What is Timber line Rhodes design 1961?

Hi all!
We (me and two others) are going to build a 49 ft Rhodes designed sailing boat (61). In the construction is Rabbet line and Timber half-breadth shown outside the Keel. Inside the Keel area only rabbet line half breadth.

But what is Timber line? Its very equal but sometimes slightly larger than the rat hal breadth. In the rear beyond the keel, takes the name "horn Timber" and i front of the keel just "Timber".

Can anyone explain hat this is?

BR/Per

 

Welcome to the Forum Per.
This is a very ambitious project, building a 49' Rhodes design (which design is she?) - will she be traditional plank on frame, or strip planked, or cold moulded - or even fibreglass?
Can you tell us a bit more about your project please?

Re your question about the Timber line, @Rumars is the gentleman who I am sure will be able to explain this to you.
It would be beneficial and educational for all of us if you could perhaps post some photos of the sections of the lines plan that are of concern to you.

 

Hi Bajansailor!
The design is Thunderhead designed 1961. We are 3 guys, where 2 are active (Victor and me Per (Pedro)). You can find us on my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@JungleRanch70/featured
This is in the jungle and now I am constructing the platform and also started on the simple boat house. This takes a lot of time!!!

We will use very good and hard Mexican wood as long as we can.
About planking or strip planking Strip-planking was my original idea, but this boat is double planked, so this can be se as a simple strip planking with epoxy.

I am constantly analyzing the construction plan which contains so much information. Just now found something new I haven't seen before. I have digitalized the whole big plan and calibrated very carefully. I can measure everything and it checks out to the measures given in table of offsets.
Some plans are of less good quality, but my digitalization program seems to fix some of it (Get Data Graph Digitizer 2.26).

I would love to have a speaking partner or what its called!

To the project;
I thought I knew the most from McIntosh book, but Rhodes differ.
I can upload only parts of the construction plan due to copyright.

The Timber line cannot be below the rabbet line. In such case it would be negative bevel.
Horn Timber is usually something to protect the propeller I heard.
These Timer lines start outside the wooden keel.

Can you forward the question to Mr. @Rumars or notify him?

Looking forward to hear more!

BR/Per

 

The original Thunderhead has been for sale for some time now with Sandeman, with an asking price of US$ 450,000 -
Philip Rhodes / Abeking & Rasmussen 49 ft Bermudan Cutter 1961/1995 - Sandeman Yacht Company https://www.sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk/yacht/664/philip-rhodes-abeking-and-rasmussen-49-ft-bermudan-cutter-19611995

Dare I ask what your budget is for building your Thunderhead - and how many years you expect to take to build her?

She is a beautiful design - I remember seeing her in the summer of 1995, moored outside the summer house in Rockport of her then owner.
There is a nice mention of her (with photos and plans) in the first edition of Arthur Beiser's book 'The Proper Yacht' (I have a copy - it is a wonderful book).
https://www.amazon.com/proper-yacht-Arthur-Beiser/dp/B0007DZYEM/ref=sr_1_1

Rumars has been tagged in this thread, so he will get a notification of it and I am sure that he will offer his useful advice in due course.



.

 

Hello Per,

For this project you need an account on the woodenboat forum and a good book on traditional lofting, preferably two, one in english and one in your native language. Traditional lofting is a complex thing and I believe your plans were intended for professionals. You won't understand the plans until they are drawn full size.

I am not very good at lofting so I can't tell you for sure what the "timber line" is in your plans, especially without studying them because terminology differs. The good people on woodenboat should be more helpful.

The horn timber is easy, that is the piece of wood that sits on top of the sternpost and forms the bottom of the stern overhang. Its end is visible in the drawing with the stern of the boat, just above the propeller aperture.

 

Hi again B!

We are expecting it to take up to three years. Now when making the platform, I understand it will take time.
This platform has been a pain and still is missing the half of it. I was fortune to get free wood from Tren Maya that they have been building
since 2 years. In the end they just throw the wood out for people to take. We are taking out all nails, separating construction they have made and soaking
it in diesel, poison and some used oil to avoid termites (big problem here).

