Small craft(6)

That's how to join stem and chine

I had to recess on the middle of the stem to join chines. However, I made a mistake while I was doing that.  I was support to recess only front part of the stem but I misunderstood so, I trimmed back part of stem as well. Fortuneately, I had enough mahogany timber so I took the mistake part off and changed to new one.



 

Stem is one of very important part in dinghy. It is pretty big piece in the center of bow and supports front of hull. If the stem is not looked tidy and strong, the quality of the boat will be poor obviously. So I really had to carefully fix it. Firstly, I used a chisel to get rid of the mistake part and then reglued new piece on that. I had to consider the grain of the timber to be shown as one piece.  

  

While I was fixing the stem, other members trimmed frames out for beveling. For making smoothly curved planking, we needed to dress the edge of frames into the same angel of the hull.       With a batten, 1)measured the right angle on the mold frame and sawed as the angle. 2)Make two or three of saw chips and 3)make bigger kerf with a chisel. Once have the right angle, 4)plane entire edge of the frame. It was required an accuracy because, the angel must be same both starboard and portside. If not, it will be looked strange and have balance problem. 

The first frame needs a big
 rabbet to join the stem

Next step was that to recess every frames for chines and keel. It was not a simple job neither. Chine especially, has to be curved naturally from the middle of stem to transom but the angle is extremely twisted on the bow.   

The stem is joined in the first frame and other frames are joined with the keel. My group and I made some mistake while we did recess on these frames. Some of them were too deep and other had different angles. To fix them, I added a thin timber on that. Also, we glued a small piece on the rabbeted part and retrimmed.  




 

We steamed chines and keel timber to mke nice curve and hold with clamps and leave for a day. 

 The next day, my group dressed the edge of the chine and front of the keel into the right angle. Also, we cut the front part of two chines. Then, we glued  chines and keel onto the stem. The end part of chines and keel were glued to  the transom.