Preparing to replace some ribs

Some of the ribs are cracked and need replacing, some of them are missing and need to be done. I spent a fair amount of time looking for copper nails and roves to rivet the ribs on. Most places I went to didn't even know what a rove was... Finally I found some at the Boat Shop in Ferrymead.  http://www.boatshop.co.nz/

I don't have a rove punch, so I made one out of a bit of oak and copper pipe around the end to give it strength. I think it should do the job.

I have 2 or 3 ribs which the old owner made up. He didn't steam bend them but instead ran a cut along the flat of one end, bent and glued it up, like a half laminated rib. I thought that was a pretty good idea and it doesn't look so bad on the ones that have been glued properly, but I want to do steam bent ribs, so I made myself a steamer.

The steamer.


At first I made a wooden box type steamer from some fencing pails, it was pretty cheap, but while I was looking for some metal plate to make a duct for the steam to go from the source to the box, I thought that a down pipe would probably be better and cheaper and more efficient, so that's what I did.

I have a camp stove to heat the water and have attached the corner of the down pipe to the lid with rivets and metal braces. I made a support that clamps to a saw stool, so that if the heat from the steam softens the PVC pipe too much then at least it will be supported.

I have  shorter piece of PVC pipe for the ribs, the longer piece is for the gunwales. When I have a spare couple of hours next i'll see how it goes.