elaboration

Posted by Howard on Mar 2, 2005

Simply put, the shear clamp on the arctic hawk is built up of two layers of long, (actually i think 5ft) narrow (3/4 inch) thin (4mm) strips if the same marine grade mahogony used for the boats panels. they are glued up in a double layer for a total shear clamp width of 8mm. when glued to the 4mm side panels of the arctic hawk you get a surface area at the top of the shear of a bit over 12mm after you plane it to shape.

The clamps plane just as easily as as the spruce but you need to ensure you have a good, sharp plane.

In addition, the inside lower corner of the shear clamps are planed down to a nice radiused edge to avoid any scrapes/cuts.

The arctic hawk attaches the deck without nails and uses a combination of tape and string to temporarily hold the deck in place until the epoxy is cured.

the shear edges are glassed on the outside as part of the deck glassing process and hull glassing process.

while i did not weigh the clamps, my general sense (having built several clc boats with the spruce clamps) was the this was a much lighter construction technique.

in addition, for the perfectionists in the audience, i had much less issues of warped/twisted shear clamps or uneven bend in the shear clamps....particulary at the splice of the spruce sections where the spruce clamps tend to be a bit stiffer.

anyways.....i suppose it would be pretty easy to weigh the standard section of spruce shear clamp against the 4mm plys and figure out which is lighter.

hope this helps.

In Response to: Re: your target weight? by Mark Camp on Mar 2, 2005

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