The Making of Molds

Following the lofting process, you'll no doubt be anxious to set tools to wood and begin to shape your dream. Heaven knows you've antici­pated it long enough! Well, the making of molds is as critical to the success of the project as lofting, since the molds are but perfect reproductions (in three dimensions) of the sta­tions we've laid out on the body plan. Station number I becomes station mold number 1, and so on. When the molds are all set up, and espe­cially when the ribbands are bent over them, you'll have the distinct pleasure of seeing before you the shape you've longed for, all these weeks and months of planning. Keep in mind, though, that although the shape is per­manent, the structure is not. As planking goes on, ribbands come off, and when planking is done, the molds come out. But by this time, of course, the hull will be built and you'll be feeling like ten million dollars. (It used to be a million, but inflation changed all that.) Materials For molds, we always use white pine round­edged box boards, 1 1/4 inches thick, which come wide and crooked, withstand any amount of nailing, and cost less than any other lumber we can get. Run the batch through a surface planer. Pick out the straight ones and saw them for cross spalls-4 inches wide, one for each mold, and absolutely straight on one edge. Saw out another 40 to 50 running feet of 4-inch stock, also absolutely straight, and a like amount 2 inches wide. You'll need great quan­tities of this stuff in the setting-up process, so don't worry about extravagance. Lay in six or seven pounds of eightpenny common nails, a 2-foot steel square, a good hammer, a good crosscut saw, a set of dividers with a soft, soft pencil for one leg (set the gap to the thickness of the planking), a good handsaw (or a better sabersaw than I've ever owned), and you're ready to begin work. (You can, of course, do all this cutting out with an assortment of good handsaws, but it sure takes longer!) Marking and putting together the half-molds To make the number 5 mold, first subtract from the laid-down body plan outline the thickness of the planking, using the dividers t9 mark short arcs, at about 6-inch intervals, from the rabbet to the sheer. Now mark a line square across the centerline exactly 3 ½ inches above the rabbet height, to represent the top of the wood keel (and, of course, the flat at the bottom of the mold). Take a wide and crooked board, about 7 feet long, and lay it on the half-section so that it covers all the inside-of-planking marks from the rabbet to a point above the load waterline, and extends at its lower end past the centerline and the top-of-keel mark. This posi­tioning is shown in Figure 2-2. Now, very care­fully, turn that board over, toward the center of the drawing, as if it were hinged to the floor along its upper edge. If you have not already seen the next operation, the results of which are shown in Figure 2-3, you're going to think boatbuilders must be somewhat primitive in their thinking, but don't be too hasty; this is undoubtedly the greatest invention since the wheel. You lay eightpenny nails flat on the floor, pointing inward, each with its head precisely located on the high points of the arcs you have drawn to indicate the inside line of the plank­ing. Give each head a hammer-tap to set it into the floor and make it stay in position. And now, very carefull