Planking is fun albeit a bit stressful at times. I decided early on not to try and do a pair of planks in one day. So, my routine was to cut the planking bevel and gains (I used my hand rebate plane then cleaned up with a block plane for both)
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| bevels and gains cut |
check the planking fit and mark some key positions relative to bulkheads and then put a belt of 400gsm biax cloth over the inner side of the puzzle joints of the new plank. This took me about 3-4 hours. The next day I would coat the bevel with epoxy (thinned with TPRDA) so that the joints wouldn't starve and then mix up a batch of thickened epoxy smear it on, put the plank on with a whole lot of screws on blocks (thin strips of 20mm thick ply were also good for this)
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| plank in place and clamped |
I learnt a few things while I was planking that I had stuffed up during my set up. Firstly, somehow, either the centreboard case or one of the bulkheads that it contacts weren't exactly plumb. While planking, I could see that two bulkheads were slightly bowed when I sighted across them. I think that it won't matter or that I will be able to adjust them when I turn the boat over (by breaking the small tabs of epoxy and moving them before doing the proper fillets). I also noticed earlier on that my stem was a bit thicker than it should have been. This placed it and the forward end of the sole a little higher than they should have been by about 3 mm. This meant that I had to have a tiny gap between planks and bulkhead A and between the planks and mould 1 in order to keep the hull shape fair (otherwise the planks would have looked pinched in). This also, I don't think will be a problem in the long run. Overall, I'm very happy with how the planking went. The hull looks great and symmetrical and fair. I'm now looking forward (!) to filling screw holes, sanding, fairing, glassing and painting!
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