FS 17 - Raised Sheer

joe2700 · Post by **joe2700** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:43 pm

Had nice enough weather to work outside for the first time in a while, good timing as I was installing the sheer panels and wanted to get a look from a distance. Got a nice fire going next to the boat to drink beers by. Didn't catch the boat on fire once.

I screwed the sheer panels on, attempting gain 6" at the stern to 9" at the bow. We just couldn't get the shape to work, the panels wanted to tilt out too much. Ended up adding 6" bow to stern as designed. It looks ok, but not what I wanted. The front half foot falls off noticeably, from the shape of the panel, but I can hide that with the rub rail.

Next day my friend who is rebuilding his boat came over to cut up a piece of mahogany on the new table saw, to make strips he will laminate his rub rail from. Saw cut it beautifully, really happy with it. We also too another stab at installing the sheer panels. My friend is a big strong guy, and with him pulling up and forward, and with me angling the screws to pull the panel forward, we were able to get the panels screwed on exactly how I had wanted, 3" higher at the bow. Anchored the stern then just worked towards the bow forcing it a little bit with each screw. I'm much happier with how the boat looks now. There is a little hump in the panel, so I'll re trim it based on the rub rail once that is installed to get the final shape, which might look even a tiny bit more bow up.

I protected the rest of the primed surface with carpet film and painters tape, sanded the primer where the panels attach, the glued them on with gel magic. The fact that the front of the panels now extend 9" with only 3" of over lap would be concerning, except that I will be bringing the interior biax all the way to the top of the sheer, which I suspect will be plenty to hold the panels securely.

I also used the table saw to cut strips of 3/8 plywood and remove half the thickness of the stringers from the top inch with a dado set. This is all to add 2-3/8 inches in height to the stringers with offset strips. 2" because that's how much I'm raising the sole, and 3/8 because they were that undersized. Don't know why or how but when I looked at them I had sharpied on "3/8 undersize" and sure enough hey were. Ahh well, the sole is the on other thing I cut before deciding to raise the sheer, that will have to be tweaked. I'll glue those stringers up and start glassing the inside next weekend.

Bogieman · Post by **Bogieman** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:56 pm

Your boat is looking really nice!

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 8:09 pm

Joe, your Boat is looking really good but your weather looks very cold!! Jeff

joe2700 · Post by **joe2700** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 8:26 pm

Thanks Bogieman.

Jeff, 45 and sunny this time of year feels like summer, there's just a lot of snow left over from the 3 nor'easters we've had in a month. A lot melted Saturday before it dropped back down below freezing this week. Not to worry, 4th one is incoming Wednesday apparently.

Rmarsh · Post by **Rmarsh** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 6:24 am

Looking really good there Joe. Trailer dolly idea is cool too.

TomW1 · Post by **TomW1** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:24 pm

That is looking really nice. I have always liked the look of the raised sheer.

Tom

remedy32 · Post by **remedy32** » Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:10 pm

Boat's really starting to take shape. In 2010 when I build my FS17 I was so frustrated by the weather that I flipped the boat to do the inside (in garage) and then twice again to complete the bottom and finally get her right side up. I had much the same experience with the sheer extensions. I finally settled on an 8" panel rocked to lift the aft area 3" and the bow about 5".

It looks like you're aiming at that Cape Cod or Downeast sheer that I hoped for too. One lesson I learned was that the area around the first bulkhead really wants to close up and this exaggerates any bow droop. This is more pronounced because of the flare of the hull in that area. IMO, the key is to get a spreader in that spot and then evaluate the sheer in profile for some distance back. Applying some rearward force from the bow to transom would probably have the same effect. This is one of the very few regrets I've got from my build. I wish I had spent more time getting it exactly how I wanted it BEFORE finishing up the gunwale, foredeck etc.

It's a great little boat. Track down a 35-50 hp four stroke and you should enjoy it for a long time.

Bill
CT

joe2700 · Post by **joe2700** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 1:52 am

Thank Bill I am going for that look(and building on Cape Cod).

This weekend I put my temporary frames back in to make sure the hull hadn't spread significantly. Still quite close to the right shape so I won't be changing anything there which makes life easier. I also measured how much I needed to raise the foreward bulkhead(A) to account for the raised sheer. I'll cut it 1" higher than the line straight across to allow me to add crown to the forward deck.

Frames B, C, and D, Need to be cut down 2" above the original baseline. Since that's parallell to the deck line they are already cut at it was as simple as setting the table saw fence and cutting all 3 down to the right size to use as templates.

Now that I had my extended A, cut down B through D, and unchanged E templates, I laid them out on plywood as efficiently as I could and traced them to be cut later.

Then I needed to make my rubrail which is white oak, and will be the only brightwork on the boat other than perhaps a few accents. I had two 11 foot 1x6 boards, and I cut two 1-3/4" strips out of each. I made a quick jig for the table saw to cut a 12" scarf in them. I wanted a nice long scarf given white oaks reputation as not taking epoxy well.

I glued up the joint loosely to leave plenty of glue, and at the same time glued up the pieces to extend my stringers that I had already cut. The scarfs would have looked a little better if I could have squeezed out some more glue to reduce the visible glue line, but I wanted to prioritize strength.

Scarfs came out well, so that the pieces curved evenly over their whole length without the joint messing it up. I forgot to take a picture of the joints after I cleaned them up, but other than a thick glue line they look fine.

A friend came over and helped me clamp the rub rail on. We did one side, just focusing on the rail being fair as it will be the most obvious line. It took a lot of force and a lot of clamps to bend it around and get it to twist right. After the scarfs survived that I'm not worried about gluing the white oak. Once one side was on we pre-drilled a bunch of screw holes from the inside, traced the bottom edge, and transferred a few measurement to the other side every few feet as a reference. Took that side off and repeated it on the other side starting from the reference marks, and making small tweaks to fair it out.

Then I applied some gel magic and got both sides glued on mainly using the predrilled screw holes, with added clamps in high stress areas. Can't wait to see it with all the clamps off when I'm at the boat next, I think I'm now really happy with the profile. Bow is nice and pointy. I'll trim the side panels down to the rub rails with a router, as the rub rail is the fair curve.

OrangeQuest · Post by **OrangeQuest** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 5:43 am

Great pictures! Build is coming along nicely.

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 7:34 am

Good update!! Boat is looking great!! Jeff

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