Joe's Boat.

Decking


Once the hull is complete, the next stage of construction is to fix on the decking. There is a large deck area at the front of the boat (the foredeck), a smaller area at the stern or back of the boat, and a narrow strip of decking, just enough to step on, down either side.  As with the hull the method of construction is to fix plywood sheeting to a frame.  The framing for the decks is very straightforward, as is the cutting and fixing of the ply, since in each case there is much less bending required than there was for the hull. The plywood decks have only a modest camber and the only pieces of the frame that needed bending were the carlins, but these were easy to bend as they are fairly thin.

The pictures below show my progress so far on the decking, in each case clicking on a picture will bring up a larger version.

Using a smoothing plane on the top of the boat sides
 First thing to do before starting the decking was to plane the hull sides level with the gunwales. The pieces of plywood making the upper sides of the boat, and the transom, had been left a little overlong to ensure that they covered the gunwales, and as the hull is built upside down it is not practical to plane them flush until it has been turned over.
One of the carlins being tried in place with clamps
 The carlins are 1 inch square lengths that follow the contour of the sides. The side decks are fixed to them, and they will help form the joint between the side decks and the cabin sides. Since they are relatively small in section they bent easily. This picture shows the supporting beams in place for the foredeck and the aft deck, and one of the carlins being tried with clamps.
How an extra support was used to help pull the carlin into shape
 I found that towards the bows of the boat, where the sides bend most, the carlins were reluctant to follow the line of the gunwales, so I introduced an extra support to help space them correctly and maintain the right curve. In this picture the carlin has been tried, the notches for it cut out in the fore and aft deck beams, and it is now being fixed using Balcotan glue. The piece of whitewood below the carlin towards the top left of the picture is just one of the temporary supports for the hull and will be removed later on.  
Detail of the deck framing forward
 This picture shows detail of the carlin notched into the deck beam. It is not fixed to the forwardmost hull frame, but is to the two others.
The completed deck framing.
 This picture shows the deck framing completed.
The foredeck was made from two pieces with the join running fore and aft
 I used lining paper to cut templates for the plywood pieces of the foredeck. It was constructed from two pieces of ply with the wood grain running fore and aft (this is not a functional consideration but just seems to me to look more natural).  
Side decking
 For the side decking I didn't use paper templates, but found that because the amount of bend required was very little, I could successfully lay the plywood sheet on the boat, clamp it down in a couple of places, and mark it with a pencil from underneath along the carlin and the gunwale. Since the carlin is a relatively small piece of wood I didn't want to nail into it, which would have been tricky without supporting it underneath. I also judged that the small amount of bend required meant that I didn't need to space the fixings so closely. The picture shows one of the side decks fixed in place with nails into the gunwale and stainless steel screws into the carlin. On all the decking I carefully measured the holes for the nails and screws and pre-drilled them. For the screws I also drilled pilot holes into the carlins with the decking clamped in place, before applying Balcotan glue and finally fixing. 
One half of the aft deck fixed in place.
 When it came to the aft deck it was tempting to make it in one piece, but this would have meant having the grain of the wood run side to side across the boat rather than fore and aft, also making it in two pieces allowed me to make use of some offcuts. The hole is to allow an outboard motor to be clamped onto the transom of the boat. 
All decking completed
 Here is the decking all fixed, and planed flush to the hull.
First length of rubbing strip fixed on
 The decking is completed by fixing a rubbing strip all round. The plans recommend lengths of 2x1 (100mm x 50mm) mahogany or similar and I was not looking forward to bending them. I have been using utile instead of mahogany and when I enquired about 18 foot lengths I was told they were not available. So I decided to laminate the rubbing strips from thinner pieces, an idea I got from seeing Vic Green's boat. This meant that they would be easier to bend into place, and by overlapping the joints I could also use a number of shorter lengths rather than having to obtain 18 foot lengths. I decided that to laminate in two stages, using pieces half an inch thick, would be sufficient. This proved to be a good choice; the pieces bent very easily to shape. This picture show the first piece fixed on. (You will gather from this picture that I did things a little out of sequence here and worked on the cabin for while before returning to finish the decking.)
Top layer of the laminated rubbing strip getting fixed
 The first layer of the rubbing strip was fixed with epoxy and nails. The second was fixed using Balcotan glue and the nails were countersunk. When fixing each strip I found it handy to use a screw instead of a nail in the first hole, with a pilot hole pre-drilled, so that having spread glue on the piece I could quickly and accurately fit one end of it and then work along it sinking the nails.
Rubbing strip all fixed - gap left for shroud plate
 I left a gap in the first layer of the laminated rubbing strip so that the shroud plate could pass through.
Rubbing strip raised above deck by a quarter inch
 Rather then fit a toe rail later on I decided to let the rubbing strip come above the deck level by a quarter of an inch. I'll notch it down to deck level in a few places to let water run off. Also visible in this picture is a piece of hardwood I happened to have that was just right to fix to the top of the transom so to finish it off nicely. It is only a quarter of an inch thick so the total thickness of the transom is still not too much for an outboard to clamp onto.