Planking can be the most fun of all boat building tasks. While there are thirty steps or so to the making of each strake, it is a task that settles into a smooth rhythm. On a carvel boat the work starts at sheer and keel so there are four places to work at any given time until the shutter planks are reached. Work never stops while waiting for a steamed plank to set or for a glued scarph to dry. At the moment of this writing there the fourth plank from the sheer on the port side is spiled. The third plank from the sheer on port is being fastened. The third plank from the keel on starboard is being final fitted, soon to receive a caulking bevel, and the third plank from the keel on port has just been steamed to take the twist in the forward end and is about to be scarphed. So it will go until the boat is closed in and we are ready to fair and caulk.
Silent Maid’s topsides are to be finished bright as the original’s were in 1924. Since we were unable to find Atlantic White Cedar of sufficient quality for such a treatment Western Red Cedar is being used. This is some beautiful stuff, some of it 33’ long and 24” wide. The garboards and broad strakes are full length and the rest of the planks will have one joint each rather than the two or three the shorter white cedar might require. We are scarphing the planks together partly to offer a better appearance when varnished and partly to get all the rigidity we can out of each strake. More full length planks might be gotten out of this wood pile but as we move away from the sheer and keel the strakes develop more curvature and joints are preferable to the cross grain that would result from a full length plank.
The planking is being riveted to the frames wherever possible. The rivets pull the kerfed frames together as well as securing the planks. This is the most durable fastening method of them all. To save time and produce rivet heads of even quality a pneumatic hammer is used to head over the rivets. When done this way it only takes a little longer to rivet than to screw fasten, rivets inaccessible to a ball peen hammer can be done, and the framing is not marked up with the missed hits of a ball peen hammer.
