Journal
July 3, 2002 - Cutting Out the Bulkhead: This morning I removed the pegboard strips from the scarfed wood and was pleased to find that the glue had squeezed out along the entire seam of the scarf on both sides of the plywood. The result is a very strong scarf (see below):
As you can see, I have moved the support horses to a far outboard position and am able to stand on the center of the plywood scarf without fear of failure (and very little flexion). Now it's time to get to work cutting out the dash and rear bulkheads.
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| The first thing that I do is to reestablish the centerline (CL) of the board . I do this using my 8 ft piece of angled aluminum. | Next I grab Sam Devlin's plans and start transferring the lines (lofting) from the plans to the plywood. This is quite easy as all of the line measurements are given in both horizontal and vertical increments from the bottom and CL of the board. |
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| The top of the bulkhead calls for a curved line. I drive finishing nails at the proper reference points on the CL and the sides of the bulkhead. Next I bend a piece of cedar molding across the nails to draw a fair line. | With the lines drawn and rechecked (I don't want to scarf this one again) I finally start cutting. |
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| I continue cutting, taking care to pause periodically to move my horses. | Here the bulkhead is separated and you can finally start to see the shape of the hull. |
Here you can see the finished dash and rear bulkheads. Normally the rear bulkhead is taller than the one that I am holding but since my boat will not have an enclosed cabin, I only need to cut out the piece below the deck (sole) of the cabin enclosure. I'll make the cabin sides later in the project. More to follow.