Gig progress

Much progress today, the foam arrived early so it was straight down the hut & crack on. Sheerline is adjusted slightly & sheer battens fastened on. half the stringer battens fitted each side.

Tried a section of foam core to see how it lays & it wraps round really easily & takes a degree of compound curving.


Rest of battens go on tomorrow.

Heres a shot of the sharp end, she has a nice bit of flare to help sea keeping.

I entered her in the Great river race last night to catch the early bird discount.
Bit of a leap of faith, boat not actually built yet, no trailer to carry her & no trained crew.
Nothing like a challenge!

Tools of the trade

Tried the scarphing jig out today,each stringer batten has 2 scarphs in it, 64 in total. To cut them & plane them all by hand would have taken far too long. the jig allowed the table saw to cut them quickly & accurately with ease.

And here are some more tools! The bottom one is a Prestons spokeshave i picked up many years ago its probably at least 90 years old & is one of my favorite tools.
Above it is a nice Stanley 130 block plane, i rescued it from the light iron skip in a friends scrapyard a few weeks ago.
The long chisel also came out of the light iron skip last year, it was made by Hearnshaw & son of Sheffield (john bull brand) & could be up to a century old. The original handle was so eaten by woodworm that it disintegrated. I turned a new replica handle from a fine piece of boxwood. It takes an edge like a cut throat razor.

The three wooden planes & record router plane came from the same scrap dealer today at a grand cost of £20. Apparently they belonged to Reg patten of Sea Kings boatbuilders in Leigh, so quite a bit of history there.
Some people like to collect old tools, i like to use them as well.
Probably a bit of a paradox using tools like these on a Gig being built in modern materials!

Fairing the molds

Good progress the last few days, all the molds have been rough beveled with drawknife & spokeshave & its down to final cleanup & fitting of stringers ready for the build. Quite a bit of inside out thinking to do as the jig is stepped at the sheer & keel so that the sandwich goes to single skin in those areas.

I scarfed a few stringer battens the hard way & thinking of the time it was going to take to do the rest went home & made a scarfing jig to run on the table saw. Should save hours of work.
Stem mold & transom mold are now fitted. In the above photo two fairing battens are in place to check the bevels on the molds. 20mm square Stringer battens will be fitted at 70mm spacing.

I have been using some rather ancient tools, a recently acquired paring chisel about 80 years old plus some other gems.
Will post some pics of them shortly.
Foam core arrives on monday.