: Hi Paul,

: Plywood needs developable surfaces, fabric doesn't. While some of
: Tom's boats might be built of ply, I'd be very surprised if they
: all could.

: Bill H

Darn it Bill, I wish I had the time to try that :) And now that you've suggested it, I'll never get the idea out of my head.

Developable surfaces are vital for making smoothly curved surfaces.

But most SOF designs are hard chine designs, with fairly flat, taut surfaces formed as the fabric is pulled over the two adjoining chines. The surfaces are broken up into these hard-edged sections. The plywood has to match up with just two lines, defined by the pieces of wood chines. The plywood pieces end up looking like the parts of S&G boats.

It is fairly easy to bend a sheet of paper or plywood over a section of a boat and see if it can be glued or screwed to the underlying chine. If not, it can be slit, excess material removed, or some patched in, and bent in to fit, like gores are cut in birchbark to form it around a canoe. Additional chines are easy to add when necessary to break up a large curved panel into several smaller areas, but many SOF designs already have closely spaced chines to help support the skin.

PGJ