest lecturer, Dan deLeiris.
And after school and during breaks, there's time for your own projects. Here's another paddle being made, only this time for a canoe.
And lastly, a wooden surfboard that was started last summer.
Now that's just cool.