I decided to use a sawn curved deck beam for the flat deck F1, mostly because I can’t think of any way to laminate that shape that I would feel comfortable putting in a plan set. (I am open to suggestions?)
I made several of these and stood on them, comparing the deflection to my existing arched deck beams. The arch is plenty strong enough either way but the tenon is more vulnerable to breaking than my laminated deck beams. I will have to think more on how to make this stronger.
It wouldn’t be a day at the Cape Falcon shop if I didn’t rebuild something that I just finished making, so with the deck complete I decided to glue some extra wood onto the next deck beam forward that I carved into a slight arch with an angle grinder. I’m doing this because I’m concerned that that extra half inch will be the difference between me being able to load the gear bags or not.
This is one of the things I like most about skin on frame building; it’s generally pretty easy to back up if you want to make a change or you need to fix something.
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