Stem Lamination, part 1

One of the boards I got in the white oak purchase was an 8/4 board about 9' long. There was a bow on there already, and it was really hard to get that guy through the planer. Eventually I gave up, handling a 90lb board by myself was just too much. I got enough of it through to see the main knots and checks. I needed to cut out about a 5' section of it for the stem. The rest I'll hang onto and make knees or a breasthook or something. Small parts, even the mast step & holder need to be made out of 2" thick stock, so the rest of that board is going to come in handy later.

So I cut off the checked end, then measured out 5' of clear stock and cut the piece that I needed out of the middle. To laminate the stem, I needed to then rip that board into strips. I ended up setting the table saw between 1/4" and 3/8" thick and ripped the entire board into strips. The finished stem needs to be 5" thick and the starter board is much wider than that, so I can afford to lose some to kerf width and still break some boards in forming the stem.

Stopped in the middle of a rip cut

Check out all of that sawdust on the ground. Ripping to a close edge is a difficult skill to master

The board was crowned, which presents an interesting problem. Getting square strips requires a flat board. I tried to solve this problem by swinging the board around and ripping from a different side each pass - that meant I'm finishing with the very center of the board. Still not entirely confident that I got square strips so I might run them through the planer to be sure.

Finished strips

Squareness aside, these turned out great. They are flexible and thin, but I'm still going to have to soak or steam them in part 2. To laminate, I'll have to bend these to a form that is currently just drawn on the lofting board. The finished product has to be in two parts with the same bend that come together to be 5" thick.

The rest of the board - over 9" wide

You can clearly see where the crown was taken down in the planer

The kerf on my table saw took the rest of that width - now it's less than 7" wide

Building a laminated stem takes several steps. This is the first step, cutting the strips. Bending a single board or cutting from a hackmatack  is another way to go, but you can't just cut a stem from a single wide board or you will end up with a "short grain" situation which will break. When you do use a single board you have to chisel a couple of angles into the side called a rabbet. Cutting the rabbet into the stem and keel is easier to accomplish if you keep the top & bottom parts separated.

Lamination is also a multi-step process. First you have to steam or soak the strips to get them wet and flexible enough to bend into the form. After they are bent & clamped in place they need to dry, then they will hold their shape when dry. Then you have to add plastic to control where the glue goes, and bend the strips into the form again, this time gluing the strips together. At a point, you need to add plastic separator instead of glue between two of the strips, then keep gluing the rest in place. This way when the epoxy has completely cured, you can remove the clamps and end up with two sections of curved strips that will hold their shape.

Cut the bearding line into one segment of the stem, and cut the rabbet line into the other side. This way, when you epoxy the two segments back to form one complete stem, you have a complete rabbet already cut in and you're ready to lay the plywood in there. This angle of the rabbet changes as the stem drops, so it's an incredibly complex series of cuts. Also you have to start with clean sides, and will typically cut an angle into front of the stem so it looks like the plywood from the body forms a point at the front. Here's a picture of the stem I cut in Quicksilver that shows the rabbet and the point

That was a straight stem so I could cut the rabbet and point on the table saw. This is going to be way more complex of an angle to adjust to.

So part 2 will be soaking, bending, and gluing the stem. The same type of rabbet has to be cut onto the keel as well, and I'm using a single 2" thick board for the keel. That's going to be a mighty complex cut as well. Then the keel and stem have to be joined together, and the frames notched to accept the keel. Hey, I better build some frames and find that keel board...