The Arctic Tern Project

Volume 6                           Issue No. 8                       August 2009

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Dog Days

Ok, so I’d blown my Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival deadline.  The relief was palpable and I was thrilled at the prospect of spending another winter puttering away in the boatshed (Really!  I love this stuff) and savouring these final stages of the project.  End-of-summer is monsoon prep time here on the Wet Coast so after finishing up a few things on the boat I turned my attentions to some desperately needed house maintenance.  All that is just a round-about way of saying this month’s content is a little thin; there’s a couple of gem’s in there though so don’t despair.

Mainsheet Padeyes

Alright, I’m not sure I’ve explained this already (and I’m too lazy to go through the mountains of previous reports to see if I have) but, in lieu of having a mainsheet traveller and track, I’ve decided to go with a twin mainsheet system.  Why forgo the traveller?  Well, mainly because I couldn’t find a place to put it that wouldn’t seriously affect cockpit lounging comfort.  But also because, in my experience at least, travellers are inconvenient to use and the car spends 90% of it’s time in the dead-center position.  The way the twin-mainsheet system works is that you have two completely independent sheet systems attached to widely spaced padeyes.  The windward mainsheet is used to position the boom; the leeward mainsheet is used to adjust leech tension.  Each set of sheet blocks has a quick release shackle so one or the other mainsheet can be completely removed.  There is also a third padeye set in the centerline position so, on lazy days, I can use a single mainsheet. 

 

 

In all three positions I use hefty forged stainless folding padeyes from Wichard.   These are beautiful pieces.  Unfortunately, the centerline padeye can only be through-bolted in two of its mounting holes. 

 

The third hole needs to have a nut embedded.  I ground down the nut so I wouldn’t have to drill an absolutely huge hole.  Through-bolt holes are drilled oversized, then filled with thickened epoxy and then re-drilled.

 

 

Here’s the backing plate on one of the outboard padeyes.  The bolts here are going through two thicknesses of 18mm (3/4”) ply.

Rubrails Revisited

Ok, it was getting close to the time when I needed to permanently attach the rubrails.  What?  Yep, no Sikaflex here.  I planned to permanently bond my rubrails to the boat using epoxy.  Why?  Well, a number of reasons.  First, I wanted to minimize the chance for water to find its way into the plywood.  Fifty screws passing from the rubrail through a flexible joint into the hull seemed like a great place for water to get in.  Ok, I know Sikaflex is great stuff but just humour me on this one.  Also, since the entire boat is to be painted (Didn’t I tell you?  No brightwork on the outside) including rubrails and toerails it seemed to make sense to make them a permanent fixture.  I have a theory that most rubrails get replaced, not because they suffer some catastrophic insult or abrasion, but mostly because they are finished bright; get neglected; water gets in the joint or through a loose bung; and then it’s easier to rip them off and start again.  Anyway, that’s my thinking on the subject; we’ll see how things pan out.  Last month I’d done some fiddling to get the aft end of the rubrails to look right (they seemed to droop at the end) by raising them up a bit.  This seemed to work ok but on closer inspection the starboard side rail had quite a kink in it (a legacy from using some pretty crazy pieces of African mahogany).  From the start, getting these pieces to look right has been a bit of a problem.  The forward end has been especially difficult but I think that has more to do with an uneven sheer where the sheerbatten meets the breast hook (that problem keeps haunting me) than the rubrails themselves.  Also, I think part of the problem has been that when I attached these rails I followed the glue line between the deck and the topsides rather than a lamination in the deck-edge.  The glue line is anywhere from 1/16” to 3/16” (depending on the angle of the topsides to the deck) and, in some places, is difficult to see the boundary.  That, in combination with the kinked mahogany, was making me like these rubrails, and their positioning, less and less.  Also, I was having a growing feeling that I hadn’t got their proportions correct; too chunky; and, although it is recommended by the experts, the width taper at the ends looked too exaggerated and contrived.  Around this time I was seriously thinking of what my paint colour scheme was going to be.  Would the rubrails be the same colour as the topsides or would they be contrasting?  Contrasting would be a nightmare to mask so I thought more about how they’d look painted the same colour with a contrasting cove stripe underneath.  I put some pieces of tape on the boat to get an idea of what it would like.

