Yesterday I went over to a friends house and had him run the mahogany thru the planer to get it down to 2mm. It would be too thin to run it thru by itself so I stuck it to a flat board with double stick tape along the outside edges so we could run it thru.

Today I cut out the shear strakes oversize on the outside then stuck them together with double back tape and sanded the inside curve so they would be symmetrical. Then glued the shear strakes to the hull and sanded them fair to the hull. That was not an easy job.

Ed

Placed the king plank on the hull today. Next is the tedious job of installing the planks and black strips that simulate the caulking. Hopefully it will look like the next picture when completed.

Doe's any body have a tip on installing the thin strips between the planks?

Ed

I use large & small black felt tips or black auto body pin stripping tape. All look perfect at more than 1 foot from the human eyes.

I ran the tape over 200 grit to dull it correctly. Valspar PU covers it.

cyclops2,

I have done that with another boat and it works good. However I purchased some black strips called purfling which is a fiber material .020 thick and used for guitar making. It wants to keep curling over and laying on its side. I need to devise a way to keep it straight so I can glue it.

Ed

The body shops save my butt as the tape comes in colors & widths.

Hi Ed, I edge glued the black veneer strip to one side of my planks before I glued them down. (yes, I had to trim the black veneer to be even with the plank after the glue set. You may be able to make a jig to hold the black strip even with one side of the plank. I work on a piece of glass with wax paper.) You can see that on the 1 long plank hanging off the side of the picture I posted. My strips were 3/8" wide so I was able to glue several planks to a strip and then cut between each plank to seperate them.

Found a way to glue the black strips to the side of the mahogany planks. I first glued a small area of the strip to the front then pulled it tight at the stern then taped it down at the stern. I cut a piece of wood 4 inched long and wrapped it in wax paper and taped it on to the wood. I used thin CA and glued 4 inches at a time and used the wood with the wax paper to hold it against the plank while the CA dried. Slow but it works good.

Ed

Sounds like you found a solution. With teak I have to wipe the glue surfaces with acetone to remove the natural oil for good adheasion. One extra step when working with that wood.
I think your going to be really pleased with how it is going to look.

Put a few planks on today, when I glued the black strips on to the side of mahogany the CA wicked up onto the top of the mahogany planks. So I stopped the planking and sanded the planks and black strips to make sure the glue would sand off the wood planks. So far so good, so I shall continue planking and not worry about the glue.

Ed

Looking great!

Very nice! Of course when I do it and there are small gaps that need to be filled where the caulk line/joints are, I use black graphite powder mixed with epoxy applied with a pin to those spots. But I know I'm the only one that has that kind of problem. :>)

Aerominded and Reg,

Thanks for the comments. Reg I sent you a private message about your schooner.

Ed

Very Nice Job Ed.

BG Boats, Thanks for the comment.

Made some progress. Today I laid some more black strips and mahogany planks. The wood piece wrapped in wax paper did not work out. I just used the strip of wood sanded to a knife edge to hold the black strips to the mahogany while I applied thin CA. The mahogany strip look ugly with the glue on it but it will sand off.

Ed

The planking continues. My calculations came out perfect; the sides of the back hatch are right on a full plank. The doors over the motor will come out real close but the hinges will go there. Actually my calculation is 1/10 measuring and 9/10's dumb luck. Also sanded the rear hatch and it looks good; I was worried about the glue on the surface of the mahogany.

Ed