I began mounting the chines 5 days ago. The Glen-L plans call for the chines to be built from 1" x 1-3/4" x 12'mahogany (although finished wood tends to be "3/4, not 1"). Given my lack of experience with bending mahogany, I thought that it would be very difficult to achieve desired curve. I decided to revert to making two laminations of 3/8" mahogany.
Luckily, I was able to get two 3/8" lengths from each piece of 1"x 1-3/4" length. I used the table saw at Norwalk Woodworker's Club to slice the 1" thickness in half, which removed 2/16 in the process. The planner took care of the remaining 1/32" on each strip. I highly recommend going to the Woodworker's Club. Bo was very helpful in teaching me how to use the machines, and assisted me in achieving the desired results.
Even with 3/8" chines, the wood was still stiff, and I could not achieve the desired twist (as described by BarnacleMike). The need to soak was upon us. I cut 2" PVC pipe down to 5' and placed a rubber cap on the end. A single chine was inserted into each, and then boiling water was poured into the tubes. Water was changed about every 12 hours for a total of 48 hours.
After soaking, I rough mounted the chines onto the frames. The portion of the frame where the chines meet (plus 5" above and below) was beveled using a power sander with 50 sand paper. Perhaps a power planer would be easier, but I have been using the sander a lot for taking away large amounts of material, and have gotten very comfortable with that method. The chines extend 8" forward of the stem. I attached webbing and winches to this portion to crank the chines into shape. They are still in this position today.
I have put significant thought into the question of how to mount the chines to the stem. Adhering to the advice of Wayne, a neighbor who BUILDS PLANES IN HIS BASEMENT (and yes he has a very cool basement), I will be making a mini chine breasthook out of laminated scrap mahogany. This will take some extra time, but will make achieving the outward chine twist much easier.
Now for the sheers. These are made from two lengths of 5/8" x 1-1/4" mahogany which are laminated together. I thought that I would be able to mount these dry....I was wrong. I first soaked these with the PVC method for 24 hours. When they were removed from water, I rough mounted them, and found that they were still too stiff to make the bend. I decided to compromise with them for the night. I clamped them in place along frames 1 and 2, and them clamped them just outboard of the forward breasthook. This gave them a gradual bend. They were then tightly wrapped with towels, which were ziptied into position (thank for cycling for the hundreds of spare zip ties). I then doused the towels with boiling water, and trapped in as much as I could using cellophane to wrap it all together. New boiling water was exchanged every 4-6 hours by cutting holes in the top of the cellophane wrap, and then resealing with additional wrap.
That process went on for 24 hours until it was time to clamp them into their final resting place this afternoon. Due to the shape of the breasthook (more or less a triangle), the erwin clamps had no solid surfaces to grab onto in order to hold the sheers against the breasthook. This was remedied by sawing scrap 2x4 into a saw tooth-shape and placing it on the aft side of the breasthook. The sheers were clamped tightly up front and sprung toward the rear.
Even with water, the sheers were far from spaghetti, and did not want to lay flat against the frames. In fact, they were pointing out from the breasthook at about 35 degrees. I lassoed a portion of the sheet between frame 1 and 2, and used a winch to crank them in over the next few hours.
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| You can never have enough clamps! These Erwin Quick Grips are great. |
My sheers and chines are now in their final resting places, which brings us full circle...waiting. I'll leave these in position for the next day or two. This should give me time to mentally prep for the next steps.
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