Joining sheets of ply into one long 25 x 10 ft panel?

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas as to joining large sheets of ply to create one peice of wood- i.e. i think it was the Late (why they call it late i dont know?)Dynamite Payson, who suggested using butt joints made with fiberglass??..would this mean that you could lay, say, ten sheets on the floor and epoxy them all together with cloth and epoxy boths sides to create a single monolithic sheet?? i.e. not using any wood butt blocks or scarfing..

how could this be achieved?...true you would need lifting devices to turn the wood over, but wouldn't this create a strong peice of wood composite?

this would be good for doing taped seem or stitch and glue in larger boats...
the idea is taken from using honeycomb- since this is how they join sheets of honey comb??...the idea is to basically weld the sheets by spacing the ply about a 1/2 inch and filling it with epoxy- like welding butt joints- but using epoxy on the gaps, and then fiber glassing the panels...basically making a cored ply panel large enough to cut out large sections of the hull or topsides or deck if needed....id like to hear from others thier thoughts on this..what might the disadvantage or advantages of doing this be..for me i see simplicity in cutting out the patterns for large sections just as in a steel boat much easier...ala brent swain but done in wood...pure stitch and glue-although if i was doing a project id add transverse frames too...

toying with this idea for a project. the advantages here i see are that without butt blocks on the wood--it will fair to a nice curve as the thickness at the butt blocks prevent the plywood form forming to a curvature without having flat spots at the butt joints...

 

Look at post number 8 on this thread.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/wo...tion/joining-plywood-puzzle-joints-35333.html

Also, don't be afraid to use the search function for previous threads on similar topics.

 

thanks LP!!!

 

also--one trouble i have is knowing what to look for on here...so this is why i posted this--my joints have to be on the sides as well as the end think of the panel being full size for a deck...maybe 8 ft wide and 25 ft long for instance--this isnt discussed on the puzzle joint forum..since both edges must join both edges..but i do like the payson joint after seeing it...i didnt know he hollwed out the places to be joined..this makes a lot of sense...

 

As to the question of the use of the term "late" see http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question38929.html

"...Ted Nesbitt, a librarian at West Virginia State College ... says when late is used in reference to a person, it means, that was alive not long ago, but is not now; recently deceased.

It's first written usage in the English language was in Caxton's Eneydos in 1490: "Her swete and late amyable husbonde".

So late in this sense means in the recent past, if her husband had died twenty years before, he would be dead or deceased, but not certainly late.

 

thanks for the hoyte! -i know it gets confusing because i see it used incorrectly from time to time in writings. ive seen it used on those deceased 20 years later...
is there some time frame ?..I love classical cello- and a great player(probably the best ever)died three years ago maybe a bit more even--and they still use "the term" late in describing the maestro....--i am learning a lot today..
sigh... but back to the boat stuff...

 

I guess its variable according to one's own definition of recent.

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...e50b7ed8b228eb18&ix=seb&ion=1&biw=930&bih=615

You might say the term late is short for lately deceased.

 

I love Wynands quote...

 

Wynand is a giant among men.

 

unquestionably!!!

 

Indeed!

 

I work with large planks on occasion, but the huge panel you are suggesting doesn't seem particularly practical. Just lifting the darn thing will cause problems. Yes, the Payson butt joint will solve you scarfing or butt block concerns, but I'd make that panel smaller and do the Payson butt joints on the building jig.

 

yea--that would need some lifting device.. so you could plank a hull in sections using this technique? hwat would be the max length and width that would be reasonable?

thanks Par

 

This is a question of interest to me, as I am looking at 28ft long panels.

I have an overhead gantry, but I would like to reduce the amount of lifting involved.

One concept I have envisaged, is building female moulds or framing, with a long trestle table along the tops of the moulds.

So when the 28ft panels are completed, they can be just pushed off the tables down onto the moulds, where they can be moved into position.

The trick would be to join the panels on the trestles, then precoat the outside of the panels with Fibreglass/Epoxy while they are flat on the trestle tables, and then slide them into the moulds, and secure them in position. Then the interior of the boat can be finished, and very little exterior work needs to be done, perhaps not even having to turn the boat over.

 

I've made some long planks over the years, but nothing like a 25x10. I've made longer planks, say 16" by 28', but this is a lot easier to deal with. The last long planks I made where in the 26' range for a lapstrake. I needed a couple of guys to keep the ends from dragging on the floor, as I couldn't hold it over my head high enough to prevent this.

This is what I think will be the biggest issue with these long and wide panels, the floppiness of it all. From experience I can tell you, if you scarf or butt join two 10" wide 1/2" plywood planks and place them on a 5' tall stool, the ends will droop to the floor. Extra width will not help much, so assuming this 5' droop is about right, you could expect in the neighborhood of 10' of droop on a 25' panel. That's a lot of manhandling.

As to making the panels next to the boat and rigging up something to help guide them in, well, this seems like you're building a lot of non-boat stuff, just to build the boat. Granted, it wouldn't be a precise or complicated thing, but I've found large stuff tends to get out of control fast, without enough hands to insure some level of "understanding".