Building a Glued Lapstrake Rangeley Lake Boat

Page 8: Hanging the sheerstrake

Hanging the sheerstrake

We hung the sheerstrakes last night, so now she's fully planked. The gunwale edge of the sheerstrake is about 3/8" higher than the lofted height. We might want to adjust it a little, that's something that is hard to evaluate when lofting and still difficult when the hull is inverted.

The planking is completed

Then we milled, assembled and installed the outer stems. They sure make the boat look better. As you can see, the outer stems are made in two pieces to improve the grain orientation. On the original boats, the stems would be cut from spruce roots. The stems are roughed out to cross section, and will be worked down to final shape after the stem band is fitted.

The outer stem

We spent a few hours scraping the excess glue from the exterior laps. When relying on epoxy to hold the boat together it's best to use a little extra to be sure enough got in the joint. One of the joys of boatbuilding is watching the "goo" squish out of the joints as the pieces are fitted together.

We also used an epoxy fairing compound to fill the holes from temporary screws, fill the screw counter bores at the stems, and fair in the external scarfs in the planking. Once this is completely cured we can sand off the excess, and then she will really look fine.