Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Night at the IMPROV

SHIMS! The solution to our dilemna! The side of the football that we were working on was dropped down an 1/8" lower on the gunwhale than the other side so the points on the strips on this side at the bow were extending 1.5" longer than the strips on the centerline cut side. So in order to match the strip points up my dad fashioned shims of matching color from the cut excess of the strip about 12 inches long. Starting with a piece of strip 16" long or longer he measured 12" down and 3/8" in and penciled in the angle line. The new shim was planed with the plane upside down in a vise and drawn across the blade.



You can see here how the shim both extends the point of the strip while making it wider and pushing the point of the strip up to meet the opposing point. The parts are ready glued.








The strip now tortured into place and clamped and strapped into place.



Here you can make out that we had to alternate this shim method every other strip. We made 4 or 5 shimmed strips before the final shaped piece went into place.
In some spots we were able to put some wedges in between the centerline and the cove of the strip pushing it tight into place.

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