The Rabbet

Another picture of the keel on it's side getting a coat of thin epoxy. This shows the rabbet which I cut with a skill saw, lots of chiseling and lots of grinding with a 4" grinder and course flap discs. The rabbet is a notch in the keel which will receive the planking at the angle of the bottom of the boat, which changes as you go from stem to stern. To make a rabbet in a keel you first mark out the rabbet line taken from the keel patterns at each station. Put a finishing nail at each mark and run a long batten spanning each nail, scribe the batten and you have a rabbet line. Next figure your planking thickness and and measure up that amount and repeat the process you did for the rabbet line, scribe it and you have the bearding line. Then you cut along the bearding line at an angle you get from the lofting and plans to the ghost line. That line is an imaginary line which is at a 90 degree angle from the rabbet to the bearding line. Once the bearding line is cut, you cut or chisel from the rabbet line at a 90 degree angle up to the bearding line and like magic the rabbet is formed. Then you take your grinder and grind away the bumps and make it nice and even. It's sort of like the old question:  How do you carve an elephant out of a rock? You chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant!

Keel Bolts

Once the keel parts all fit it was time to bolt them together with homemade keel bolts.For this I purchased some 3/4" galvanized rod and  threaded both ends. Each rod would go through the center of the keel at each location of a floor. So each rod measurement changed due to the varying height of the keel at each station location. The rod was the height of the keel plus the height of the floors which are 2 - 2"x10" laminated together. I added about 2.5" for the the ogee washer and nut. Drilling the holes through the keel is a nerve racking labor. First it requires a lot of hunting to locate a bit long enough to drill through  2' to 3' of keel and at some points 5' of keel. Then if you are not plumb with your drill and bit it can blow out the side and that sucks. Around the shaft log is  another "hole" issue. I elected to put two 1/2" bolts on both sides of the shaft at each location thus doubling the amount of holes to be drill and upping the potential for a disaster. Fortunately I only had the bit wonder one time and come out about an 1.5" up the face of the keel from it's bottom. I simply plugged it with a dowel and glue and re-drilled it. Worked fine. Once all the holes were drilled I separated each keel part and placed a layer of roofing tar between the parts, clamped them down and using a pipe to fit over the top portion of the bolt where the floors will go, tightened each keel bolt. This picture shows the keel on it's side and the keel bolts in place, tightened and ready for the floors. The keel is on it's side so I could hold the bottom nuts of the keel bolt to tighten the top nut. While on its side I coated it with thin epoxy and it's proved to be beneficial. Have no cracks,checks or gaps to date.

Take Help When Volunteered

You can never have too much help when building a boat. Here is Toby applying some added pressure to a pipe clamp on the keel. You also need a lot of C clamps and pipe clamps when building. Toby also say's some days: "going to work? work on boat?"