Building the Catalina Wherry - Part 33 - Sheer structure

Hi, I'm Mark Rutten. Welcome back to Nomad Boatbuilding. In the last episode of building the Catalina Wherry, we got our framing in. We had a bit of a bump in the road along the way where I decided the frames looked too heavy and I used sort of a radical technique in order to reduce the depth of those frames. Well, those frames are in now. They look great. I'm really happy I took the time to do that. And that means we can move on to the sheer structure. Now, we're going to start back at the transom with a component we don't often find in North American wooden boats but they are quite common in the British tradition and that's called a transom brace. Alright, I've got this piece of material that we're going to put across here and that's to reinforce this whole transom. You know, to be honest, I don't think it even really needs it. This transom's already an inch and a half thick. It's got a ton of strength to it. But Joe really likes the idea of having this little piece coming across here and tying these corners together. And it's going to... what we're going to have is the quarter knees tie into this sort of thing. That's kind of cool. I kind of like it. Anyway, so we made up a real simple mold. Just a piece of 2x4. I gave this crown about an extra quarter inch or something to allow for spring back and it came in like right bang on the money. So now I'm just going to make a quick pattern because it's the easiest way to sort of get this to fit this hole is if I have an accurate representation of what this shape here is. And even though this is straight, because this is crowned, it means that this back surface is no longer straight. It's going to have a sweep to it. So I've just got a piece of scrap here. I'm just going to mark what this shape is. I'm using this what we call a spiling block. So that's just any old piece of material that's got a bevel on one edge and we use that. We use it for different things, but I'm using it in this particular case for this. Now this is pretty floppy, so I've got to be careful I don't let it bounce around too much. Using a real light touch. Okay. Come across the other side. So there we go. There's that. So what I'll do is I'll carry this line out a little bit. So you can chop this off here. I can chop this off here. I'm going to cut this out, get it to fit better, and then we'll mark what the angle is on the inside. When I can get these points, the edges of this crown to meet the face of the transom, then I can get a really accurate idea about this angle. And once I have that, then I can make this. So many geometry problems can be solved with just a little bit of pattern making. I'll tell you the most frustrating thing is when you know there's a simple pattern you can make and you just don't have some junky stock on hand to make the pattern. That's why it's a great idea to just have some door skin on hand. Buy a sheet and right away just rip it into like 6- and 8-inch widths or something like that. 3-inch, 6-inch, 12-inch widths. Just do the whole thing and just tuck it away. And when you need it, then you got it. You got stock that's just about the right size to grab it quickly and use it efficiently. Now, working with real floppy stuff like this is a bit misleading because it's not quite what the real thing is going to be like. But you know what? If it gets us close to the finished size, close enough for glue to fill, then that's great. A little more. A little bit more. Just about there. The little bit of a bevel on here is actually throwing me off. But I don't want to get rid of that because it's going to help me when I transfer this. Okay, well, you know what? I think I'm just about close enough. Just about close enough. Yeah. So, what we'll do is we'll clamp that end. I've put a center line on here. Always give yourself common reference points, center lines. Center lines are good. Now we can come underneath and just pick up that angle like so and like so. There we go. We'll just carefully cut those, probably just with a handsaw, and then we can lay that on here and cut that to shape. Got to pick up this bevel here, so that's going to be careful that I'm picking it up square to the center line and not coming necessarily right off the planks because the fact that they taper out is going to change that angle a little bit. Well, that's not a great fit. Somehow I trim my transom knee a bit too short. I don't know how that happened. That's not really important because this part we've made is just a test part. I wanted to figure out the best way to fabricate and fit it. Okay, now I want to refabricate this in oak, and I'm not going to laminate it. I'm going to saw it. So how do we do that? Well, I've made up this chunk. This is just full two inches thick, so this is thick enough to get this shape out of it, and I've cut this angle onto the backside that matches this angle right here. So these are right now, those are the same. What I want to do now is take this guy and turn it into this shape. So the first thing we're going to do is figure out how to mark the crown on the backside here, and ideally we'd like to mark it on this side. In fact, I'm just wondering, can we do that? We cannot do that. This would help if this could get cut on the