Stem

 

The stem or forward timber of this ship was cut from a solid piece of Angeilique.  Again, very tough stuff to cut, heavy but very sturdy and rot resistant..  The stem rests on the very forward part of the fore foot and is backed by a "knee".  In the first photo I am taking another piece of solid angelique down to the proper width by cutting a number of cuts that  after I have chiseled away will leave me with an rough approximation of the width of the keel to which it will be mounted with 3/4 inch thru bolts.  It is trimmed up with a power planer and cut to the proper angles with the big 16" Makita.

So once again, the stem is not one of the boat parts you just throw over your shoulder and slap onto the boat.  Its 8.5" wide by 10" deep and 10' long weighing in at probably three or four hundred pounds.  So the trick is to get into place vertically and have it be perfectly straight on either side and with a slight forward angle.  My weapons of choice are stacked scaffolding and a chain fall.

After putting the stem in "ready" position, the knee is mounted first.  Then, even though positioning everything is some thing you only want to do once, you have to dry fit the stem to the keel and the knee   and make "fit" adjustments to everything so that it all looks like it should fit together.  Then you take it down and slap a liberal portion of epoxy/saw dust wood dough in all the joints, hoist her up again, position her till she sits just right, clamp the whole works up, put in bracing and wait overnight for the filler to set.  Then go back the next day and put in all the through bolts through the knee and tighten everything up.   There's a little more to it than that-  as a quick aside, this is one of the places that I cross checked my angle measurements off the plans with the digital level.

We are now getting to the end of muscling up the really big stuff.  There are still fuel tanks, frames and the Transom, but the big stuff is finding its way on the boat.