structural wood joinery for cabins and wheelhouses

Aloha, I'm looking for how to and examples of structural wood joinery techniques to be used on cabins and wheelhouses of sailing vessels, all hardwood, no ply, any and all info and help will be appreciated,,Mahalo from WailiingDave (blues power)

 

Geez, no replies....I'd recommend this book as a place to start, it was very helpful to me.

http://www.amazon.com/Boatbuilding-Manual-Robert-Steward/dp/0070613761

Best,

MIA

 

Back in 2005 i did a major rebuild of the wheelhouse and deckhouse of a historic New York city wooden former steam tugboat, i rebuilt it off the boat. The construction was much like house construction with a top and bottom plate and studs, where it differed was that it was all oak and, the top and bottom plates were larger than the studs, mortise and tenon joints were used on all studs, diagonals were used but they were just nailed in place, then the entire thing was held together with 1/2" steel tie rods between the top and bottom plates. The sheathing insied and out was vertical yellow pine tongue and groove siding. I left out some of the inside panelling until after re installing the cabin on the boat and used the tie rods to hold it down to the deck with turnbuckle bodies inside the wall. I use a slightly modified method from the original as they had built it in place while i had to rebuild it as a unit off the boat while another crew rebuilt the hull and deck.
Steve.

 

Cool,, many Mahalos for the info,, ordered the book,MIA and pondering your info Steve,,,Beautiful Sunsets to you.... WailingDave

 

Building interior furniture, cabinets, etc. is a pretty convoluted set of subjects, covering a wide range of possibilities. The Steward book (mentioned above) will offer some of the basics in this regard. Eventually you'll have to select a building method, which can swing from traditional "stick built" with raised panels, to full composite cored methods. It depends on what you want really.

The cheapest will be taped seam plywood (glued, filleted and possably taped shapes), followed by stick built plywood (plywood glued over a simple frame work). More traditional method would be a frame work with inserts of what ever (plywood, hardwood, etc.). A composite build will be the lightest, say with foam core and light 'glass sheathings.

It seems you're interested in the stick built, raised panel type of thing. Naturally, this is one of the hardest to do, particularly well. The woodwork needs to be fine and a lot of thought has to go into the arrangement of joints so it doesn't try to self destruct with environmental changes. This will also be the heaviest method too. You can achieve the same look for a fraction of the weight with a composite or stick built plywood assembly. Chapelle's book "Boatbuilding" also covers a fair bit of these traditional details.

 

First you should sketch the cabin house and wheel house and post if you expect comment.

Is the Cabinhouse , wheelhouse part of the engineering of the structure of the boat .

 

wheel house rebuild

Aloha,,computer was down but back on top now... here is a sketch, wheelhouse is basically 9' X 9'6" with the cabin 7' high
Hardwood framework with hardwood panel inserts, appears to be the plan , with ample wood on hand for beams and inserts..
Looking for ideas on the joinery and weatherproofing at seams,joints,windows, doors and attachment areas,, with enough material on hand the inserts could be 3 ply hardwood...
any input will be greatly appreciated
plan to attach post to deck with a weld on 3 sided post support that the post could be through bolted to ,, the the post support would be on the inside of the cabin and a continuous weld on mounting rim for the panel insert bottom plate to attach to.. Mahalo wailingdave
PS,, wheel house is not a part of the engineering of the ships structure,, a new steel deck will be put down for the wheelhouse area and the wheelhouse attached to the new steel deck