Stem Assignment

So...

Stem Assignment: what is it?

The purpose was to construct a stem for a 10' dinghy using laminated ash.  The first stage was to produce a lofting from a table of off-sets and then design construct and use a laminating rig.  There are two ways you can undertake this task, the easy way, and the 'Why not make it as difficult as possible.' way; you guessed.

It was all going so well and I was right on the curve, in fact ahead of it... Pride before a fall.  At 3 in the afternoon I realised, or rather it was pointed out that my buttocks didn't line up with my half breadth waterlines, this is not a good thing.  It was definitely a *$**@^ moment, however, having realised that the lofting I had so lovingly constructed was gash I had to redo it and that was the first late night.

Lofting with revolved sections

So I then constructed the Laminating Jig which actually went really well, now at this point it is important to note that I had gone for the 'Two part' construction method to allow for easy construction of the rabbet (the rabbet is the rebate into which the planks fit.)

Jig set-up

OK so far so good and we are back on track and moving forward rapidly.  Next comes the gluing up and clamping the laminate onto the jig, this is a 3 man job and not for the faint hearted, once again this involves glue... need I say more, however, we did get it glued up and onto the mould with the parting strip in place.  Had I mentioned the parting strip. Ah!  This is a laminate that is covered with parcel tape to ensure that when the clamps are undone the laminate is in two pieces that fit exactly together, an inner and an outer stem.

So... what could possibly go wrong, you can turn the laminate stack over by accident with the result that the Inner stem ends up on the outside, which is not good, in fact it is catastrophic, hence the following series of photographs which show me gluing the whole thing back together and having to use the traditional method of chiselling out the rabbet, long painful and definitely not part of my skill set.

So thats it glued back together...

It then only remains to cut it out using a chisel, which let me assure you is a long and painful process.  The process is still ongoing and should be completed in the next few days, building the Jessica Rose allowing.