Now onto laminating all the frames up - these are principally longitudinal frames on each chine to provide glue area to attach the ply. Each made up from three tim

bers measuring either 5”x3/4” or 3”x3/4” laminated together around the moulds to make up the main shape of the boat. Lots of clamps and balcot

an polyurethane glue were used. These timbers at there longest were 37’ so most had two scarfs to make up the lengths.

The five inch timbers needed to be steam bent around the stern as they had a compound style curve to them. All had a staggered style lap joint into the stem and stern post which had also been laminated and fixed to the moulds.

Interestingly while steaming some 16’ sections to get the aft bend around the sheer, inevitably some of the scarf joints got steamed too. They did not move or even lift at the feather edge - good old Balcotan.

All the joints were epoxy-glued and fixed with silicon bronze fastenings. Where required bolted together with stainless steel bar.

Above is the stem in place - Laminated around a mold. It has not yet had the stringers jointed into the ends. On the right is a detail of the

staggered style lap joint used!

Now having made up the male mold to build the hull upon (its built upside-down) I decided to start from the bottom (top?!) and construct the steel framework for the fin keel. A few reasons for this firstly being that i thought it was too cold (-5!) for gluing all the boat timbers together and secondly to give the timber more time to season (dry out). I had the timber for constructing the framework and masts for the boat cut back in September 2009. All this timber is Scottish Douglas Fir locally sourced.

The keel.

The shape of the keel is formed using 13mm steel re-bar. Again starting with a full size drawing of the profiles taken from J.Benfords offsets then carefully bending the bar to shape and welding all the bits together. This framework then gets three layers of mesh tied to it and two tons of cement and scrap iron poured in. I have decided to leave this until the summer months when its warmer to ensure a good cement cure. TBC...!!

Once all twelve molds were made I began standing them up and spacing them out on the shed floor. My big shed now began to feel small as the 34’ Dory revealed itself leaving a foot at either end. Perhaps I should have moved the gable further back. next followed a few days of leveling up the molds - I set up a tight string for the water line running the length of the boat in the center then was able to measure off this. Then using a spirit level and careful eye set the mold positions before fixing them all together with various battens.

After a Shed warming party, mid december, I started to loft the boat full size on three sheets of hardboard on the floor. This was easy as being a dory the boat has a flat bottom and straight sides. I drew out the twelve ‘stations’ that give cross sections through the boat roughly every 800mm down the length of the boat.. These become the molds forming the shape of the boat. The pictures describe this better!

After the weeks worth of Christmas and New year celebrations and headaches that follow I started constructing the male molds. I made these using 6x3/4” flooring that didn't ‘make the grade’ from a local sawmill. By simply laying them down and screwing them together on the drawing gave accurate and quick results.

December 09.

First job - find a shed to build in. This was to be in the old ‘sawmill’ on the farm right next to my existing workshop. The old mill had a good concrete floor and this was about all - no roof or side walls! cold but a fine view.

By mid december i had a shed to work in. I used second hand sheeting materials and old windows lashed together haphazard fashion to block up all the openings. I decided to build a new gable end wall half way down the shed so that the new boat would just fit in.

Thats the stack of ply for the boat in the photo.