Cutting out the Parts

Tracing full size patterns

The plans came with full size patterns for some of the pieces. I used carbon paper bought from the local art shop to trace the full size patterns onto the ply. To do this, I pinned the patterns to the ply, then progressively placed sheets of paper under the lines. After the paper was in place, I pinned the rest of the pattern down and then traced over the lines.

The bow traced onto the plywood

Lofting

The larger pieces had to be lofted from the blueprints onto the plywood panels. Lofting is the process of duplicating curved lines from the blueprints onto the full size panels. To do this, the plywood panels are laid lengthwise and temporarily fastened to prevent movement. A chalk box was used to draw a straight line through the middle of the panels. This line is the base along which the measurements for lofting are taken.

The panels are butted together and the chalk line is marked

Specific points were marked perpendicular to the chalk line, according to the blueprints. Nails were driven into each of these points, then a flexible piece of wood (a spline) was fastened to each of these nails, making a smooth curve.

The spline is clamped to each of the lofted points on the plywood

A closeup of the spline clamped to the plywood

A pencil was run along the inside of the wood to create a smooth, even curve.

Cutting out the parts

To cut the straight edges, it was helpful to clamp a piece of wood parallel to the lines, and use it to guide the jigsaw.

The bow

As most of the panels are duplicates, it’s best to roughly cut the two halves and tack them together before cutting along the drawn line. This ensures that both panels are identical. It also makes drilling stitching holes easier, as they will line up.

The bottom front panels have been tacked together and cut

Some of the pieces laid out for epoxy encapsulation (I'll cover this in another post)

Drilling the stitch holes

To ensure that the stitching holes were straight and evenly spaced, I drilled stitching holes 3” (75 mm) apart in a length of hardwood. I attached another piece of hardwood to this to form a lip.

The stitch hole apparatus. The lip is the lighter piece of wood on the top of the picture.

The lip was lined up with the edges of the plywood, so that the holes were the correct distance from the edge of the ply.

The aft side panel with stitching holes drilled