Over the past few weeks, with lots of breaks for the holidays, I've been working on finishing up the deck beams. This definitely has seemed to be the most tedious part so far, and I found another screw up.
Laying out the deck beams was a slow process since I wanted to make sure they were laid out right. Making sure the gunwales are aligned right was important. Mine haven’t matched perfectly as one is stiffer than the other so I clamped them tight to make sure nothing slipped while I was getting everything laid out.
During the process of laying them out I did deviate from the instruction and measured my ribs also. My thought with doing the ribs now was to get them cut and thinned so they can soak for several weeks. One post I had read on a Qajaq USA forum had stated they had the best results in bending when the wood had soaked long enough that it didn’t float. I think that person had let them soak for two weeks. I’m going on one week of soaking and it should be another week and a half to two weeks before I’m ready to bend anything.
One thing that I have found in making this boat is that the jigs Chris Cunningham uses in his book does really make things go faster and more uniform from one piece to the next. I think I’ve used the tendon jig a hundred times so far. It is a thin piece of wood that is 1 ¼” wide and about 3” long with 90 degree corners. You’d be amazed at how many times you will use this simple piece of wood.
During the process of laying out the deck beams I figured something out. I never marked out or cut a mortise for arched deck beam number 5, oops. I’m not sure how I missed it until so deep into this project but I missed it. I am a fairly light paddler at 155-160 lbs so I don’t think it will hurt me that much to not have it, at least I hope. If you are doing this project I would suggest making sure deck beam #5 is laid out on your story pole, which is where things started to go wrong for me.
When laying out the tendons I did mark every deck beam with waste and tendon so I knew what needed to be cut off. After the screw up with the deck beam I didn’t want to cut the wrong part of the deck beam off. While cutting the tendons I also switched from using a fine tooth saw to a medium tooth saw. This made the cuts go quicker and I think more precise. The saw I use is a Japanese saw that has fine tooth on one edge and medium on the other with a fairly small kerf so making the change was as simple as flipping the saw over. If the saw was tearing the wood I would simply flip back to fine the tooth side.
Fitting the deck beams to the gunwales takes time. I had to file or sand some part of every mortise and tendon to get them to fit together properly. Near the end I got to the point that I could look at the mortise before fitting and figure out what need to be filed or sanded. It is good to keep a four in hand rasp, square cabinet makers file, and a sanding block close during this entire process. Right now I am waiting on the artificial sinew I ordered to arrive so I can finish up with the final pegging and lashing of the deck beams to the gunwales. The deck beams are not completely fitted tight but I will tighten those up when I get ready to lash and peg it. It took using a Spanish windlass, pipe clamps (padded with wood as to not crush the gunwales), squeeze clamps, the end forms, and some cussing to get them all fitted.
Once the deck beams are done, the excess are cut off and everything sanded it will be time to bend some ribs. My first project that involved bending wood was my dog sled, which we broke three brush bows before we got one to bend; with that experience I’m apprehensive about bending the ribs with little breakage. I cut 50% overage on my bending stock for breakage, lets hope I don’t need to use much of it.
