Cutting the Panels

In my last post, I explained transferring the offsets onto the plywood that would become the boat. Today’s post shows the cutting process.

I have a bandsaw that I’ve used to cut panels for previous boats. This picture show the setup. You need a long work area. For an 11 foot long panel, you need at least 22 feet of clear space. (Although on a previous boat I cut half way into a panel, then backed it out and cut from the other end.) And unlike ripping plywood on a table saw, you need an area wider than the panel because the cuts are curves, not straight.

After making the first cut this way, I decided it was easier to have a stationary panel and movable saw instead of a stationary saw and movable panel. So I switched to a jigsaw.

This cut is fairly straight, but with a jigsaw, curves are no problem. I just had to be careful to make sure the narrow pieces were properly supported. When the uncut piece was wide, I used a weight to hold it in place. As it got narrower, I switched to spring clamps.

I intentionally cut the pieces oversized by about 1/16-1/8 inch all the way around. I then used a belt sander to do the final shaping. I found I could be more precise with a belt sander than I could with a jigsaw.

Using a belt sander this way was more work than I had figured on. Belt sanders tend to be heavy because they are designed to sit on top of what you are sanding. The weight provides the force of the sand paper against the work. But I was sanding edges, so I had to hold the weight as well as resist the sideways force caused by the friction of the sand paper against the wood. Why pay for a gym membership when you have sanding to do?

Once I had each panel sanded, I stacked the left and right side matching pieces on top of each other and went over the edges again. This guaranteed that the matching pieces were the same shape, so my boat will be symmetric when it’s all assembled.

Here are the finished pieces. This is everything that goes into making the hull. The only other pieces I’ll need are the seats (cut from leftover pieces from the panels), and stiffeners for the gunwales (the top edges of the boat).