William Garden - Tom Cat Catboat

[JimM]

I recently purchased a copy of the plans for Tom Cat and would like to start building it this spring-summer. William Garden in his article in WB (Number 176) said that he carvel planked the boat, but it could also be strip built. This is a 12' boat. The plans call for 1/2" western red cedar planks. Could I use 1/2" x 3/4" strips to plank the boat? Either way the boat is planked it would recieve an epoxy and fiberglass skin after planking.

My second question is about nailing the strips to each other. Do I need to nail the strips togeather on such a small boat? If I have to nail do I need a thicker strip?

Third question. William Garden used epoxy to fill the space between the planks rather than caulk. Would I have to mill a caulk bevel on one of the planks to accept the epoxy?

Thanks for you ideas.

Jim McGee

[Bert Langley]

You certainly can use 1/2" x 3/4" strips to plank up this small boat. I don't believe that nails would be necessary I would simply glue the strips togethers ala strip canoe building. Likewise no caulking bevel is necessaey, just glue the strips, and apply cloth and epoxy to both sides. I might be tempted to go with thinner strips myself. I've built several canoes using 1/4" and 3/16" strips and believe that a 1/4" strip would likely be more than strong enough, but that is based on opinion not testing.

I would consider beading and coving the strips. It takes a little work to get set up but once done you do save considerable time in fairing the finished hull.

Strips can be glued with something like titebond. Epoxy is not necessary since the whole hull will be covered with epoxy and glass.

[JimD]

Jim, Tom Cat was discussed quite recently in another thread although I don't know if much of what was said would be relevant for you. At Glen-Ls website there is an on line primer for strip planking that says the purpose of nailing the strips is to hold them in place until the epoxy cures, and not for structural strength, so no need to nail. Seems to me what Garden has really done is edge glued standard width planks instead of strip planks. Other builders have glued thin splines instead of only thickened epoxy. Just my guess but I'd imagine the only reason for traditional caulking bevels between the planks is so that you can glue and/or spline all at once after all the planking is on, rather than gluing as you go which is more often the case with strip planking.

[Garrett Lowell]

In the book about building this boat, William Garden specifically states that the planking would be edge-glued.