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!