23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver". Part V.
Nail the heel of each frame to its floor with a 3-inch galvanized iron boat or wire nails. You may have to bore most of the way for these nails. If you do nipt, you may split the frames, which, after all the work you have gone to, is anything but pleasant.
It is a good practice to double up the ribband that goes along the head of the timbers — the sheer ribband as it is called — by bending one outside of the other and lag-screwing them together to the stem and stern and to each mold. Do not trust to merely nailing these ribbands to the molds, for, as sure as you do, you will meet with a catastroohe by having the ribbands spring off and get your frame all unfair. The last frame in the boat, frame No. 23 — for our frames in this boat are spaced a foot apart — is to be screwed fast to the inner face of the transom, reinforcing the same so that when you come to put your planking on, you can put an alternate fastening, one in the frame and one in the transom, giving a double holding surface which at the ends of the boat is a very important part of the construction.
When, all the floors have been gotten out and riveted to the frames, you can knock out the temporary molds which were first erected on the keel, so as to enable you to put in the fore and aft yellow pine stringers. There are three of these on each side, one which goes along the upper edge of the forward timbers, forming an ledge on which the cabin roof beams land, another one running along at what is considered the sheer height, and another one, known as the bilge stringer, which runs along halfway from the keel to the deck edge. The purpose of these stringers is to stiffen the frame, and they should be of clear yellow pine about 2 inches thick and 4 inches wide. To make them a little easier to bend in the ends where the curve becomes quite sharp, it is customary to taper these stringers to, say, 1 1/4 or 1 l/2 inches thick by about 3 inches in depth. If you do not taper them, put the forward ends in the steam box and make them soft and pliable. If you don't, you will never get them around the curve without breaking.
If you have been careful in bending in your timberst and careful that the timbers were, of the same size, all 1 1/2 inches thick, before bending them in you will find that these clamps will fit fair and true on the inner edge of each timber. If they do not do so, shave down the high timbers until they do make a perfect fit on each one. If you do not, the timbers will be pulled in and out, forming a very irregular and unfair side line. Here is the place where you can use carriage bolts to advantage, if you want to. Bore from the outside, countersink the heads of each one of the carriage bolts into the frame, and set the nut up tight on the inside of the clamp, cutting off any end that may protrude, and tap it a little to slightly rivet it just enough to keep the nut from untwisting and loosening. Do not put these bolts in a direct line. Put one, say, near the top of the clamp, the next near the bottom, etc., staggering them alternately up and down.
As the cabin beams are to be 1 1/2 inches deep, be sure to set the upper clamp that distance below the edge of the boat, puts the thickness of the cabin top, so that when these beams are nailed to it, their upper surface will just come flush with the heads of the timbers, which, of course, are underneath the deck. Now, to stiffen the three corner; which this boat has, that is, the stem and the two quarters aft, knees are fitted in. In the case of the forward one, which is technically termed a breast hook, many people do not go to the trouble and expense of putting in a regular natural growth knee, but, instead, merely fit in a three-cornered block of oak, the thickness of the deck beams, 1/2 or 2 inches, which is notched around the head of the first timber, or you can cut this timber off flush with the bilge clamp, and bolt the breast hook to the stem by a diagonal fastening or with a long bolt bored clear through from the forward side of the stem to the after side of the breast knee. Ait, where the angle is considerably more open, a knee is far preferable to a mere block of wood. Their arms are short. In our case it only requires a 22-inch knee of about 2 inches thickness. This knee is fitted to the inside of the transom and riveted fast to the same, spiked to the upper edge of the deck clamp, upon which it rests, and when the plank goes on, von can get a few fastenings of the top strake into this knee.
Plan of 23-Foot Cabin Cruiser "Beaver".
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