 

The cove stripe definitely made the rubrail look too chunky so, given all the aforementioned reasons, I decided to scrap them and start again.  I then revisited an earlier idea I had to make the rubrails out of two pieces.  The first piece would be made from 3/8” ply attached permanently to the boat.  In this piece would be embedded #10 T-nuts for attaching a removable outer piece made from some hard-wearing wood such as teak that could be left to weather.  I was pretty excited about this idea and started down that path (even to the point of spending $250 on a 14’ teak 1x6 and putting a bunch of fresh screw holes in the boat) but eventually abandoned it as being too fiddly (and the teak was just so darn butt-ugly).  Back to the plan of permanently attaching a single piece of mahogany.  This time though I wanted the pieces to be straight and I scaled back their dimensions to 1” width by 7/8” thickness.  The thickness would be tapered to ¾” at either end but the width would remain constant.  Since they were to be 1” wide I could cut them from the edge of a 1-by-whatever plank.  I reasoned it would be easier to keep them kink-free this way.  Ok, so back down to the lumber yard where I plunked down some more cash for a really nice piece of African.  Oh, I almost forgot, I discovered a pretty good way to get that first straight, square edge on a long rough cut plank.  Previously, this had always been difficult; chalk lines, skilsaws, power-planes, etc.  A much easier way is to get a long straight edge (like a 8” strip cut off a sheet of plywood) and use this as a guide for the router.  You can easily do a 12’ board this way by moving the guide up and down the board until you’ve got it right. 

 

 

Ok, back to the mahogany.  I cut all my strips using the RAS and then ran them through the thickness planer to get them all matching and consistent.  They came out reasonably straight; at least better than before.

 

Then I laid out the box scarphs (I was going fancy this time) and made the initial cuts with the RAS.

 

 

 

The cuts then get finished with a veneer saw and a chisel.

 

 

I’m going to leave these scarph joints dry for now so I don’t have to monkey around with 24 lengths.  I think I can get away with gluing them in situ when it comes time to permanently mount the rails.

 

Then I drill all the mounting holes.  I decided to use #10 screws this time instead of the #12s.

 

I do the first dry-fit following the first veneer line of the deck edge.  I use clamps to make sure the scarphs line up correctly.

 

Ok, looks alright.

 

The next thing I do is set up for making the thickness taper.  In Volume 6, Issue No. 6 I showed how to do a thickness taper using the router and a straight edge.  Basically, you screw the piece to a straight 2x6 and then run the router down a plywood straight edge set at the desired angle.  I used that method again but with an additional refinement.  The refinement is to first align the plywood straight-edge with the edge of the 2x6 (about 1/16” back from the edge) and run the router down it.  This causes the 2x6 to be perfectly matched to the plywood straight-edge.

 

Ok, then on to the taper.  The straight-edge gets aligned flush at the start of the taper and 1/8” in at the end.

 

 

And then we shave it down with the router.

 

The next thing I do is put a 3/8” radius on the edges (I use the rubrail’s mate to help support the router).

 

And then angle off the ends with the RAS.

 

Then another dry-fit.

 

 

Looks ok.  Now I mark out for the chainplates.

 

I make cuts using the backsaw so the router won’t tear out chunks (like it did last time).

 

And then have at it with the router (the rubrail’s mate is being used to support the router and guides; I only cut one at a time).

 

 

Then they go back on the boat for another dry-fit.

 

 

At this point I decide I don’t really like the 3/8” radius on the edge and would rather go for the full ½” radius I had originally envisioned.

 

So I pull them off and let ‘er rip.

 

Ok, now I’m happy.

 

Next Time

Go to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat festival and comb the dock for ideas and maybe pick up some nice bronze bits.