Wednesday, March 24, 2010














The lapstrake boat is off the form and the last plank is to be installed.  The top plank on each side is going to be varnished walnut.  The outside of the boat is to be painted a dark red and the interior, rail and top plank are to be varnished.  I've run into a minor glinch in that I have run out of clinch nails.  The edges of the overlaping  planks are nailed to the cedar ribs. The clinching iron bends over the tips of the nails like a fishhook which buries itself in the rib.  It makes for a very smooth and strong fastening that will not work lose.   There are no manufactured nails of the size that I needed so I've had to modify a copper boat nail and grind a hollow grind point on each nail so it would clinch like I want.  The manufacturer of the copper boat nails is closed for the winter so I'm scrambling trying to locate a few more nails!  I only need about 50 nails but I can space the ones I have and fill in the gaps latter!

Our shop cam has been a work in progress and there have been a few glitches in getting it to work smoothly and still be able to move it around the shop.  I think we have it working properly now and plus there are a few new features.  At the bottom of the shopcam page ther is an index of the images of the last five days of work in the shop. There is also a time lapse video of the last days work .  The video is all the days work condensed into about one minute!  The video yesterday shops me laying out the planking, cutting the planking out and fitting it on the boat. I wish we could work that fast! Let us know what you think of it!

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