That’s Lao-tzu’s, by the way, not mine.
Anyway, you’ve got to start somewhere, and because Chris was a bit backed up and couldn’t cut everything in a single day, I started with laminating the stem since the stem form was the first thing off the router.
The stem is the curved extension of the keel that establishes the shape of the bow of the boat. Timm supplied a DXF of the shape so we could cut out a form upon which to laminate it. Here we are cutting that out on the router:
From there, I took a piece of 8/4 S2S V.G. Doug Fir (actual dimension was 1-3/4″ which is the correct width for the stem) and ripped it into 1/4″ strips. These were then given a coat of virgin epoxy on both sides of each mating surface, and then one side of each received a heavy coat of cabosil-thickened epoxy. Early on in the project I was using cabosil as my laminating thickener. I’ve since learned that while cabosil is perfectly fine, you’re marginally better-off using microfibers in this application. But I digress…
Here’s a shot of the layup on the form.
When declamped there was no noticeable springback. Over the next 24 hours or so it opened up slightly, but only about 1/8 to 3/16″. If I can keep this whole project within those tolerances I’m going to be a pretty happy first-time boat builder.
-Ben