Don't Keel Over!

Keel and Floorboard Supports

The keel joins the laminated stem at the front and the transom at the back plus it ties into the floor supports.  The floorboard supports sit on the keel and follow the outline of the station molds so that as strips of wood are added they also glue to the supports to make a rigid structure that will hold the weight of people stepping on the floor of the boat.

You can see that the keel and floorboard supports are made of a different wood from the station molds because it's better to use a type of wood that resists rot. Even if your boat will be coated in epoxy and fiberglass cloth, water will get in so rot resistant wood is an additional precaution.  I'm using western red cedar for this boat but there are other choices out there depending on the look you'd like to achieve.

The keel has a taper which is easy to cut along the length using the table saw's ability to tilt the blade for long beveled cuts and with some sanding to remove the saw marks it wasn't a big project to get ready.

Here is a look at the basic assembly of the front stem mated to the keel, floorboard supports and at the stern of course, the transom.

You'll notice the laminated front stem has been notched so the keel has plenty of surface area for gluing and fastening with stainless bolts.  There is an additional notch at the outside front of the keel that will eventually be filled in by the outer stem. More on that later.

I've also added both the sheer and the risers. The sheers will eventually mark the top edge of the hull and they temporarily fasten to the transom at the back and attach to the stem at the front with a tapered edge to make kind of a point going forward.

The riser attaches at the transom in the back but ends before getting all the way to the stem.  After the hull is finished it will be turned over and the riser becomes the base for placing the seats otherwise known as the "thwarts".  The seats do two things, one is they provide a place for the rowers to sit and secondly they "thwart" the sides of the boat from pushing in under pressure from the water!!

The stem has been mated to the keel and has bevels shaped into it to meet up nicely with the cedar strips when we start planking. On top of the keel I made some cedar strip "holders" to have a handy place to quickly get additional strips when the planking gets going.

We are ready to PLANK but we are missing something.  We need to make the STRIPS!!