Ready for Interior Finishing

Before starting on the interior epoxy and varnish I decided to do one last thing. I extended my floorboards a bit so I made a couple of extra floor timbers to support them. 

The Glen-L plans suggest that some extra supports be made at the end of the floorboards but they don't specify how to do it.

I took a look at the plans and realized I could get the necessary contours to add two extra supports by using the closest station forms as a start.  After finding the nearest forms I traced them onto some cedar scraps and then hand profiled them until I had a nice fit that was level with the other floor timbers.  Check it out above.

In the picture above I have the entire interior of the boat stacked up and ready to finish.  It may be a few days before I have an update because of many coats of epoxy and varnish necessary for a hard durable finish but hopefully it will all be worth it!

Thwart Dowels and Floorboard Clearance Clarence.

Before I could finish the floorboards I needed to put some supports under the thwarts.  I don't have too many pictures of that part but it basically entailed transferring some measurements from the placement of the seats (thwarts) down to the keel.  Then I drilled for a dowel at the keel and the bottom of the seat and mounted three 1 1/2" round poplar rods which I will stain a darker color than the cedar.  

Once the supports were in place I decided I didn't like the look of the big gap in the floorboards so I measured the central floorboards and set up the jig below to get a nice round hole that would also leave an aesthetic space between the boards and the hole around the dowel support. Check my jig set up below.

As you can see I marked where I wanted the hole and placed my two central floorboards on either side of a spare piece of planking I had left over from stripping the boat.  Then I cut it out with a hole saw. 

Here they are temporarily set up around the supports to check for fit. 

You could just use long one piece floor boards for your boat but then it would be difficult to remove them for inspection at a later date without also removing the thwarts so I made my floorboards meet up at one of the floor braces which I made extra wide for this purpose. Here they are just set in place to have a look below.

Rub Rail

The rub rail runs along the length of the boat from stem to stern on the outside of the planking and along with the inner shear, sandwiches the planking to make a nice sturdy rail. 

I was hesitant to dive into this part of the job because the rail was a fairly stiff piece of wood. It not only needed to follow the curve of the boat but also had to start high at the bow then dip to the middle and then curve back up again to the stern.  However, with enough clamps, anything can be done!

I made a test fit by clamping the rails to the boat then I marked the ends for cuts plus made an alignment mark in the middle so I could easily duplicate the placement again.  Once my cuts were made I roughed up the area where it would glue to the hull and applied a layer of epoxy and clamped 

it up again.  

Once it was back in place with glue I drilled a pilot hole every six inches and put a slight countersink on each hole.  Then I screwed through to the planking and inner shear for a nice tight fit.  The next day I mixed up another batch of epoxy with cedar wood flour until it was the consistency of peanut butter (but looked more like Fig Newton filling) and filled all the holes flush with the rail.

I also added a bronze bow eye for the painter line by drilling through the stem and bolting it on from the back side. Check it out below.

Rear Bench and Thwarts

The rear bench starts with a support for the front of the seat and a brace will also need to be added between the risers at the stern. I used the Glen-L full size drawings for the station mold closest to that brace to get the correct contour for the hull.  I took the lid from a barbecue and traced the radius onto the bottom of the brace to give it a little style.

The bench needed several laminated parts that would end up being cut into a "fan" shape to make up the stern bench for my Whitehall.  I started with cedar blocks cut and planed smooth then clamped them together utilizing pipe clamps until the glue dried.

I ended up with several pieces like the one above. I placed one of these on two bricks then jumped on it to test it for strength. GOOD!

The stern bench has a large radius cut into the seat and I made that by temporarily attaching the seat planks before scribing a large radius using a divider I found in an antique shop.

After I cut the radius I asked my wife to sit in the boat to make sure it's comfortable.  She said it felt great and I was impressed with how strong this boat is.  I was expecting to hear a few noises from the boat since the stern bench was cantilevered out from where the boat was being supported but there was nothing.  There was not a squeak or a groan and it didn't budge a fraction of an inch.  This design is SOLID!

In this picture you can see the way the seats will look. It's starting to look like a boat!

  

As you can see I've also started work on the floorboards.  It's getting there!!

Knees

In a previous post I showed how the knees are laminated and today I'll show how I shaped them to custom fit my boat.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made some templates from the boat itself so I could eliminate a lot of trial and error cutting and sanding. In the picture above I've got my template on top of one of the knee laminations to get it ready to trim for the boat.

Here is the stern knee clamped in place to check for fit.  I don't want to finish it yet until after I have the stern bench finished and can get my wife to sit there and make sure it's comfortable.

In the pic above you can see what the thwart knee looks like after first using a template to get the general shape then trial and error fitting.  Once I had one that fit perfectly I used it to quickly make its duplicate for the other side.

Here's how it looks mocked in place.  By the way, I made the knees out of red cedar and I tried to alternate the colors so that I got this striped effect.  I hope it looks good once it's epoxied and varnished!

Breasthook

In the picture above I have a bunch of 1" wide cedar strips cut about a tenth of an inch thick.  I found that this thickness allowed me to bend them pretty easily around the form without them breaking.  As you can see I have them on top of a sheet of parchment paper ready to be wrapped up after brushing each stick with a coat of epoxy.  Once I had them all stacked up I started clamping them to the form I made from the Glen L plans.

I always put the center clamp on first then slowly tightened the outside clamps until it's tight like below.  Btw, in the background you can see one of the thwarts being glued up.

Before you give it the final squeeze it's a good idea to tap them lightly with a hammer to have them all aligned which minimizes sanding later.

Once that is all set up, the next step is to add a piece of wood to fill in the point of the bow and then bevel it to fit in.

Here it is temporarily clamped in place and ready to be glued in with epoxy. I think this bow will end up being very strong. I'll have to be careful not to T-bone another boat because that boat will have a hole in it!

Interior Planning

Now that the boat is upright it's time to figure out the interior.  We will need four thwarts, (which will be the seats),  a rear bench, a bow breasthook, ten knees and floorboards.

My plan is to fabricate and fit into place temporarily, every part I need for the interior on this boat.  Once that is done I will take it all apart and finish each part individually and have them ready like a kit. This should result in a nice looking interior.

I decided to use laminated thwarts and in the picture above you can see some of the cedar boards cut for the four seats.  After I cleared out the leftover debris from the destroyed station molds I was happy to see that the interior surface of the boat was pretty smooth already and would only need minimal sanding.

The breasthook and the knees are made using the form patterns in the Glen-L plans but you will need to custom fit them to the contours of your boat.  In order to eliminate a lot of trial and error cutting I made some templates from the work by taking a few scraps of wood, setting them in place with a drop of glue at the joint and letting it dry. 

In the next post we'll see how the breasthook and knees are made.