Preparing the Whitehall Form for Planking

Fairing a boat's hull is what we do to make sure that the boat is as smooth as possible to minimize turbulence while moving through the water.  In order to make it easier to accomplish this after planking we need to make sure the form will not introduce any "bumps" to the hull as we bend the strips over it.

With all the station forms carefully aligned and the transom, keel and stem perfectly centered there will still be places on the form that will cause the strips to go in directions that won't produce a fair hull.

If you look closely at the form above I've already started tapering the the front stem so the cedar strips will converge to a point plus this is done to give a larger surface for the stem to strip connection.

The angle for this fairing of the form was found by taking a long batten (any bendable thin strip of wood) and temporarily clamping it in place along the forms to see what a natural smooth curve would look like.  If you see anything causing the batten to deviate from a nice curve then it must be ground away just enough to keep a smooth curve but not so low that the strip won't stick to it during the gluing process.

Preparing the form in this way must be done carefully and took some time because I knew I would be using slightly thinner strips than the plans call for so I wouldn't have a lot of room for error later.

BTW, you'll also notice I've put packing tape along the edges of the station forms so the glue will not stick to them and it will be easier to separate the hull when it comes time to flip it over and start on the interior.  The little blocks you see glued to the forms are in case it becomes necessary to clamp onto something while applying the strips.

Once you're satisfied that the form is in "ship shape" then it's time to start planking!  If you thought it was fun already wait and see how much fun it will be to actually start seeing the boat take shape over the next few days.

One last important thing! Take a look at your form and its bracing to see if there are any screws you will not be able to unfasten after the form is covered with strips.  Every screw holding down the forms and thus the boat hull itself will need to be removed when it comes time to flip the boat over.