Cutting planks
The cutting begins. With the lines laid down on the doubled sheets of plywood and my trusty skill-saw in hand the cutting begins. Akward at first, balancing the 4×8 sheets on the work top and saw horses it gets a little easier as the planks are sawn off and the work space aroud the plywood grows. I do not have a steady hand and it is easy to get off course so the planks have, to say the least, wobbly edges. The only real problem is when the blade of the saw bends and I am suddenly cutting a 45 degree edge on the topmost plank. Caught after two inches it is one of the many flaws that I am hoping that the application of liberal amounts of epoxy will mask. I know from previous boats that gaps of a few mm between the planks is not fatal and I am relying on Paul Fisher’s drawings to be equally forgiving.
Planks cut
At last the twinned 4 x 8 sheets are reduced to sawdust, scrap pieces and (wait for it) a total 12 planks.
Planing out the rough cuts
They are pretty rough looking and it takes a session with my little plane to shave off the roughest adges and arrive at a relatively smooth curve to the planks. Perfection in shape is to be avoided as it means that the hills have all been taken down to the level of the lowest valley and some of the shaping lost. I will have to live with the imperfections and I know that there will be lots more before before Ivory is finished.
Completed planks
The pile of finished planks have had the line of the centre bulkhead drawn on as this will be used to centre up the planks for the stitching process. Time to draw a sigh of relief as a serious error in layout or a mis-cut would have potentially resulted in the scrapping of planks, buying more plywood and essentially starting over.
Finished planks laid out
I am impatient to get on to the next steps which include laying out and cutting the transoms and centre temporary bulkhead but I cannot resist laying the planks out on the floor and using my imagination to put them togther. It may not be a boat yet but it definately heading in the right direction.
Sailstrait 