bandsaw like so. We'll have to get creative, so we'll play around with that and see if we can figure out a way to mark it on this side. I think we're going to have to mark it on this side, though, and just tilt the bandsaw to match. That would probably be the simplest thing. Okay, so let's start with the center line. Okay, so this will be our center line there, and we'll leave about an inch here, and I'll just buck that off. Sometimes it helps to have a little extra length for shaping and stuff like that. Let's give ourselves a center line that way and a center line this way. I'm going to carry this all the way around because it doesn't hurt, even while the bottom is going to get cut away for sure, but I'll throw it on there anyway. All right, so now I want to favor this top surface. So let me think. This was... So here's the negative from cutting this. You know what? I wonder. Did this spring... Or has this stayed the same? This has stayed very close to the same. So technically, I should be able to take this, mark it on here, and this should be about right. I don't like it. It's got a lot of bounce. Nope. I'm going to go the other way. This way. This is what we want. We're going to just do the opposite. So I want to just eyeball up both ends here, try and even them up. You know what? Let's stick these together. I've got some cyanoacrylate here from Starbond. So let's use a little bit of this. Is this tip open? Nope. It needs to be cut. Okay, there we go. You can help support these videos by buying some product from Starbond using our affiliate link. Use the coupon code NOMAD10 upon checkout to get 10% off. You can find links in the corner or down in the description. On here, drop on here. And then we use the accelerator. That'll last. Now I want to carefully position this right in the middle. I'm going to leave a little bit of room at the very top for the saw kerf. It's better if you can cut all the way through without having to stop. Okay, one thing I like about the Starbond here is the fact that they gave me two tips plus a whole bunch of these micro tips plus it's just got a cap. I can de-tip this thing entirely for storage if I wanted to. Alright. Pencil sharpened. I want that tape out of my way. There we go. That's all there is to that. I'll just break that free. Looks good. Okay, I think I'm going to go set the bandsaw up to cut this bevel so that we can run this thing right on the table like that. I got the outer face cut and went back to the bandsaw and cut the inner face. Now we just need to do some cleanup. Now I've got something that's just about impossible to hold in any kind of device or jig. I almost should break out my shaving horse for this. It's about the only thing that can hold a shape like this. So I opted for... Get out of my way. Not enough room in this shop. So I opted for making this just a little bit beefier. I did a little bit of sanding on the belt sander on the inside here, but I didn't have a line to follow, so I didn't want to go too far. Well, that feels generally okay. There's probably a couple little spots that still need some attention, but for the most part, I think that looks really good. Alright, now, the last thing we need to do is do these end cuts. And that, I want to be very careful about how we do that. Get those wrong and the whole thing goes up the spout. I think what I should do is go back to my original pattern, the one that I used when I cut my first one, that had those end cuts on there, and just copy that. Although I could probably take bevels off of my existing one, but it's hard to get that distance just right now. It's a bit tricky. Let's remark my center line on there before I lose it. Okay, one thing to note is that I saved this offcut from down here, and that's because eventually we're going to be doing a little bit of cutting in here, and this is just going to give me a flat-ish base to be able to do that on. So that's just going to make that a little bit easier. So I wrote save on there so I don't go and chop it up. So now here we have our original pattern, which in theory I should be able to lay that right on there, and that looks really good. Line it up with our center mark, and then mark our end cuts. I should just compare that to the boat, actually. Yeah, I think that got us safely to the right spot. A part like this seems so very simple, but there are so many places that it can trip you up. We're laying off compound angles that are referenced to curved surfaces, and that can be really tricky to do. So I really like to take my time to figure out what my next move is going to be. This is the measure twice and cut once philosophy, but let's measure like three times and think about all the different ways we could possibly screw this up. Okay, good. And then my bevels, maybe I'll take those off of the other piece, because I can give me that bevel that way. This is where the dry run we did with the laminated part really pays off, because we not only have gained the experience of making that part, but now we have that part itself as a reference tool. I should take the bevels off the backside, the square face. They're just easier to see there. In fact, I've got the bevel drawn on there from when I did this, but let's just double check that. Oh, I'm not in line with my line