Thursday, February 18, 2010

Knees are fitted

Enough said! Big day mentally, for this build. This was a step I was really looking forward to finishing. I feel like the hull is basically complete, besides the millions of little things. Structurally, she's sound. I like that.




The bow knee/breasthook took two tries, but I am happy with it. The plans call for the stem to be basically 19mm below the top of the ply, and the breasthook will slip over the top of it. My stem comes right to the top (my mistake) so I'm butting it up against the back end. The fit is not super tight, but close enough to be filled with a little epoxy. The rest of the fit is really nice.

The stern knees also took a few tries and were a little trickier, I thought, due to the cut-out for for the inwale and the bevels needed to accommodate the sides and the transom.


Here's what I wrote to my compatriot in Sacramento about making the stern knees.


1. First I traced the corner before I installed the inwale spacer or the inwale. If you didn't do this, don't despair, make something up.

2. Bevel the Transom-side FIRST before making any cuts to accomodate the inwale. This way, you will have it appropriately sized before you cut the space for the inwale. This is what I did not do my first time around, and when I beveled Transom-side the whole knee slid back, creating a gap aft of the inwale.

3. Measure the cut you need for the inwale

4. Cut space for inwale.

5. Bevel Side-side. Then, eyeball the inside of the cut, it will be the same bevel. I used my dremel drum sander, and chiselled out the corner, carefully.

Tight DF is a bitch to plane/bevel.

Good luck. Make sure you can make a few of them if need be, materials wise.

See better pictures here.

1 comment:

  1. Good work!

    Thanks for the step-by-step how-to re the quarter knees. I'm at the point of beveling the notches and couldn't visualize what I needed to do. Your point about beveling the notch to match the side makes perfect sense.

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