LAMINATED KNEES
by Mike Mulcahy

Laminated knees are not hard to make. They will strengthen your boat and they look good.

Make your bending form with a smooth curve and cover it with plastic packaging tape to prevent stray glue from sticking to it. Cut a notch at one end of the form to accept a clamp. Cut your strips just thin enough to bend without breaking. These spruce strips are about one tenth of an inch thick bending on a six inch radius. You will also need a long strip of inner tube rubber cut spiral fashion from an old tube. I’m using a sixteen foot strip here.

Although in general I like epoxy, I use an exterior Titebond II type of glue for this part of the job. I don’t have to wear gloves with this kind of glue, it’s less slippery than epoxy so the bundle of strips is more manageable, and it won’t bond to the strip of rubber (much). Also, you can unclamp things after an hour and get strips for the next knee clamped. Spread the glue on both sides of each strip (one side for the first and last strip). Stack the strips up as you wet them out so they don’t dry as you work. I’m doing twelve strips deep here – that’s a lot of surface so work fast.

Clamp your strips to the bending form and start wrapping your rubber strip.

When I’m finished I have two or three layers of rubber over everything.

After about an hour take everything apart. If your plans call for open knees all you need to do now is clean them up and cut to size.

Most projects will want a corner block. I glue these with thickened epoxy as it is difficult to get the close fit needed for one-part type glue. Spread unthickened epoxy on both surfaces first. Let that soak in and then spread on thickened glue. (I use belt sander dust to thicken the epoxy to a peanut butter consistency.)

A hand plane works well to clean up.

Cut to final size and sand and you are done.

Another example.