here. But I did carve that back piece, didn't I? All right, let's do this. I'm going to do that. Take the bevel off this side. I have a feeling I'm going to end up cutting those down. How did this fit? A little bit different. I'm just going to mark that on the inside. And this one. Okay, I think I'm going to... Tough one. I think we'll cut it to these outside marks, and then I can always recut it to the inside marks if I want to. That seems like a good idea. How's this surface? This is one of those parts that, frustratingly, you can't quite mark in place, and you can't quite check the fit on until it finally fits. Now it's just a little bit of flattening towards the ends here. Here's the thing that's totally deceiving. The whole thing feels like it's crowned, right? It's curved, but in fact it's dead flat down this way. It sure doesn't feel like it or look like it. That's a bit better. Needs a tiny bit more. A bit more strokes like that. Go the other way. I want to be really careful I don't screw around with this too much, because it's going to mess up everything if I do. See, one of the things I've noticed is, just trying to clamp this in order to plane it, I have to be really careful, because if I squeeze down on this, this is going to flex, and it's going to change the shape. And then I don't have the shape that I was gunning for. I end up planing a crown into it instead of flattening it out. Ah! I need the vise that doesn't exist. I don't even know if an Emmet vise would hold this thing. Ah, there we go. That's good. Okay. Alright, now to do my end cuts. I think we'll just cut them by hand. If I can find my saw. Where the hell is my saw gun? So, back here, we've got our cleat coming across the transom, and my joinery is not 100%. I mean, it's close enough for epoxy, but I'd like to get it just a hair closer. I cut too close to the line, or I didn't give myself enough wiggle room, and I realize now, I thought I was giving myself much more, but I realize now that there's some flawed thinking. I've got this little bit of space on both sides I want to try and make up. There's two ways I can do it. One way is I could be dropping this down, so that I've got room to shave this back a little bit and fit it. I don't have any more room to do that, though. I'm already at my limit. I've got just a little bit of material left I can take off, but it's almost none, and I want to be able to fair all this in. My only other option is to head towards the transom, and that's going to take a little bit off the back here, and it's going to basically allow this to shift forward and give me a little bit of wiggle room. I think that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pop this off, and we'll see if we can't just take a few swipes off the back of this with a plane and see if that gives us that little bit of extra space. Mostly, I wouldn't care, except for the fact it's looking like I'm going to do bright work here, and I'd like this to just be a little tidier. I remembered I do have a vise that can hold just about anything, and that's my luthier's vise. I love this thing. You can pick it up at Stumac, which is a luthier's supply place, or Lee Valley Tools. The colors vary, but the vise is pretty much exactly the same between the two. All right, with my cleat fitted nicely, I've got a little bit of work to do to try and bring it down. It's like less than an eighth, more than a sixteenth. So I'm going to take this little batten here, and I've sprung it down hard against the rub rails, and now I just want to use it to describe a little bit of a crown towards the center, and that's just sort of a guideline for me to follow. What may happen is I may, after I get a lot of this all fitted in, I might just actually fair off this whole thing down a little bit lower, but let's see how close we can get, because none of that's easy work to do. All right, that's nice. Back here, I'm exactly where I want to be. So let's see. I want to leave a little material here, so I'm taking it down to about a 32nd of an inch proud, and that feels pretty good. I wanted to get this angle just a little bit more in tune with this shape here for my next operation. Same thing on the other side. This side's a little prouder all the way across, a little more parallel. There must be a bit of a twist going on in here. There's nothing I can do anything about now, so we'll leave it. If you wonder why you don't see me bracing things all the time, it's for reasons like this. This thing is totally in my way now. Although if it wasn't braced, I'd be waggling all over the place too. It's like you can't see it, but I'm up on my tiptoes and trying to stand on stuff that can't be stood on just to try and get myself some better geometry here. Let's try it. Sometimes you just got to work backwards. There we go. That's better. Now I could probably pop this out and just shave this top surface down on this side a little more. That's probably what I'll do before I install it just to get that a little bit closer. That's good for now. Okay, with the transom brace done, we can start moving on to the next component, which are the quarter knees. But we're going to save that for the next episode. So thank you all for watching, and join me again on building the Catalina Wherry. See you later, folks.