Solace's jig (progress pics)

[mark ward]

Just an update, the wood keel and stem to be laminated against this jig as soon as the shipping crises regains motion here in Portland and I can afford the clamps to glue her up. We're still a bit short of good length Purpleheart.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid37/p85aa98bba1c5ef3573c323619c0d2a11/fd1a4bab.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid37/p43f76f6239e8d8692d76fbb824d6c74e/fd1a4ba5.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid37/pe0888bce7ee877a1d93d0102cd675aed/fd1a4ba8.jpg

[Dave Fleming]

Neat and Clean, I like that.
Remember to wax the hell out of the mould floor and the brackets too! ;)

[gert]

I tried that with shearwater's frames; they didn't hold up to the clamping preasure. Instead I got a piece of 1/4 x 3 x 4 angle iron and had a shop shear them off like bread making 1 1/2" long pieces ; and screwed them to the ply table about 3" O.C. checking each one for squareness to table. Those held up. I also only put the front screw in so they could pivot slightly to align with face of caul and then screwed the back.Great idea, works realy slick.[http://www.geocities.com/sigvardsenstudio/faering/faering.html]

[ 10-30-2002, 05:53 PM: Message edited by: gert ]

[Dave Fleming]

Gert, that is a pretty severe curve on those frames and I agree you did good using the angle iron brackets to take the tension but, I think the keel curve shown on the loft floor is not quite as severe as your frames were.
I do hope that Mark does a dry run or two to test out his setup and do any modifications before slathering the goo on the wood.
He may find out he needs to do just what you did.
That is what a dry run or runs are for.
PS: like your work! ;)

[mark ward]

Dave and Gert,
Thanks the notes. So far she seems quite solid, the floor is 3/4" plywood on a 2x4 frame and all the angles are rabbetted, glued and screwed of 3/4" plywood as well. But several dryfits will indeed be tried. In fact I'm still deciding on the quantity and thickness of the laminates. One option is to build up the 3" thickness of 4 3/4" boards. This option may require the boards to be steamed and bent into the form and allowed to dry prior to gluing. Not at all a bad thing and would reduce the amount of springback in each piece as well as the amount of glue needed to build up the lamination of 12 1/4" thick pieces.
Anyway, still working on that.

BTW, she's an Alden Triangle.

Best,
mw

[Dave Fleming]

Hint, to prevent the infamous ***springback***, what I did on one of the very few goo jobs I took on, was to get dowels of the same wood or in your case with the Purpleheart something close to it.
And after gluing and clean up whilst still in the forms drill through the laminations from inner to outer and at odd angles, say every 6 to 12 inches, especially at the most severe parts of curvature. Set the dowels in the same goo you used for the main glue up( of course )and, leave proud till goo has set. Then saw flush to surface and remove glueup from form. The dowels are in shear and resist the springback of the wood. I was working with Ash and Teak and had no trouble with springback in those cabin and deck beams and with some laminated Teak knees and lodging knees too.
Worked for me.

[Dave Fleming]

BB, the dowels are not really joints but rather, a type of shear pin. I cannot see if sized properly how they would contribute to lamination failure?????

[mark ward]

Billy bones . . .

I've done quite a bit to date, primarily through old threads here in the forum. My conclusions were as follows (and please comment if you know otherwise as the stuffs not purchased yet)

-the white oak available locally is northern white oak, of which I've heard not so great rot resistance claims toward. (white oak's called for in original plans)

-pheart is claimed to be as rot resistant to oak, similar if not greater in density and hardness, and similar if not greater in weight.

-others have claimed that delaminations such as your mallet occured in oak laminations as well, and were due more to the epoxy than the oak.

to this end, the plan is to use a resorcinal glue (Aerodux 500) for the lamination, which I've heard excellent reviews of, instead of epoxy. Hopefully the Aerodux will act similarly to the dense celular structure of the pheart as it does with oak (CHEMIST response?)

Let me know your thoughts . . . .. . . ..

[Art Read]

Have you considered just steam bending it?

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid16/pdaf7dbcf7bf761e114c90792c2e0f864/fdf4e4b0.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid16/pbd1c57adc451cbd3def613deb635d2f3/fdef520b.jpg

The keel design in your plans looks like it would lend itself to steaming. It actually appears to be very similar to the one I did. There's plenty of good bending oak available here in Seattle, and it really isn't as tough a job bending it in there as you might think. Certainly less work than all that laminating? At any rate, looks like it's gonna be a great project. Looking forward to watching the progress!

[ 10-30-2002, 11:41 PM: Message edited by: Art Read ]

[Dave Fleming]

Gotcha BB, IIRC, I used empirically the formula: diameter of dowel=thickness of one lamination
My laminations were about 5/16ths and others about 3/8ths.

About that PH wood, I have no actual experience using it in a marine construction situation.
So I am reading this thread with interest.

BB, ya mean that the person had the laminations edge up rather than edge thwartships? If so, not too smart says I! :rolleyes:

[ 10-31-2002, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: Dave Fleming ]

[mark ward]

dave and BB,

several thoughts,

Perhaps it's only here in the Pacific NW, but purpleheart is running 4.00 /BF generally and is typically available in good lengths (14-16'+) whereas mahoganies are >6.25/BF. Ideally I'll be able to find 5/4 PH and resaw to 1/2" bds (6 x 1/2" = 3")

Art - are those early photos of your Dark Harbor? She looks fantastic now( I've had my eye on her)In any case when I originally looked at the w oak I could find in the area, costs for the chunks were pretty steep and there's the issue that the moulded dimension @ midship is 10", slightly larger(per the photos) than the keel you were bending over your moulds.

Thadeus VG has had some good experiences laminating ph and perhaps he'll chime in sooner or later,

Also BB, I will be using the PH in the through bolted portion of the deadwood in the keel.

thanks again for the good advice.

[ 10-31-2002, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: mark ward ]

[Art Read]

Mark... Yup, that's her. It seems like a LOOONG time since I took those pictures. ;) I'm afraid I don't have any "constructive" advice re: laminating. But if you're still at all interested in other options, it may be worth giving Olson Lumber here in Seattle a call. (206-523-7777 / 800-533-4381) They've always had some pretty impressivly sized bending oak timbers, (both width and length) whenever I've been there. I had to get 'em to move a bunch of REALLY big ones to get at the one I picked. 12" plus by 20' - 25' aren't unusual. Mine was maybe 8/4" by 9" by 18' or so before I cut the keel out of it. I believe their price ranged around $5.50 a board foot as of a couple years ago. I was told it was from Indiana(?) and was the "boatyard stuff" for what that's worth. I do know a lot of the yards here do use 'em. Perhaps Dave or RGM can comment?

[Dave Fleming]

For what its worth, Indiana Bending Oak, was the term used when speaking about any White Oak used in Steam Bending in my time in the PacNoWest.
But I have been away too long(sigh) to make any useful comments about what is now available or not.