Monday, August 27, 2012

Form building

Before getting into the details of the form building, I thought I would take a quick moment to mention that I added the subscribe feature to the blog.  In the upper right corner you can put in your email address if you want to get updates.  Or you can follow this blog with the feature just below the subscribe area.

The next step is building the forms.  From the plans, I roughly cut out each of the forms, 21 total.  In thinking back, this is probably the first project that I will build from plans.  Most of my projects are from my plans which I have drawn up.  Sure I have had some help from local furniture stores where I take measurements from but still, I have not purchased the plans.  But, for this project, I purchased the form plans and so far I am pleased that I did.
Cut out forms laid out on a 4x8x1/2"thick piece of sanded plywood
Of course, I added a 3M product to my list of products used.  The 3M Super 77 spray adhesive was used to glue the paper forms to the plywood.

I then roughly cut the forms with my jig saw.  Once I had them roughed out, I used my bandsaw to cut them out exactly to the forms.

Now I had to build the strongback.  I could have used a 2x4 but finding a 16' one that is straight enough is quite the challenge.  SO I decided to make a solid laminate beam out of the other sheet of plywood that I purchased.  I ripped eight 3.5" x 8' long strips on my table saw.  I then used another 3M product to glue these together.

This product is one of my favorite spray adhesives that I have used.  The Woodworking 20 spray adhesive has a short working time so the bond is very quick.  I sprayed it on both surfaces to be glued, allowed it to dry to a light tack, then stuck the two strips together.  It is not easy to separate once they have touched so positioning correctly the first time is key.

Since it is a spray adhesive, I didn't want any over spray on things where I missed the strips.  To combat this, I had some 3M masking film laying around.  I cut a piece off and draped it over my work bench.  You can see it in the picture above.  It is thin, easy to cut, laid out nicely and protected my bench from over spray.  Once complete, it was easy to wrap it up and dispose of so cleanup from the spray was a snap.

Once I had these together, I clamped and brad nailed the beam along its length.


























Somewhere during this process I cut myself.  SO, add another 3M product to my list in the form of a Nexcare bandage.
Just a minor scrape.
I then cut out the center of the form and placed them on the strongback.  For the end forms, I had to glue the small pieces to the end forms.  For this, I used 3M Scotch Maximum strength adhesive.  This is a quick setting permanent adhesive.  Very quick, easy to dispense fast setting adhesive.  I like it and I will probably use more if it when making scarf joints on the cedar strips (more on this during the stripping post).
Scotch Maximum Strength Adhesive
I added some wood cleats to allow me to screw the forms to the strongback.  It was easy to align the individual forms as they have lines already drawn on them.  It took some time but in the end it will pay off to have the forms aligned.
Forms roughly attached to the strongback.  Here it is on my sawhorses.



Once I had it to this stage, I used 3M Blue painters tape around each form.  The purpose of this is to prevent any extra glue from sticking to the forms during the stripping process.  Since the forms have to be removed once stripping is complete, I want this to be easy to do.











Finally, the completed forms.  It is nice to see the shape of the boat coming together.


I also made some more sturdy supports.  Just had a few 2x4's laying around so I made it a little more ergonomically friendly for myself by raising the forms up to about 40".  I figured this would make it easier on my back when attaching the strips.  Lastly, I didn't want to forget the 3M 50 grit abrasive sanding belt I used.  This was used to add the taper to the end forms by using my belt sander.  It didn't take long to add this feature as the 50 grit belt quickly cut away the plywood.

For the form building, I added seven 3M products to my usage list.  These were the Super 77, the Woodworking 20 adhesive, Nexcare bandages, masking film, Scotch Maximum strength adhesive, 3M Blue Painters tape and a 3M sanding belt.  This brings my total number of 3M products used to 12.  From previous posts I used the Scotch white wood glue, Scotch carpenters glue, 3M all purpose sanding disks, and Scotch tape.  One item which I have not taken a picture of but have used is the 3M E-A-R soft yellow neon blasts.  I like these as they fit me well and are easy to insert.

So now the forms are complete, the next step will be ripping strips and milling them.  Then I can start attaching the strips.  

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