Thwarts, breasthook/foredeck
I finished working on thwarts. I chose to make a bit beefier stanchions than specified in plans. The reason is trivial: I wanted to avoid having screw heads on top surface of these fine, pine planks. I could simply screw thwarts to stanchions and seat riser and that would be perfectly fine but I didn’t have heart to scar this nice pine! That caused me a bit more work but it is done now.
Fore thwart will be permanently screwed in place. It stiffens the CB-case and my pentry will be stowed under it. I made stanchion as two mahogany pillars.
Aft thwart will be removable so I wanted to have a stanchion which will not be a hazard or eye-sore when the thwart is removed. I made it as a thick piece of mahogany, sitting permanently glued on CB-case. It will serve also as mounting surface for GPS or compass.
Gluing end-grain is always tricky, capillary action can starve the joint before the glue sets. I took my time with saturating the grain with unthickened epoxy, until the wood did not suck any more.
Corresponding fixtures are screwed under each thwart.
Fore thwart is bolted through double-stanchion, to stiffen the CB-case.
Aft-thwart is “encapsulating” its stanchion, both stabilizing the CB and preventing the thwart to move towards stem while rowing.
Oiled in Owatrol D1, as the rest of deck.
Thwarts in position.
Fore-thwart will be screwed to seat riser batten - from below. Aft-thwart is held in place with toggles, like on John Hartman’s Waxwing
Breast-hook and fore-deck fitted.
I made the deck a bit longer: to hide plywood frame and to have a bit longer mast partner. The idea is that it will make stepping the mast a bit more controllable, holding it side-ways before I tighten holding rope.
Rounded edges, glued and screwed to gun-rails, from underside.
Since this is oak I used WEST GFlex glue, cleaning the wood with acetone - to remove acid from the surface. GFlex has an advantage of being very strong and elastic. This part of the boat will see big forces from the mast so using the best glue is worth the cost.
After all was cured overnight I formed and glued reinforcement knees, trimmed with oak. They are also glued with GFlex and screwed to the foredeck/breasthook with bronze screws.
While this was curing I started scribing opening for the mast. As stated in plans - the mast’s axis is coincident with fore face of the station. In my case I have a gap between planks just there so it took a bit more effort to figure out exact placement but my math teacher would be proud of me, I think.
I made a plywood pattern to guide router. That will be done tomorrow.
Next step will be to glue&screw mast partners. I milled some Polish oak for that purpose.