I have been reading about scarfing plywood for as long as I’ve been building boats, but I’ve never done it.
The idea of hand-cutting a square 12:1 edge along a sheet of plywood just seemed impossibly impossible.
But today I had no choice.
The lay-ups for the rudders for the Tiki 38 are too long to fit on one sheet of plywood, so smaller pieces need to be scarfed together to make up the length.
And since this is the rudder, a part of the boat that takes all the steering stress when the helm is put over hard, or a wave shoves the boat, there’s no cheating with with butt-blocks or some such. A scarf is as strong or stronger than the ajacent material, so a scarf it has to be.
My shop mate Dave was skeptical. He’s got a lot of practical experience with wood-working, but mostly of the building and fixing houses kind. Plywood scarfing does not come up in this sort of work.
I assured Dave that I had been assured that it’s actually very easy if you just mark things off properly and take you time. But still, the plwood we were working with (18mm “Hydrotek” brand BS 1088 meranti) goes for about $120/sheet, and it’s not available locally. If I screwed it up, it would be an expensive hassle to get more wood, and then I’d still have to do it right.
It turns out it is easy.
A great way to finish off a very productive week at the boat-shop!
Just in case I haven’t mentioned this enough already, I love these posts.Report
We were in high spirits at the boat-shop today. Monday we started the akas (crossbeams) that connect the port and starboard hulls. By week’s end we nearly had them done, and (as seen in the video above) we got started in on laying up the rudders. All of these are big pieces, and working on them and seeing them come together gives the build a wonderful feeling of momentum!
Dave working on one of Mon Tiki’s four crossbeams
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Just wait until you get to all the boring finishing work 🙂Report
Most of the finish work is done before the boat is ever put together. The beauty of the cabinet scraper technique that we used to prep the interior of the boat’s skin and bulkheads is that those surfaces already have a glass-smooth finish.
Just before those parts are installed, they’ll get a light sanding to prep them for primer. As long as we’re clean with our gluing and filletting on the assembly, we should be able to load up the air-sprayer and finish the interior with a minimum of fuss.
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That’s pretty effin’ efficiently cool.Report
OT (except in the context that getting a maritime expert is harder than the press thinks it is), but as a boat guy, I think you’d appreciate the idiocy of the below statement-
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/887385-costa-concordia-are-ship-evacuation-drills-too-lax#ixzz1jRrVQUZWReport
Really good tips very educational ,thanksReport