Glen-L.com

I have 2 questions I am hoping I get some commentary on. The first has to do with the incredible amount of twist required on the the bottm battens where they meet the stem ... (especially the 3rd one from the keel). There is no way to make this batten twist enough so that it would ever come close to mating flat on the stem. I am planning on just sort of letting it go where it wants and then planing off the bottom at an angle so that it lays against the stem and then hope I have enough material to fair. Is this normal on all KH designs? Billy C.... can you offer any advice? It was hard to tell if you experienced this from your beautiful photos.

My other question regards fairing the stem, which I did today.... lots of work.... Should I be trying to taper this into a sharp point or is it sort of rounded over? I am assuming it should come to a point so planking will lay on it flat from both directions....

Any help on these items would be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Dick W

It is easier to see from the sides: (unfortunately images will not render)

SideBattens

I made mine so that the battens pointed to the center line on the stem, you can see in the pic they are set back a bit.

From this pic: Bottom Battens
You can see that there is some twist leading up to the stem.

And from here:
Stem Battens

The battens enter the stem quite a way back. I drew a black sharpie line down the center and made sure I did not plane it off. I also did not glue the battens down - I had to make them shorter a couple of times.

Finally - The bottom battens will have a square top entering the stem - you have to hand plane it off so that the bottom material will have as much contact area as possible. The stem should be flat too.

I used a 3" x 12" (or so) scrap of 1/8" plywood and slid it over the surfaces to see how fair the pieces were getting. I used a straight edge along the batten to stem area to make sure the stem was not convex.

When I planked the stem - the thickness of the planking made the stem extra chunky right at the leading edge. I needed to fair the stem planking (before adding the final mahogany layer) to make it all join up neatly.

Hope this helps.

_________________
Regards,
Bob Perkins

My Current Projects
http://h12restoration.shutterfly.com/
http://nutshellpramconstruction.shutterfly.com/

My Completed project
http://biscayne22.shutterfly.com

Thanks Bob for your help on this.... so far this batten placement at the stem has been the most challenging part of the project. It seems like an interative process.

Your suggestions are very helpful and I will keep plugging away at it. I did some readign of some old discussion last year by Billy C on this and it appeared he had the same question regarding the huge amount of twist on these same battens. It is good to know that I am not alone.

I also wanted to mention that your album and work is really amazing and inspiring. And as you mentioned to Billy last week, you should be sure to put those two beautiful boats together sometime!

Dick W

Dick,

I have some amount of twist, but i did not torture those battens. The cross section where they meet the stem is triangular since I had to plane them to shape.

It is hard to tell in the pics, but you will see two sets of screw holes on the battens. One for the first fit, and the second set of screw once the final termination point was figured out.

Hope this helps,
Bob

_________________
Regards,
Bob Perkins

My Current Projects
http://h12restoration.shutterfly.com/
http://nutshellpramconstruction.shutterfly.com/

My Completed project
http://biscayne22.shutterfly.com

Dick-
looks like you have a good answer! Bob's pictures show it well. one note that you can take or leave is i took a c clamp and clamped it to the batten near the stem juncture so i could get more leverage on it and give it the twist. also i split the difference material wise slightly notching the stem where the end of the batten would have been lost to fairing. there is so much material there after the cold mold process that strength in that area really will not be an issue.
-Billy

_________________
(insert witty phrase here)
Billy's Belle Isle website

Thanks Billy and Bob for your advice on this issue. I appreciate it. I made a lot more progress today and think I have it. Like Bob, I set the battens where I thought they should go, but ended up moving them way back once I faired the stem and made a couple of attempts at getting it all right.

In any event, after lots of thinking and working, I am pretty confident that I have it down.

I finished fairing the stem today.... between that and the keel, it is amazing how much of my Belle Isle turned into chips and dust. But is sure is cool to see it taking shape and I am happy with the results. My biggest fear is that this is all being done prior to glue and it is going to kill me to disassemble this thing, take it apart and reassemble out in my yard!

Thanks again for all the help!

Dick W