Ribbands and Timbering Out

And now to put on the ribbands. We always use clear fir, 1 5/8 inches thick and a bit wider than that. Half of these we leave solid (at least while they're young, green, and flexible); the others are cut with a saw, flat, right up the middle, stopping a foot short of the other end. They recuperate between boats, in the darkness under the shop floor, and last for years. You can use two layers of green spruce, and consider them expendable, if the fir is hard to come by; but watch them with suspicion between molds. Fasten the ribbands to stem and transom with one 2½-inch number 14 screw; use the same wire,½ inch longer, for the softwood molds. These ribbands have one purpose only, and that is to hold the bent frames precisely to the shape of the hull, at the inside of the planking, until the planking can take the job over. Their arrangement, therefore, is governed by two considerations: first, to get them on fair, as easily as possible, and spaced closely enough to do their job; and second, to hang them so that they follow somewhere near the line the planks will take, and can be removed one by one, as the planks go on, without leaving a great area of unsupported frames at one end of the hull. Study the problem with the aid of a long batten draped around the molds. Think of Great Circle courses and barrel staves. Look at the body plan on the lines drawing, and consider each diagonal as a ribband. They are spaced twice as far apart as the ribbands should be, but their arrangement is about right. Hanging the ribbands Start the first one just below the 36-inch load line on the stem. Drape it in a gentle sweep, to cross mold number 5 barely clear of the load waterline, and up the transom frame just below the line of diagonal 5. This will, of course, be done in two halves, with the butt end screwed to the transom frame, for the second. The after half should lie fair, against and above the forward one, where they lap by each other. Fasten an exactly similar pair on the other side of the boat. Check to be sure the molds still stand, undistorted, in the true athwartships station plane. You understand, of course, that you do not bevel the molds where the ribbands land. Just hit the forward corners in the fore body, the after corners aft of amidships. Shoot the screw fastenings into these corners, square to the run of the ribbands. I like to have the uppermost ribband just clear of the sheerline, to remain in place there until the sheerstrake is fitted and fastened. You must bevel the forward end to fit against the flat of the stem above the top of the rabbet. Be sure its inner surface is in line with the back rabbet. Always work in matched pairs, keeping them as nearly as possible at the same height, each side, on every mold they cross. Where the ribbands lap past each other and end, forward or aft of amidships, they will tend to flatten out in the last bay they cross. Even them up with clamps, and edge-fasten them; back off the screw ½ inch, in the last mold they reach. The final job in this setup is to brace the rib bands, down in the hollow of the wineglass, against the outward thrust of the frames. Use I-inch-square pine props, up from the floor, butted square against the ribbands halfway between molds (see Figure 7-1). Experiment with a thin slat, jammed into a frame socket, bent outward to the flat of the bilge; and notice where the pressure comes. Hold the tuck ribband true at all costs. There's no sadder sight in a boatshop t