I'm gearing up to put glue-lam gunwales on my new boat: The
Whale Rider
This will be a big decked white water dory. The side No glue yet. This is a first pass rough-in to get the strips all cut to length with staggered semi-random joints.
panels are 18-1/2'' feet long.
The deck will not be set down from a gunwale the way everybody else does. The deck will stretch from the top of the side panels across, at least in the middle 8' feet or so of the boat. I need a fat tall stout gunwale on the inside only, so the deck can bolt down onto that ledge. There are two ways to make a thick gunwale: steam bend one thick piece of wood or make it a glue lamination from lots of thin strips. The gluelam is stronger and easier. That's a hard combination to argue against.
It's worth noting too this is an oddly experimental boat. Traditional stitch and glue is probably the best, most long-term durable choice for beginning boat builders. Stitch and glue is a lot of work but it's a proven way that makes an incredibly strong lightweight long lasting boat.No glue yet. This is a first pass rough-in to get the strips all cut to length with staggered semi-random joints.
This boat is just for me to play with. For this boat no two parts will be glued or glassed together. All major parts: the bottom sides gunwales and deck will bolt together over a either a thick foam gasket or a thick bead of "Marine Silicone" caulk. That way any part can be replaced. At any time. Which in a way--if it works--would make these boats.......eternal? :=)) We'll see.
Once this boat is done I'll make plans available, for both the new bolt-together method and traditional all-in-one-piece stitch and glue.
No glue yet. This is a first pass rough-in to get the strips all cut to length with staggered semi-random joints.
I made a bunch of 2" inch tall by 1/4" inch thick strips of ash. Starting with 4-quarter stock (a full 1" inch thick) you can set the table saw blade the right distance from the fence, so a freshly-sharpened ripping blade makes three equal width strips with two passes. Running those through a thickness planer makes them all a guaranteed thickness, all approximately 3/16" inch thick. Six such strips makes a gunwale a full 1-1/4" inch thick. I'll glue it all together with a zillion clamps and Tightbond III glue.
But I also needed to angle the edges of the strips, so the top of the glue lam ends up parallel to the floor when the glue-up is done.
Guiding a zillion thin strips through the table saw by hand is hard to do by hand, without gouging a few edges. So I built a jig to hold the strips firmly in place as they run through the the saw a second time, with the right angNo glue yet. This is a first pass rough-in to get the strips all cut to length with staggered semi-random joints.
le set to the saw blade.
Tomorrow I'll do the glue up. 100% 71KB 232.3KB/s 00:00
dungeon /var/www/html/mrb/fragments/Beavertail/beavertail-online-plans/Beavert
A glue-lamination gunwale is stronger than a single piece of wood of the same dimensions. A lot stronger. That's why they use gluelam beams for long spans when building a house or a commercial building. Glue lams are the way to go. This will be my fourth boat built with gluelam gunwales. I wouldn't do it any other way.
In a few more days I'll make a follow-up post showing how I used (waxed) blocks and lots of clamps to help put it all together.