"Building the Boat Transom and Installing the Rib Band's"
Now we have all the frames mounted to the strong back and the profile fasten to the frames, the next thing to do is build a jig on to our plug or mold to form the transom. Refer to your plan template plans for the dimensions to construct your jig. The radius or camber in your transom will dictate how wide of a board you will need to cut the radius for your jig. Now we might as well set up the table saw to cut some rib bands because you will need some to screw onto your transom jig. They need to be 1 5/8" wide and their length will be determined by your plans. At this point you might as well cut all your rib bands for the whole boat. Now this is important------- you need to buy #1 pine board,you know the one's with no knots in them , y-e-a-h, the pretty one's, that's what I am talking about :) the expensive one's. All joking aside, the reason for this is you are going to have to scarf them together,so when you wrap them around your boat mold you want them to spring a fair curve. So you can not have any knots what so ever or trashy wood or your boat will come out looking like a wavy piece of, well you know what I mean. You can see in photo #2 how the rib bands are attached. They are screwed to the camber pieces and the screws are counter sunk just enough just so the heads are not proud and interfere with the first layer of plywood which will also be screwed to the rib bands. I used 1/4" FIR plywood, an laminated four layers together using west epoxy and cotton fibers. It would be a good Idea to purchase a number of 10" c-clamps when you start laminating your wood together. I remember that I really had to hurry when I did the transom, I did use the slow hardner but I mixed small batches at a time. I used bronze boat nails to laminate the transom working from the center out gradually pulling both side around with pipe clamps and then nailing a little bit,spreading more Epoxy and pulling the plywood sheet around till i had it laminated and the same for the following sheets.
But
hey, If you have a compressor I would invest in an air stapler and
some monel staples instead of boat nails. No doubt in my mind the
stapler would be way faster. Well now that you have your transom all
glued up we need to leave it alone for a while. Remember all that
lumber you cut into 1 5/8" strips? Now that you have figured out how
long they have to be to go around your boat you can start scarfing them
together. I made a jig on a plywood table that I made to be able to
scarf my strips with a skill saw. I made an 8" scarf joint by
staggering the ends every 8" as I stood them on their side and clamped
them together.I had made a guide to use with my skill saw so that it
cut a perfect 8" scarf with the least amount of waste. I did not take a
pic of that jig but I wish I had.
When I put my scarf's together I had to figure out how long they were
going to be. You will find that as you come from the top of the gunnel
toward the keel they all get shorter, but keep in mind if the boat your
building is 30' by the time you wrap your rib band around your mold
it might be 36 to 40 feet so keep that in mind when you make them. Well
you now have you rib bands scarfed and glued so now it is time to
install them,your frames are looking more like a boat than before so
now you are ready to start . Take a look at photo #4,this is the way
you start,from the gunnel to the keel. Remember clamps are your best
helper. I pre-drilled my rib bands after I got the them in place with
the help of clamps,that way I was not going to split a rib band with a
screw. I also put a little blob of cotton fiber and epoxy between the
rib band and frame. Also I put up about 2' of rib bands on one side say
the port and 2' on the other side the starboard so they would not be
pulling the mold out of shape from one side to the other. I spaced them
out about 2 3/4" apart. When you get the rib bands run up to the the
transom you can cut some of the bottom off of the transom , but leaving
3/4"proud so when you install the foam on the rib bands it's flush
with the transom. One other thing you don't have to have is a reverse
transom, you can fab it the other way :) When all your rib bands are
on you should check them for fairness on both sides of the mold. I put
battens on all across my hull while I made adjustments for fairness.
Check photo #5 NEXT UP INSTALLING THE AIREX FOAM