Argie 15 Framing

It has been pretty cold here the past few days, with winter starting to bite. Today the high temperature was just on freezing. As it grows colder over the next few weeks, a snug workshop is a good place to be spending productive time.

Kevin Agee is spending most evenings in his workshop, working on the Argie 15. Current tasks are fitting the framing for the seats and the transom doubler.

If you are fortunate enough to source timber longer than the hull, you can do the side stringers each in a single length. For the rest of us, it is necessary to join two pieces together to get the full length. This is done by scarphing (or scarfing or scarph-jointing) them. Each joint is done by cutting or planing the ends to be joined at an angle to form sloping mating surfaces. For an application like this and using modern adhesives, the slope angle need not be more than 1:6, so for timber 20mm thick the joint would be 120mm long.

One half of the scarph joint. This was cut on a saw but it could also be done with a jack plane.

The two pieces to be joined, dry-fitted to check accuracy.

The joint has been glued and here is shown being glued into the hull with temporary screws to hold the stringer until the glue has cured.

Stringers are glued in along both sides to form landings for the seats against the hull sides. Edge frames are also glued to the bulkheads to support the transverse seat edges.

Stringers fitted full length of both sides to form landings for the seats.

Edge framing being glued in for transverse seats.

Working neatly all the time will ensure a good finished product. This joint is an example, no scrappy edges, nicely filleted internal angle, all contact surfaces glued for a solid joint. 

View into the structure at the stern. The extra plywood layer on the centre of the transom is a doubler to strengthen it for the rudder pintle fittings. The notches in the tops of the transverse frames are for half-jointing the seat stiffeners. Those will be added in a future post.

You can see in all of these photos just how neat Kevin's work is. This is important if you are to have a really nice boat at the end of the project. If you don't think that you can't work to this standard, consider that Kevin is an amateur boatbuilder, not a professional. He is working with normal hobbyist woodworking tools. He has only built one previous boat, his own Inlet Runner 16.

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