Another problem is the cost for band saw, planer etc. I have built a horizontal band saw before and now we must buy a big vertical band saw, a professional planer (not Dewalt hobby machine!). However, the costs are larger here in Mexico compared to US.

I have seen the Sandeman selling since some time. Actually I was in for another smaller boat about 40 ft, but we changed because this boat is so beautiful with a wide beam.
I haven't made a good budget yet, just trying to get things cheap. One of the biggest problem will be the ballast. We will make some adjustment here and there and already decided to
do a simplication of the ballast. But lead is expensive (!). The best is to find a used scrap boat and melt down. We will start the build without the ballast.

If you would like to write mails, you can write me directly to per.landeback@live.se

BR/Per

 

Ok, I studied the plans a little more and in conjunction with your statement above I believe I have identified your problem. "Timber" is the uninterrupted line and defines the outside shape of the keel and horn and "Rabbet" is the dotted line. Since the "rabbet" is inside the "timber" it's probably the bearding line, that is the intersection of the inside of the planking with the keel. (Please don't take this as gospel, as I said above I'm not a master loftman.)

Three years to launch? Very ambitious I must say.

You don't need a big vertical bandsaw at all. Straight cuts are done with a circular saw or if necessary by chainsaw. Any curves you can't cut with a skillsaw you notch and chisel/adze to shape. Since you decided to laminate a normal jointer/planer combo is all you need. Anything else is done with a hand plane (electric or manual) and a handheld sanders (buy a polishing machine). You don't really think to lift the keel onto a bandsaw to cut it to shape or onto a planer do you?

Please don't do any "simplifications" without a naval arhitect. Changing the material or shape of the ballast has implications on the boats stability. Plus this is a centreboard boat, so it's even more complicated. A qualified NA can indeed draw you a new ballast in cast iron or reinforced concrete, but I suspect you will loose the centerboard in the process.

I do hope you have already sorted out the legal aspects of building in Mexico. It's not a country where you start building and register after finishing. Even if you register abroad you still have to depart with a boat that never entered Mexico and never had a TIP, and that might give the port captain a heart attack.

 

Hi Rumars and Bajansailor!
Thankyou for your interest and responses!

The Horn Timber;
Thankyou for this! Then it must be this piece shown in the first Photo below.

About Lofting;
I have a the book by David McIntosh how to build a wooden boat" and have studied any other blogs, interne pages and Youtube video.
I think I have understood the method since some time. What I can see there are variations, especially Rhodes differ from others.
Some has been in my home language.

About Bearding line, Rabbet line and Timber line;
The Timber line only apply outside the Keel! The Rabbet line defines the point where the planking outside goes in the keel and other parts. Inside you can find the Bearding line
which defines the inner side of the frames. I have attached a picture from McIntosh.

The Body Plan curves for each station must be fullfilled. On the construction plan is stated :"Take half-breadth to keel rabbet from mold loft using heights shown above". I did exactly this
and just yesterday discovered that the Timber ends where the Keel start or are the same inside. The whole Rabbet line is visualized fr the whole boat length. So digitized this line per station (there are many stations and extra help stations). This digitalized Rabbet line coincident with calculated from the body plan with the shown height from the construction plan, see attached graph. As the HB of the Timber line is sometimes larger than the HB of the Rabbet line, it must be above the Rabbet line. It is possible to calculate a min height from the Body plan (very good quality).

BR/Per

 

Hi again!

Forgot one thing;
The vertical band saw is needed! This is for the Molds, for straight good cuts and other parts of the boat with curves.
Yes its possible to do with circular saw to do some of it.
Also a professional planer is needed! I have a Dewalt planer and its not that good for this hard wood o weak motor.

