Thwart Knees

I forgot to put the thwart knees on the to do list in the previous post. These knees give extra strength to the sheer near the oar locks.

In his building manual Arch Davis suggests to steam bend the thwart knees. As I have no steam box I tried to boil a piece of oak and bend it around the mold I made.  As to be expected the oak broke during bending.

As I did not want to build a steam box just for two knees I decided to laminate them. For the lamination's I ripped 2.5 cm wide strips from some left over 4 mm plywood that was used for the hull. 

Arch indicates for steaming a piece of 5/8'' (16 mm) that would imply 4 lamination's but I decided to make it 5.  Not for strength but I want to conceal the screw with a bung so I want to have little bit more flesh.

As temperatures were around zero I could not use my epoxy so I have used waterproof water glue that cures at 5 C and is far less messy so I could bring it to the home from the shop after gluing to cure.  Will be interesting to see whether it holds.

After gluing I did some sanding on my old stationary sander to make it look better.  It is not ready yet because first the knees have to be checked on the Peapod for accuracy and to establish the final length and the location of the screw holes.

As it is freezing and snowing in NL my wife will get up North for the weekend with to our place there with our grandchildren and their parents to skate.  She can do the test fitting and scribe the correct dimensions.  I will stay home with the dogs.