Made some parts for the Pascagoula Diamond Bottom catboat MARGARET ROSE, glued together 4 pieces to make the transom, stuck them together with TotalBoat THIXO Wood and sandwiched a strip of muslin in between the outer and inner layers of cypress. The muslin will help ensure a watertight membrane between the laminated layers. Light clamping while it dries. Also stacked, glued and screwed strips of cypress to make a skeg aka deadwood. Then we started considering the bow stem profile, the stem pattern from our Penobscot 14 is a good start.
The transom will be laminated up with 2 pieces of 3/4 inch thick cypress (top and bottom) per layer, and 2 layers. We offset the location of the horizontal seam on each layer. We will glue the pieces together with TotalBoat THIXO Wood from Jamestown Distributors, a wood colored thickened epoxy adhesive, dispensed from a Newborn 18:1 High Thrust Caulk gun.
Dispensed the THIXO and spread it out with a putty knife. Also put THXO in the seam. We placed a layer of muslin between the layers of the transom, to help make sure there was a good fill with the THIXO and to create a watertight membrane. The next transom layer is laying nearby, and the offset seam is visible.
We used the plastic putty knife the force the muslin down into the THIXO, then added a skim coat of THIXO on top of that. We also put a coat of THIXO on the inside face of the second layer of the transom.
Had some fun with the THIXO. We appreciate the support of the team at Jamestown Distributors, they are always handy for Tech Team help and send us complimentary goodies to try out on our restorations.
4 transom pieces laminated, ready for clamps.
Light clamping for thickened epoxy, just enough to see a tiny bead squeeze out of the seams. Too much pressure can force all of the adhesive out and there would be a glue starved joint.
Next we turned out attention to the skeg (deadwood). We put a bead of THIXO between each layer and then screwed the layers back together one at a time. The Frearson Head silicone bronze screws will hold the cypress strips together as the epoxy dries and they will be captured in place and act as small drift pins.
Before we took the dry skeg apart we numbered each layer and drew an alignment line, the line helps get the pice lined up so the screw can find its old screw hole.
Planned to apply a second coat of TotalBoat WetEdge Fire Red to ZIP but Skipper intervened, she said ZIP looks great, we had good coverage, and if I kept painting she would never dry. So we rolled her out by the flagpole to let the Florida sun bake the finish.
That gave us time to work on MARGARET ROSE. We drew out the keel batten/longeron, Skipper okayed it and I cut out a master batten from cypress with the DeWALT 20V brushless 6 1/2 inch circular saw. I cleaned up the corners of the centerboard slot with the DeWALT 20V jigsaw.
Once we were happy with the master we cut out 3 more layers from 3/4 inch stock, with one layer being from the first pine board we bought when we were fiddling with the design a few months back. We need thickness on the bottom so we can bevel for the Diamond bottom (V bottom) and still have meat left to fasten into. The Sharpie makes a nice saw kerf wide line, easy to see and cut along.
Maybe the boat's name should be SAWDUST, because that is what it looks like we're making.
We screwed the bottom board down to the deck, then screwed each layer to the board below it. Then we hoisted the transom end to get some prebend going, that end needs to rise a little over 12 inches for the final shape. Let me back up a minute, I was sitting in The Moaning Chair trying to figure out whether to prebend first or cut the shape first. Skipper suggested that it might be easier to cut the board if it was flat vs curved, a no brainer.
I was also trying to figure out how to jack the boards from underneath and Skipper suggested that we use her hoist. That worked great, the line raised the end about 8 inches and I got inspired to add a ratchet strap, that raised the boards up to the required 12 1/8 inches.
The skeg was next, how to make a 12 inch tall skeg from boards under 11 inches wide? I ripped some 3/4 inch scrap to 1 1/2 inches wide, then we stacked the strips until we got a stack just over 12 inches. I scribed the keel curve from underneath the keel to the side of the skeg, then tried to carefully carry the enire stack of 16 strips over to the work table, to Skipper's immense entertainment. I almost made it, the last few feet the strips started to delaminate and I got a nice pile on the table. It was easy enough to line them back up based on the scribe mark.
Next I unstacked the strips and dry fastened them together one at a time with #8 silicone bronze screws. This will be our version of drift pins, I may or may not leave the screws in when we epoxy all the strips together in a few days.
Trimmed the curve with the DeWALT 20V brushless jigsaw.
Dry fit the skeg. Which was another question. Fit the skeg to the keel or the keel to the skeg? We are going with skeg to keel. But first we need to epoxy all the skeg strips together and run them through the thickness planer to get the sides smoothed down.
