Bandsaw, Jig saws and the start of more frames

Having cut my first frame out last week with a jig saw, I was less than happy about the result.  The blade tends to curve, and its hard work to get flowing lines, particularly with my old, and under powered jig saw.

After some discussion with the good people on the Glen-L forum, I have decided to invest in a Band Saw.  A little bit depressing really, as I hadn't counted on spending so much on tools so early in the build, but never mind.  So I'm on the hunt for a good second hand model.

In the meantime I cut to rough length, and ran through the thicknesser some timber to that will become parts for Frames 2,3 & 4.

I also hung up a florescent light above my work table, makes a huge difference.

I also had a play with squaring up a couple of boards with a #6 hand plane. Worked out ok, still might invest in a power plane.

Working enviroment

 

I have built a purpose designed work bench to layout the plans on, and construct the frames.  It's great as I'm fairly tall and its at a perfect working height.  To the left you can also see my new thicknesser, and just visable underneath is my first stock of timber.  The Area that the boat will actually be assembled in was behind me when I took this photo, and is currently occupied by my brothers kit car. On top of the bench are two picecs of sapele that are now in the shape of Frame #8

Frame #8 is done

Today I finished cutting and sanding Frame #8. I don't have a bandsaw so had to jig saw it out. May need to invest in a new jig saw, my current black and decker one is about 30 years old, and got rather hot, even with a brand new blade.

Jig sawings ok, but it was difficult to get a flowing curve. Took a fair bit of sanding to tidy it up afterwards.

I don't yet have ply for the floor timbers or gussets, so it's not complete, but from a solid timber perspective, frame #8 is done.

Doing this frame has also re-enforced my need for a jointed.

How to best utilize my wood?

Been trying to decide the best way to attack the frames. I started off with a plan to start at one end of the boat and work my way to the other, but I was concerned about getting the best yield from my wood.

So what I ended updoing was drawing in CAD all of my bits of wood, and then each part as described in the BOM. Then I could just drag and drop the bits and play around till I got the best utilization I could.


The pleasant surprise was that it appears I can get more parts out of my current stock than I expected.

So having come up with a cutting plan, I took the simplest piece and cut it to length and ran it through the thicknesser. The amount of saw dust is heart breaking. Anyhow I now have two pieces of timber ready to be made into Frame #8

Best of all I finally feel this project is underway.

Tomorrows challenge is to transfer the pattern for frame 8 onto the bits of wood and cut them out.

I'll also figure out how to put photos on this blog and post a couple tomorrow.