Acorn to Arabella: Preparing for Planking

The backyard boatbuilders, Alix and Steve, are more than ready to move on to planking Arabella. It’s been years of precise measuring, cutting, and planning to get them to this stage, and they are not rushing it. They are taking the time to be fully prepared for this next big step that will take weeks of repetitive work, so setting themselves up now for success will be paramount to working efficiently. In this episode, the “Acorns”  build a planking bench for work on for scarfing up full-length planks.

They modify a power planer to prepare for backing out planks. And, they fair out the rabbet to its final shape, making sure that the back rabbet was a fair transition to the frames and that the bottom edge was a 90 angle to the back rabbet. All these things together will go a long way towards making sure that the duo has minimal snags or hiccups down the line when planking, which is coming up soon!!

Meet Alix and Steve in our Jamestown Distributors booth at the WoodenBoat Show TODAY and tomorrow from 11am-1pm. Come shake hands with this motivated pair who have dove head-first into wooden boat building with zero experience. At this stage in their build, their lack of experience isn’t showing as they hammer through difficult math and unexpected challenges.  Be sure to follow Acorn to Arabella on their YouTube channel.

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