Friday, June 1, 2012

Deck and Hull Planks Glued for The Piney

Hey hey!  I got a bit more done on the Piney.  The pressure is on.  I can't afford to make any mistakes and delay the boards finish date of the 25th.  The planks I decided to cove and bead and that worked OK for keeping the boards from drifting, but also made a mess with the glue that proved a pain in the arse to plane off.  So when I did the deck today I made sure I wiped off as much of the glue on top that I could and after clamped up for 8 hours I flipped it over and razor bladed off all the drips before they completely hardened.  It worked pretty good, it just took a little time cutting them off.  Cove and beading these planks worked OK.  I'm not completely sold on it as the rounded edges caused the planks to drift in waves going across the board instead of longitudinally like I meant for it to solve.  I'm not sure which is worse.  Cove and bead may be slightly better in that I might be able to tweak the process by not clamping the compression clamps as hard as I did this time while adding more battens.  That might help.  Plus, I made a visqueen plastic mat that worked way better than that cheap super thin tarp that I used for the hull planks.

Here are some pics:

This is the hull plank set up.  My new hand planer from Festool is absolutely AWESOME!  Always get the right tool for the job!  Of course, I'm totally new to hand planers of this sort and made some mistakes at first but I soon got the hang of it.  I first tried it with an adapter that I fashioned out of PVC to attach it to my vacuum cleaner but that proved way too cumbersome and I made lots of mistakes.  I removed the vacuum hose and free handed it.  I soon had a system to remove glue and wood.

After the Festool Planer I moved on to my Lie Neilson hand plane and did a criss cross pattern over the wood to knock down any hills, etc... getting the surface even flatter.  This is the side that is going on the inside of the board so it doesn't have to look pretty, just flat so it lays on the frames nice and flush.
Here are the frames laid out.  They aren't glued yet but you get the idea.  I will glue them tomorrow in the morning.  I can't tell from this thumbnail picture if that is the nice side of the hull or not.  I still my switch them around.  If this (currently the hull) is a bit wider, I may use that for the deck because it actually has to form around a bend more-so than the hull does.
Here I am running a bead of glue down the length of the cove of a deck plank.  I found the right amount of glue to use without making a huge mess.  The second go was much smoother and easier than the first go as I got my groove on.
I let the clamped planks (no pics of it all clamped up) dry for 8 hours as I brewed a batch of Chestnut beer and went for a hike with my dad.  When I came back I removed all the clamps and flipped over the deck.  I had a whole crop of glue mushrooms!  Magic!  It took me about an hour to harvest all these mushrooms.
Below is the underside of the deck.  I haven't planed it yet as when you flip it over you expose a bunch of glue that still needs to dry completely.  I just threw some quick spring clamps all around the perimeter to keep it in shape while it goes through the final stages of drying.
I love it when The Clash do reggae tunes!  Have a great night everyone!

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