The lower chine story

In the last post I showed my attempt at steam bending the chine logs - it kinda worked, but only just kind of. The spruce proved super tough and resistant to bending so I had to figure out a way to reduce the internal stresses in the glue joints. Instead of forcing the log into place I decided to glue in an intermediary wedge. In addition, the gluing surface is more than doubled, see pictures below. The cut angles are euivalent to a 12:1 scarf, which should be aok since i'm relying on glued scarf joints in many places of the build.

In order to keep everything lined up I first glued the logs to the stem and the first bulkhead. Afterwards, making sure the center line is kept I glued the logs to the slots in the rest of the frames. Most probably I will only add fasteners at the stem and the transom, I see little reason to break the continuity of the fibers amidship where it matters.

Keeping the log twisted the correct amount with plywood wrenches makes for a pretty easy fit, no need to use fasteners and weaken the stringers.

 Part of the reason the bending process was so challenging was that the stem sagged by 15mm. Or maybe I put it lower to compensate for the fact I cut it a bit short on the deck side and then forgot about it. Anyway, I laminated 2 strips of wood to the logs to compensate for that, restoring the geometry and adding some additional strength to the forward section.

Next step, tomorrow, will be shaping the bottom chines and fine tuning the bevels.
ahoy.