The Gougeon Brothers on Boat Construction - WEST SYSTEM Epoxy

194 First Production Steps
probably won’t care about saving your frames, but if
you plan to use them again or give them to someone,
put them together with screws and through bolts rather
than epoxy so that they can be disassembled after the
hull is planked.
After bonding the gusset and spall, and before moving
the mold frame from the lofting, make reference marks.
<strong>The</strong> edge of the spall is one reference. Label it with the
number of the waterline it represents if you plan to use
different waterlines at different stations. Also mark the
centerline. To do this, place a straightedge over the
lofted centerline and use the two small squares, set on
edge as before, to transfer the line from the lofting to
the straightedge. Use the straightedge as a guide to
draw a line across the spall and the gusset.
Finally, you have to mark the sheer, but you can do this
on the edge of the mold frame, next to the lofting floor.
You do not need to raise these marks to the non-control
side of the material. As soon as you pick the frame up
off the floor, you can draw the sheer mark around onto
the control face. In fact, it is necessary to mark the
sheer lines on the control side, for if they were raised to
the non-control side, they might be out of position.
<strong>The</strong> sheer marks, unlike the waterline and centerline
references, are not used when setting up. <strong>The</strong>y come
into play much later, during installation of the sheer
clamps. For this reason, the sheer marks should be
quite durable and easily identifiable so that there will
be no trouble finding them later on.
General Advice
If your boat will have longitudinal stringers notched
into its mold frames and these are marked on your
lofting, pick up the marks and bring them around to
control faces as you did with the sheer marks. Stringers
rarely run on waterlines, so picking them up on the
non-control side of a mold frame may result in distortion.
On all but long, narrow hulls with little angle
change, we suggest waiting until after the frames are set
up to cut notches. If you choose to cut them earlier,
plan carefully and make them a little small.
If your design calls for notching out the apex of the
frames to receive a keel, your gussets should be large
enough that they will not be weakened by the loss of
the notch material. Also, you will have less grief if you
keep nails and screws out of the way of notch sawing
lines. You can remove all nails or screws once the
adhesive cures, but inserting them so that they are out
of the way in the first place minimizes the difficulty.
Attaching the Legs
For virtually any boat, 2" � 4" (38mm � 89mm)
legs are big enough and you can use smaller stock for
smaller boats. Legs don’t have to be made out of the
best lumber in the world, but every piece should be
joined straight and seasoned well enough to ensure that
it will remain reasonably straight. Fasten legs to the
control side of the mold frame with nails or screws and
epoxy. You can bond the legs in place whether you plan
to save the frames or not. If your molds disassemble
along the centerline, the legs will not get in the way
when you remove the frames from the planked hull.
<strong>The</strong> best procedure is to apply legs as parallel to the
centerline as possible so that you can use them during
set-up for plumb references. <strong>The</strong> control face of a
mold frame is rarely flat, so it may not be a particularly
good place to set a level to see if the frame is plumb.
However, if the sides of the legs are straight and true
and parallel to the centerline, you can position the
level against them.
When you have the legs and adjacent frame material in
vertical alignment, brace them with jigging. Straighten
up the mold frames when you install your sheer clamp,
stringers, keel, and other longitudinal members. Once
these pieces are in place, the controlling edges will be
close enough for practical purposes.
Attaching legs is no problem if you are using closed,
solid mold frames. It is easiest to do this when your
foundation-centering cable is in place. Erect lines
parallel to and at equal distances from the mold frame
centerline, on either side of this centerline. Space these
so that when the legs are attached, the centerline of the
mold frame will line up with the centerline of the foundation
and the legs will butt against the anchoring points.
You will probably not be able to attach legs all the way
up and down the control surface of an open frame.
Secure them to what mold frame there is and then also
to the spall. Since the spall’s surface is not in the same
plane as the control face, add shims to the spall on the
same side as the mold material in the area where the