BR/Per

 

If you still want to go for strip planking or cold moulding, I think that you will find that you will not be able to use epoxy to bond these materials together - epoxy needs clean and reasonably dry wood surfaces to bond to. I don't think that you will achieve good results if you try to use epoxy to bond timber that has been soaked in diesel and / or oil.
Hence this means that you would be then looking at traditional plank on frame construction?

Oh dear, this sounds a bit ominous.
You must have a rough idea at least as to what sort of budget you will have for building this boat over say 5 or 6 years (as Rumars has noted, building her in 3 years is very ambitious indeed).
Even if you can factor in 'cheap' (?) timber available in Mexico (?), and 'cheap' (relatively) labour to help the three of you, the cost of all the other materials will be very expensive to buy new.
Does the construction plan offer any guidance as to the quantity of bolts and screws needed just to build the hull?
If not, then do a rough estimate of the number of screws you will need for the hull, and then look up the cost of bronze screws on a site like Jamestown Distributors -
https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/product/fasteners

You will need a lot of good quality marine plywood as well, and if you want to be traditional and have a teak deck, then the cost of this will be eye watering.
Then you could consider the cost of bronze portholes and deck fittings including chainplates, cleats et al (even stainless steel fittings are expensive), building hatches, tanks and furniture down below, and the cost of all the outfit equipment including electrical and mechanical items, not to mention the cost of a rig (mast, boom, rigging and sails) - and I think you will quickly find that the estimated cost could easily be US$ 250,000 (if not a lot more), even if you are 'trying to get things cheap'.

When you consider how many years of your life you will be putting into this project, it might be worthwhile to instead put in an offer to buy Thunderhead (while taking into account that she has been for sale for a long time, which suggests that everybody thinks that the asking price is way too high), and getting a bank loan if necessary - better to try and raise the finance now, rather than half way through the build when / if you find that you have run out of money......

 

Hi again Bajansailor!

About the free wood;
Its pine meant for the boat house not the boat!!!!

Wood for the boat will be Tzalam and Chechen. Tzalam is very similar or slightly better than white oak.
Chechen is even better than white oak but you must predrill every hole.
These wood I have plenty of! Will also be treated for Termites and Marine Borers.
Other wood I need to buy, similar to teak. There are plenty good wood here, also some bad ones.

Yes, bolts is a problem. I have been thinking to do like the Youtube channel "Acorn to Arabella", who build a 38 foot sailing boat.
Yeah rigs and things will be expensive.

Its about to do the work and see it growth that is funny, to get the feeling "I did this".

Lets see what we can do.

BR/Per

 

Yes the horn timber is the one in the picture between sternpost and transom.

That's exactly why I don't like giving opinions without seeing the complete plans. Since no heights were given in the previous picture, the only option was the bearding line, wich is on top of the keel.

 

rabbet line is back of hull planking, timber line is often outside of hull planking

 

Obviously you have no experience building with timber. To be able to estimate the time it will take you to do it, a simple experiment will be useful. Take three pieces of construction grade lumber (6X6) and make the joint where the keel, keelson and bow stem join. Remember to cut the rabbet.

 

If you are hoping to make money from a Youtube channel that you will set up to document the build of the boat then I think you are being very optimistic - the Acorn to Arabella folk seem to be able to muster perhaps 50,000 'hits' per video, so how much revenue would that generate?
And this is after they produced 372 videos so far.
https://www.youtube.com/@AcornToArabella/videos

Leo and Tally Ho have had a very sizeable following of their channel, but again this has taken him a long time to build it up, and he produces excellent videos (a bit over 200 so far).
He also relies heavily on Patreon donations - are you hoping to do the same?
https://www.youtube.com/@SampsonBoatCo

Have you worked up a rough estimate yet for the likely cost of the screws, bolts, nails (I hope not too many of these......)

Tally Ho took years t0 rebuild, and this was with the help of many volunteers along the way - are you hoping to recruit volunteers to help in the same fashion as Leo did for Tally Ho?
And will you be able to maintain the enthusiasm and passion that you have now when you are 4, or 5 or even 6 years 'down the line', and you find that there is still so much to do?