The Keel

Keel

The keel is the backbone of any boat or ship.  In traditional boat building it's the main structural element in which frames are attached.  It' also one of the first things built with everything else built around the keel.  The boat I'm building is not a traditional build boat but rather it's a hybrid.  In my case the keel is laid into the bulkhead after the hull already has its shape.  You've seen the keel temporarily installed in previous posts but now I'm ready to make it a permanent part of the boat especially since the temperature will finally be warm enough to actually use epoxy.  The temperature needs to stay above 60 degrees for at least 24 hours in order for epoxy to cure properly.  

Not so fast unfortunately.  I mentioned in an earlier post that the floor timbers continued to shrink after I had notched them for the keel (I had to take them all down and re-plane them before I installed them onto the bulkheads).  This forced me to raise (make the notches deeper) the keel around 3/16".  This should not pose and issues because a filler strake is used to bring the keel flush with the bottom of the hull after the hull planking is installed.  In a few instances I needed to lay in shims to bring the notches in the floor timbers down to the right level.  All of the notches in the floor timbers needed to be have at least minor adjustments.  

This figure shows thin laminations being glued into the bottom of the notches in order to maintain fairness of the keel. Three of the large floor timbers needed these laminations.  All required minor adjustments.

All the floor timbers back in place and ready for the keel.

Before I get to the keel, I used my shim making skills to fix a few other issues.  One of the longitudinal battens that terminated into the step was slightly recessed.  This was only apparent when I started to fare the bow by using thin battens bent onto the longitudinals.  I laminated a thin layer onto the batten and later I'll sand it down to shape.

Laminated a thin shim onto this longitudinal batten.  A short 1" X 2" board is used to apply even pressure to the shim to ensure that it is evenly bonded.  Wax paper is used to ensure that the clamping board can be removed after the repair is finished.

I decided to fix another issue while the temperature is nice.  A small 14 inch section of the third layer of the shear clamp became delaminated.  It's part of the shear clamp that was significantly shaped at the bow.  I clamped a piece of wood below the shear clamp where the repair was to be made so that the epoxy would not leak out of the bottom of the repair.  The separation in the shear clamp was filled with epoxy.  I then clamped the shear clamp tightly to ensure that the epoxy would be squeezed evenly throughout the delaminated section.  This is when I was reminded of what a liability cheap tools really are.  I figured 'C' clamps from Harbor Freight would work well enough.  I'd already bent a few but I had not broken one until now.  It's frustrating when your performing a critical task and your tools fail you.  The problem is that I need a very large number of 'C' clamps for this project and I figured I could get cheap ones.  There simple in function and made out of steal.  Actually, now I know they're cheap cast iron.  For the most part they have served their propose though.  I would recommend having a large number of cheap 'C' clamps for light clamping and a few good ones in critical situations.

Cheap 'C' clamps might not be worth the price.  I actually broke this 'C' clamp with hand pressure only.

The delamination of the shear clamp being fixed.  It looks complicated but it worked perfectly.

 Back to the repair. The repair looks awfully convoluted in the figure above but I was very pleased with the results.

After letting the epoxy set up overnight, I'm almost ready to install the first section of the keel.  A little sanding of repairs and I dry laid the first piece in place starting at the stern.  Drilled for the #10 2" silicon bronze screws and mixed up some epoxy.  I'll need a thickening agent for the epoxy so it will better fill small gaps.  The West epoxy, in its natural state, is very viscous and will run off a surface thats not flat.  There are various additives such as silica and micro spheres that thicken the epoxy and make it a better bonding agent.  I have just enough to make one batch of epoxy.  It turns out that I'm almost out of screws as well.  100 of these screws are $60 and the filler is around $30 but I'll have to order both from Jamestown Distributers.  I did, however, get that first piece (16 ft) installed.