A breasthook is a sturdy piece of wood that marries the sides of the boat together at the stem. It’s a structurally important piece, and can be tricky to fit. So I did what I usually do when I have a tricky piece to fit, I made a pattern.
The old breasthooks were made of Ash, a hard but not very rot resistant wood, with a mahogany strip down the middle. I decided to make the new breasthooks out of African Mahogany, a nice hard, rot-resistant wood that provides a beautiful contrast to the lighter Fir of the gunwales. Step one was to examine the old breasthooks and notice that they were made of 3 pieces glued together with a 10 degree angle on the center piece.
Then I made my pattern from the new inwales, drawing out the angles that I needed for the pieces to fit. Glued up my new pieces and cut them according to the pattern and voila! — they didn’t quite fit. Stay tuned for the next entry to see how I did the fine fitting.