Week 11 - Centreboardcase

After weeks of working on the shell (the hull) we now started fitting the interior elements of the boat. With other words... many weeks of amazing woodworking, a good motivation push!

The first part needed was the case for the centreboard.
Glóey has a quite strong centreboard (1 3/8" or 34mm) and I decided to build the CB-case out of 2 sides of 1" marine plywood which is very formstable and flat.

As visible on the photo to the left we applied formica sheets inside on the inner sides. It's function is to both provide a good glidingsurface for the pivoting centreboard as well as to protect the wood from abrasion.
The two sides are glued to an inner frameconstruction. Referring to the index on the photo left A is the inner part in the cabin which also will serve as a table meaning that 2 foldable tableleaves will be fitted to the frame and the void inbetween can be used for  things like cutlery or whiskey glasses :-) ... however!
B is the little pulley-block-case from where the sailer can turn up the centreboard by pulling on a rope.

C shows a kind of console on which the mainsheet svivel with a jammer gonna be fastened (see last photo).

Contemporary wooden boatbuilding is a mixture of modern gluetechnique and traditional joinery and the CB-case shows that fact very clearly.
Even if Epoxy is an absolutely strong adhesive many joints will still be stronger if they also are done traditionally. Here a mortise/tenon joint is used to reinforce the console of the mainsheetsvivel and at the other end the inner frame forms a traditional dovetailjoint.

And here it is... the whole centreboardcase build up on two strong logs which will meet the hog when fitting it into the boat. Indeed the ballastkeel will be fastened to those logs with siliconbronze bolts.

Well one little element is still missing... I'm talking about the 2 curved endcaps on either aft side of the case. They were build by laminating mahogany-veneers to a former. The following picture shows that step. To end up with a best possible result of the laminate we glued very prudently and used G-clamps in a very tight spacing.

Another important factor was to achive a very much similar curve of the former as the one on the CB-caseside. We've choosen a routerbit with an aligning-bearing to manage that...

... and well, it fitted nicely!