Builders' Forum |
|
| ↓ Scroll to Last Comment ↓ | Forum Guidelines | Builders' Forum |  RSS
|
Beveling Wood Duck Double - mistakes and learning
I am building a wood duck double with my 12 year old grandson. We successfully joined our panels several days ago. Yesterday we beveled them with mixed results. I own a router with a 45 degree bit and thought I might speed up the process using it instead of a low level plane, rasp, and sander. That was a mistake. I gauged the bottom edge of the bottom panel. We shall be patching a gap at the bottom of our kayak. I finished all other bevels using the hand tools - more work, but more control. That was lesson one. Boat building requires patience. Any hints on the best method for patching gaps would be appreciated.
My real question has to do with bevel direction. I've read several posts that confirm that the 45 degree bevels are on the inside (fiberglass over the join) side of the panels. Essentially, one bevels every edge in the same direction so that the outside (good side of the plywood) is longer than the inside. The side panels should then join neatly to the bottom. The bottom panels, however, end up with a V-shaped gap on the inside of the boat when you wire that up. Is that normal? The pictures in the gallery are unclear. Given the almost flat bottom of the kayak amidships, the 45 degree angle bevel seems a bit extreme.
3 replies:
RE: Beveling Wood Duck Double - mistakes and learning
Vote #2 for the above comments. 45 degrees is excesive for most of the bevels, and try not to cut into the outside veneer. As far as patching up a mistake, as tough as is, try not to notice it until after the boat is stitched, tacked together, and filleted and taped. When you round the corners and then fill the gaps on the outside, it will be filled in. It will be one of those mistakes that only will notice. Good luck, JRC.
RE: Beveling Wood Duck Double - mistakes and learning
Thanks to you both. Today we stitched up the side panels. Hand beveling seems to work nicely and I took the advice to to keep it less than 45 degrees. I look forward to the filleting stage. Right now, I'm thinking that I'll be happy to take tomorrow off. I'm exhausted. Working with a 12 year old takes a lot of patience, but I think my grandson is going to remember this project long after I'm gone.
RE: Beveling Wood Duck Double - mistakes and learning
» Submitted by nemochad - Sat, 3/26/16 » 9:25 AM
45 is excessive on 75% of the joints, and makes the panel edges very fragile and difficult to join.
Review your manual for a bevelling diagram.
I have a tilt-base trim router, leaned over at 30 degrees, with a straight cutter, and a short fence, set leave 1/16" (the outer veneer) uncut/unbevelled. Such a setup only makes sense for more than one boat, in my opinion. But it works great for about 90% of the bevels.
Having built a few of these WD doubles now, I think I would recommend against the wide, scarf-like bevels the manual suggests at the bow and stern. The outside gets radiused anyway, so making the stems/sterns so thin just makes double work.