Gunwale spacer blocks

I'm still waiting for my Joubert Gaboon marine ply to arrive. Andrew from Denman Marine is hopeful that the shipment from France will arrive by mid January 2009. In the meantime, I'm just ticking off some of the other components that make up the Goat.

I've decided to build another stiffer Yard. The original one I made from Hoop Pine seems to be too flexible. During a recent visit to Bunnings, I found some nice clear 42x42 pine that is straight and somewhat stiffer than the Hoop Pine (quite cheap too). I had to scarfe the timber as Bunning don't sell them in 4m lengths. The join was made using a 10:1 ratio scarfe joint.

Here you can see the scarfe joint being glued-up. The packaging tape is there to provide pressure between the clamps, as I don't have enough of the longer clamps.

Here you can see the glue line and the epoxy squeeze-out. It won't be a dry joint! The glue is West System  with the addition of West's 406 Colloidal silica mixed to a margerine consistency.

The other task I took care of today was cutting the 60-odd inwale spacer blocks out of 19x45 Paulownia. I don't have a saw table, so I turned my work table into a docking saw, like this:

So that I didn't have to measure each block before cutting I set up a piece of timber as a stopper. Then after each cut was made I simply moved up the timber until it reached the stopper, secured the clamp and cut.....60 times. The white painted piece sticking out is the stopper. You can see the spacer blocks that have fallen into the plastic crate below.

This pic shows the inwale spacer blocks on a Goat Island Skiff under construction.

The next task was sanding the spacers, as this would be difficult once they are fitted. Again, to speed things up and to keep the blocks nice and square, I mounted a 3M sanding disk in my drill press. Then to keep the blocks firm while sanding I rigged up a simple brace to hold them vertical and square while I gently lowered the disk. This worked well and I powered through the 60 blocks in no time.

In this pic of the setup, I'm sanding 2 blocks at once...