Camera unavailable so narrative only today....

Sorry about this but have been having problems with camera, well not so much problems, more I forgot to bring back my disc reader and so can't transfer the pictures.  However, I have some on my 'phone. I will post them shortly:

Shortly:

The top two pictures show the timbers steamed in but not yet nailed and the bottom picture shows the mizzen mast under construction.

Once the planking is completed the hull is re-enforced by steaming in lateral oak sections of timber, which because they are steamed in are known as 'timbers', if they had been constructed from futtocks (several individual pieces) or cut from one solid piece of grown timber they would normally be called frames.

Steaming 62 pieces of oak and then bending them to shape without scalding yourself is an interesting process and you get about 30-45 seconds to get the wood out of the steamer and bent and clamped in place before it cools to much to bend.

The next task is to drill, nail and rivet the timbers through each plank, that is 34 timbers with 26 nails in each giving 884 nails; each one averages out at about 90 seconds = 79560 seconds =1326 minutes = 22 hours. We are about 16 hours into this particular nailathon... between the hammering and then the riveting it is pretty numbing and being hunched over in a boat riveting has certainly given my back a lot to think about.

There are occasional amusing interludes, part of the process involves forcing the timber down onto the plank sometimes by the application of a foot...  at times like this it is wise to ensure that the person under the boat, who cannot see you, is nailing into the hole you think they are nailing into.  Yes you guessed, and yes it hurt.

We have also started work on the floors, but more of that later (they are not what you stand on, those are called soleboards) and as you can see from the pictures we have also installed the centre plate box and now await delivery of the plate itself, the sails have been ordered from a company in Plymouth and there is a small shed load of other bits arriving from the chandlers in the next few days.  We also have the paint and once the floors, and deck are installed the next task will be to complete the painting of the interior before we finish of the exterior....

An Apology...

Firstly can I apologise for the lack of posts over the past couple of weeks, a combination of factors has meant that I have been unable to access my blog.

However we have now finished planking, removed the moulds, and cut the sheer.  So on the basis that a picture says a thousand words...

Nailing on the Sheer Strake... the FINAL plank of the planking saga

Still nailing!

This is the point at which we had finished the planking, started to remove the moulds, but decided to go to the Pub to celebrate!

All the frames removed, amazing how quickly one can get moulds out when you've had a couple of pints.

Sheer Strake in place but without the final sheer (shape of the top of the plank) marked or cut

Cutting the Starboard sheer...

Cutting the Port sheer...

TARRRRAAA!!!

The Rose finally planked and ready for fitting out

So we have completed the planking, well behind schedule, but we can now push ahead with the fitting out that hopefully we will have more help with.  The next stage is to fit the Centre plate box, clean up the inside of the hull, fill and fair any knot holes and gaps and then apply a couple of coats of primer prior to putting in the timbers and floors.

The mast is virtually complete, the Gaff is complete and the mizzen mast is glued up ready for shaping, so while there is a lot to do all is now achievable.

The Sheer is the line of the top the plank which gives the boat its shape when it is in the water, it is considered one of the most important aspects of a boat and it took about an hour working with a baton to get the Jessica Rose's sheer the way we wanted it.  The old way of doing it was to run a string from the outboard edge of the transom at sheer level to the stem and then by eye mark the sheer in the same plane as the string! No I didn't get it either, so we used a very long sail baton clamped to the plank.

More to follow as we get into the interesting bit... thank you for your patience!

And so we progress...

I thought this was quite a fun 'phot and gives an impression of what she will look like head on.

There still needs to be a cutwater fashioned on the stem which will narrow the bow from 2 inches to about an inch, and of course she has to grow another 4 planks upwards to complete the hull.  We should get another pair of planks on tomorrow and then finish next week or by tuesday of the following week.

Then all we have to do is fit her out!!!

By December 7th...

Planking...

Well I did warn you; we are still fighting to get the planks on, although this week we do seem to have turned the corner and hopefully we will be onto more interesting stuff in a few days time when we start on 'inwales', eking pieces, breast hooks, hanging knees, and thwarts.  That is not to mention timbers floors, deck beams, and carlins... so I won't.

More 'phot's latr in the week..

Britain at Risk...

Boat will be featured in a programme called Britain at Risk that will be shown in February 2012.  Great fun to see it recorded, I don't feature, I was to old!

Spars... Introducing Rob!

It is important to mention that we have a new member of the 'Rose Team in the form of Rob who has kindly taken on the lion's share of the work manufacturing the Spars.  He is rapidly becoming the Course expert on the production of spars!

Tapering the stock

Producing a 17' mast that tapers from 3.5 inches to 2.5 inches requires extremely careful marking out and is a time consuming process, in addition Rob has also produced the Gaff and has promised to assist with the bowsprit, mizzen mast and sprit.

More photographs to follow...

OK...

Sorry to have been off the air for so long but there is only so much you can say about the process of nailing planks onto a boat without becoming 'Mr Boring'.

However this week we have, between learning how to renovate old boats, started work on the mast and spars for the ' Rose and have put one of my birthday presents to work with quite fantastic results.

Two 17' lengths of Sitka spruce that will be tapered and then hollowed out prior to being stuck together and then faired into a mast.

Planing up the stock using a leveller plainer, 4 kilo's of tradition adding its weight to a razor sharp honed steel blade, slices through the timber like a hot knife through butter...

THE BEAST at work!

It is amazing how much umphh you can get behind a plane that weighs in the order of 4 kilos it really does produce a beautiful finish and while there are steel soled equivalents they don't have the same feel.  Incidentally the test of whether the iron is sharp enough, or not, is to shave hairs of your forearm, the ability to hone the iron to that sort of edge is also a measure of the quality of the steel... this one is very good. (I have a bald patch on my left arm where I got carried away.)

As to learning how to renovate boats this has involved lots of action with an angle grinder, hammer, and skill saw, none of it pretty.  However, we have succeeded in learning a great deal about removing random planks from a clinker boat.  Ironic really, as the sole focus of my life at the moment is trying to get planks onto a boat not taking them off!

Back to the 'Rose we are now something like half finished on the planking and 15 days behind schedule, I refuse to panic however.. really I refuse to panic... Mr Mannering...  There is still a great deal to do but I remain confident that we will be finished on schedule, well we will meet the finishing date the schedule went out the window several weeks ago.

Steaming the end of a plank prior to fitting

One of the complexities that has challenged us has been the tuck at the transom and the difficulty of shaping the end of the planks; it has involved considerable torturing of wood with the application of steam and large screws!  The other difficulty has been cutting the geralds at the transom to achieve a smooth transom shape that reduces the danger of snagging lines etc.  This is the problem with having a wine glass transom and planked deadwood.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be ordering the sails and trailer and starting to look seriously at the rigging, so we will be running a number of things concurrently to try and catch up.

So that brings you upto date with the current state of play and I promise to be more diligent in keeping this blog current.

Next update tuesday