Building
a
True Round
Steel or Aluminum Hull

Until now construction of a true round steel or aluminum hull was only for professional builders. They are known to have the special equipment and secret abilities.

This section shows a condensed illustrated version of the 'Bezier 12.5 hull construction. All the parts have been pre-fabricated including the shell plating and building strongback.

Step One is the construction of the hull starts with building the strongback. Accuracy here is of the upmost importance. Error here will ripple through the entire construction as the strongback locates the Transverse Frames.

Step Two is to set up the framework on the Building Strongback. Remember that the accuracy of the Frame aligment depends on the Strongback.

Step Three Plating begins the True Round Shell Plating process by choosing one of the eight (8) plating sections that have been designed to align with a particular transverse frame. This positions the plate to its correct and exact location along the hull.

Subsequent plating will be aligned to these initial eight (8) plate sections. This method will removes cumulative error factor that would be present if we plated the hull bow to stern, for example.

Bottom Developable Plating

The bottom shell plating for the Bezier 12.5 is a developable surface. The plating process for the developable surfaces of the Bezier 12.5 incorporates the 'Natural Lay' of sheet-metal with a process know as 'Floating the Longintudinals'which eliminates the 'Hungary Horse' look seen on many Single and Double hard chine hulls. See my book 'True Round Metal Boat Building' for further details.

Fairing the Hull

Do to the accuracy of Bezier Chine fabrication method only a skim coat of fairing compound is required to bring the hull to a pristine fiberglass finish.