Steam

I always wanted to try out steam-bending in one of my next furniture projects, but somehow I haven't come up yet with a really compelling design idea.And, probably less of an excuse - I was always a bit afraid of trying it out. Turned out: steam-bending wood is much easier than I thought.

In particular with the Melonseed frames, the maximum bend radius of the frames did not require supporting the bend with some bending iron. This is normally required to make sure the fibres are compressed on the inside of the radius  as opposed to overstretched on the outside (which usually leads to breaking).

First frames bent and clamped in place

With a smaller radius, this kind of "guiding" iron or spring steel is a must - I will see later with the knees supporting the carlines how this will work out.

Bottom end of the frames goes into the notches

So here is the steambox - just a box of made out of spruce and a 30 EURO wallpaper-remover from Amazon. Wallpaper-remover works like this: water in, plug into socket, steam comes out after 15 minutes.

a glimpse into the inside - maybe next time I place some potatoes as well...

Details of the maststep

not much to say here, maststep as said was already mounted during the planking process. Just re-enforced from the inside with micro-ballooned epoxy.

Also visible here and on the pic below, the notches for the frames had been cut and chiseled out before planking.

And just some more pics from the outside

It is all so much easier the second time - laminating the inside

Not much to say here - following the same principle as for the outside. This time really making sure the the right ratio of hardener and resin is being used. The more time one takes to really smoothen out the glass fiber fabric, the easier the laminating process becomes.

Ah yes, best method for sanding the concave inner surface I found:

Orbit sander, 150 mm. Start with 60 grit to get rid of the glue leftovers and raw smoothing. I also tried 40 grit, but the scars are very difficult to remove. So 60 is the minimum, 80 I found takes too much time. 

melonseed skiff, melonseed

lumber for deck, deck coaming and stern

This is really difficult - juggling thoughts, from simple European spruce, teak (which I think makes really sense only on a "working deck" where people walk and need sufficient grip) and some other options. 

After long and as always very enjoyable consulting discussion with Konrad Hahn of Konrad Berger Holzhandel near my home town, we decided to go for the classic: Sipo Mahogani.

Still I am not 100% sure what the deck will look like - 2 colored, 1 color, wider or narrower planks, black sealing stripes in between or not... postponed for later considerations.

Impressive..

Konrad in Action - there is some 120+ different types of lumber on stock at any time!

...and the inside...

Sanded the outside to 120 grit and turned her around (as I learned, now it is a she).

I scratched my head for a long time about the question if I should attach the outer stem after glassing the hull or before. I decided to include it into the glassing as I thought this may ensure that there is no water making it between the hull and stem. On the other hand, should someone in the future need to replace the stem, this will be quite a bit more difficult.

My father, very sceptically inspecting the stability of the hull. It is very wobbly, indeed...