Cutting the Transom Cheeks on the Palm Beach 22

Palm Beach 22 transom cheek
The profile view of the transom cheek.

It seems like forever since I talked about working on the Palm Beach 22 in this space.  Intervening boat repairs do have a way of taking up time here at the boatworks!  Anyway, when we left off I was talking about the plan for framing the transom.  I had made up 2 blanks with the curve of the transom cheeks.  You can read about it here.

Transom cheek blank
I checked the curve of the blanks to the lofting board. If you look closely you can see the line for station 10 hugging the piece, just inside the line for station 9.

You can see the blank laminated to the curve here.  Now it’s time to cut the compound curve out of this blank.  Remember this piece not only curves inboard, it also curves aft when you look at it from the side.  Take a look at Zimmer’s drawing again.  It’s at the top of this post.

So to get that aft curve, and the bevel for the transom, I consult the lofting again.  I talked about he lofting here.  I’m going to be consulting it throughout the building process.

Side view of the transom curve
Tracing of the curve of the transom cheek from the side view.

I traced the lofted curve onto mylar and measured its distance from a baseline at the various waterlines.   You can barely see the lofing of this curve on the board underneath.  I apologize for the quality of the photograph.

I was able to establish the waterlines on the blank by laying it on the lofted body plan.  So I could then expand the curve from the flat surface of the lofting board to the curved surface of the blank.

 

 

 

 

Using a batten to lay out a curve
Using a batten to draw the curve onto the curved blank.

Use a batten to connect the points and voila!  There’s your curve.  I did this for three edges you can see from the outer face of the blank, and then established the three edges you can see from the inside face of the blank as well.

 

 

 

Cutting the transom cheek on the bandsaw.
Cutting the curve on the inside face of the transom cheek blank. There was a bit of nail-biting at this point!

After checking and rechecking, it was time to cut it out on the bandsaw.  After much trepidation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shaping to the curve with a hand plane
Bringing it down to the line with a handplane. There’s nothing as fun as shaping a piece with a good sharp plane!

Finally, I brought the shape to my lines with a hand plane at the bench.

Next step will be to make the top and bottom transom bows.  Stay tuned for that!

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