I cut into my new Joubert plywood for the first time. That was a little scary. It occurred to me that I probably should have bought a few extra sheets. As it is, I have none to spare, so if I blow a cut and ruin a board, I'm stuck either having a replacement panel shipped in (at tremendous expense) or figuring out some locally available, inferior, substitute.
I was definitely in "measure twice, cut once" mode.
Luckily all I needed to do tonight was cut four 6" wide strips that will form the keelson. My new Makita circular saw is really sweet. I used its built-in rip fence and quickly had my boards ready.
Then it got interesting.
The keelson is made up of two layers of 1/2" ply, but it is longer than the 8' length of the panels, so the boards have to be scarfed. That was a new one for me.
I started out by using a speed square to strike a like 3" from the end:
Then I staggered the two halves, putting one right on the line of the other, and clamped them into place:
From there, I hit it with the belt sander:
Checking carefully as I went to make sure things stayed even.
Eventually, I had a nice bevel like this:
I pulled it apart and did a dry fit. Each joint I did was pretty close, but needed a touch of adjustment. I did that the same way.
Eventually, the boards fit together well, or at least good enough that the epoxy could fill any gaps, so I mixed up a batch, added some thickener, glued them up, triple checked for straightness, then piled a bunch of paint cans on top to hold the joints tight while the epoxy sets up:
We'll see how things look in the morning. Worst case, I'll have to cut out the joints and try again. The good news is these keelson boards are long enough that I can spare a bit if it comes to that. But for now, I'm thinking I got it.
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