23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver". Part IV.
Bend about seven of these around the molds on each side, then
heat up in the steam box as many timbers at a time as is
possible, take them out of the steam box while still hot and
bend them in at intervals of a foot inside of these ribbands,
drawing them up to them by boatbuilders' screw clamps. This
method does away with all that difficult beveling which the
timbers that are fitted in cold are subject to, as here the
timbers while hot cean be twisted so that they fit flat against
the ribbands. For this purpose, while you are bending them,
provide yourself with a good-sized monkey wrench, which will
give you leverage enough to twist most any bevel necessary in
the most stubborn frame. The greatest difficulty in framing a
boat this way is the liability of the frames to split or crack
in two where they are required to take a quick bend, which in
this boat I have attempted to dispense with, making the frames
as easy a sweep as is possible, at the same time getting a
well-shaped boat. 
Mould of 23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver".
The hardest part of this frame will be found in the heads of the after timbers. There the curve is the quickest, and it may be necessary to construct a special mold which will give you about the curve required at that point, and bending the timbers over it to get that sweep. Then, if they will not fit in cold at the heels, re-steam them and bend them in where needed. In buying your oak for the frames, you do not want dry stock, but on the other hand it could be decidedly green. If it is too dry — and you will soon be able to tell if such is the case — the frames will crack right in two. You do not want any quarter-sawed oak; only the straightest grain boards should be used. Do not attempt to use boards for frames that are full of knots. If you do, you will find there will be considerable waste, as the frames will break nine times out of ten where the knot distorts the grain of the wood, and you will only waste time and material in attempting it. If you bend in a batch of frames to-day, they will be set sufficiently by the morrow to enable you to take off the clamps, cut the heels so they butt against each other at the centre of the keel, and then proceed to nail them securely to the keel with about 2-inch galvanized boat nails, and nail them lightly to each ribband so that you can do away with the screw clamps, and use them in bending in a fresh batch of timbers. It would be impracticable to have enough screw clamps to frame the boat at one time, and very few boatbuilders do so. In fact, by the time you have bent in six or eight pairs of frames, you could then nail them temporarily to the battens and remove the clamps to use on others. Along in the way of the engine amidships, that is, between frames 12 and 16, bend an intermediate frame between each of the regular timbers, so as to reinforce the boat at this point, to withstand the vibration of her engine. If you wish to carry this doubling up of frames a little further fore and aft, it will not hurt the boat any, but at least put them as far as shown in the plan.
Body Plan of 23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver".
When the frames are all bent, the next step is to reinforce them at the keel with sawed oak floors 1 1/2 inches thick. To save considerable fitting and to simplify the job in this boat we have carried each floor up so that the top edges provide a level surface on which the cabin floor can be laid direct without going to the trouble of fitting in an additional set of floors. Some builders, instead of using sawed floors as we have shown here, take short pieces of the same stock that the frames are made of, say, pieces 4 to 5 feet in length, steam them and bend them in right on top of the frames across the keel, connecting one frame with the other, and riveting them to the frames. If this is done, of course, additional beams have to be fitted to receive the cabin flooring, which our method of construction dispenses with. To get the shape of each floor as you are building it, stretch a chalk line fore and aft from stem to deadwood at the height shown in the plans, then take a thin — say 3/8 to 1/2-inch pine board — about 4 feet wide and 9 or 10 inches deep, lay it across the top of the keel, against the frame whose floor you wish to find the shape of, making sure that the top edge is level, and with a pencil mark along the outside of each frame on this board. You will find this a very quick and simple method of determining the shape, and with a draw-knife you can cut this thin wood pattern along the pencil line and use it to cut the shape of the floor out of the heavy 1 1/2-inch oak. By beginning amidships, where the angle of the floor is flatter, you will find as you proceed forward from frame to frame, the one pattern can be used over and over again, a shaving being taken off each time as the angle sharpens up toward the bow, and a similar method will enable you to get the after floors.
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