Help sizing Gunnels on '34 OT Yankee

[Canerodz]

I posted this on an older thread and had no suggestions. Whatsa matter, you guys out of opinions?


The in-wales are going into a pond for a bit and then will get steamed and clamped under the existing in the boat. The last foot is gone from my existing in-wales. Can anybody suggest a width for the tips at the ends? I can start the taper to match the originals, but don't know what dimension to taper to. And I want to cut the taper on the in-board side, correct?

I located some clear 17.8' cherry for gunnels. Can I bend this on the boat as well, or will I need to build a jig?

Thanks!

 

[fred capenos]

sizing

I'll take a stab at it:

I bevel the outside of my inwales. If you have "The Wood & Canvas Canoe", go to page 80, and read the last paragraph.

As for the width of the rail tip, look down at the top of the end of your stem. Both inwales will rest on top of it. So the tips will each need to be half as wide as the stem. I cut the bevel on my band saw after bending, and finish the bevel with a block plane after the rail is fastened to most of the ribs.

I use a jig to bend mine. I'll post a picture of mine in the morning after my handler wakes up. Fred

 

[fred capenos]

picture

Brian,

Here is the picture of my form. I think my OTCA form will work for a Yankee.

The radius that I used for the OTCA is 35 inches.

 

[Canerodz]

I'll take a stab at it:
As for the width of the rail tip, look down at the top of the end of your stem. Both inwales will rest on top of it. So the tips will each need to be half as wide as the stem. I cut the bevel on my band saw after bending, and finish the bevel with a block plane after the rail is fastened to most of the ribs.
Fred

Thanks, Fred!

The stem was gone down about 4" and needed cut back a couple more, so I'm just guessing at the size at the top for this too.

Thanks for the jig picture! I'll keep pluggin' away.

By the way, mess up your shop a little, will ya'?! You're makin' the rest of us a look bad.

 

[fred capenos]

Sizing

Brian oops! I noticed a typo....the radius should be 25 not 35 inches for the bending form for OTCA or Yankee. sorry about that.... Fred

 

[Canerodz]

Put a steamer together and steamed inwales after soaking them for a day in the pond. One worked great, one broke at a small knot! I'll have to do him over. Here are some pics of the effort!

 

[Canerodz]

Got the inwales bent, but after I took the clamps off (I bent them under the originals, which were short about 10" or so) they really lost a lot of curve in the ends. Will they bend to fit when I install them, or should I build a form, boil the ends, and try again? I'm going to make a couple of forms for the Cherry outwales and steam those after soaking for a bit.
Having rotten ends is a bigger PITA than I thought it was going to be!

 

[Dan Lindberg]

Brian,

FWIW, I like to make forms to bend the rails over, for 2 reasons,
1) you can make the radius tighter to compansate for the springback,
and 2) you can leave the rails clamps down for as long as you like to minimize springback.

You can also get fancy and add some bend in the other direction if you need to to make it better fit the canoe shape.

When I install rails, my preference is that they lay against the canoe without having to be pulled into position, ie, "loaded". So I sometimes reheat and "tweak" the bend several times to get it to lay just right. Whether this is needed or not I don't know, but that's what I do.

Dan