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Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
By:Dave Houser
Date: 1/20/2013, 1:24 am

There are a few construction necessities to install a cambered deck.

Shear clamps are necessary to create a large enough gluing surface to cold bend the deck plywood and glue it in place. Regular weight clear packing tape has enough strength and the right amount of stretch to clamp the deck in place while gluing it to the shear clamps.

Full length cambered decks limit the amount of upsweep at the bow so transitioning to a simple bent deck at the front hatch was necessary to bend the plywood up to create the upsweep for the PB bow.

The cambered portion of the PB deck really has a flat triangle with corners at the front-hatch deck joint at the starboard and port shears and the third at the front center of the cockpit. The deck ply bends in a curve down from the two long sides of this triangle. This makes the deck, at the cockpit recess cut, a continuous curve and it is a straight line at the hatch deck joint.

The center of the curved deck has to be supported up at the cockpit or it will settle and push the sides out. This is usually done with a curved deck beam near the front of the cockpit. I do it by supporting the deck with a temporary bulkhead to allow me to make a break in the deck by installing a cockpit recess. The angle, in the deck between the recess and the deck forward, stiffens the deck to support the deck up and keep the shears supported inward.

Since the PB has a flat aft deck and the cockpit recess at the back of the cockpit is also flat, I made the aft deck and the recess a continuous piece of plywood.

Making the bulkhead forward of the foot braces was an effort because that flat triangle in the deck really does bow up some from distributing some of the bending stresses. So the portion of the bulkhead above the shears has to be fitted.

The most tedious part making the cambered deck was creating the stack of shims for the hatch to match the underside of the deck before installing the deck. I glued the hatch recess to the shear clamps before installing the deck.

Messages In This Thread

S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update *PIC*
Sean Dawe -- 1/14/2013, 8:57 pm
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
Kurt Maurer -- 1/15/2013, 7:20 pm
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
Kevin -- 1/15/2013, 7:23 pm
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
sean-dawe@hotmail.com -- 1/15/2013, 10:04 pm
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update *PIC*
Dave Houser -- 1/16/2013, 3:10 pm
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
Sean Dawe -- 1/18/2013, 9:47 pm
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
Dave Houser -- 1/20/2013, 1:24 am
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
Dan Caouette (CSCWC) -- 1/15/2013, 7:51 pm
Re: S&G: Point Bennett Chop Project - Update
sean-dawe@hotmail.com -- 1/15/2013, 10:07 pm