Building a Keel Stand

[CharlieCobra]

While taking on the project of rebedding the keel on a Canadian Seacraft 36 Merlin, one of the things I've discovered is the lack of any information on keel stands. Seeing as I've seen one built and aided in doing another, we set out to build a bulletproof reusable stand for this job. While the laterals are unique to each boat, the bands and base are not. Here's some pictures of the finished stand for future reference for any intrepid souls wanting to do this to their boats.

The base is built from 4X4's and the upper laterals from 2X10's. The lowers are built from 2X8's. All of it is bolted together using either 1/2 or 3/8's bolts or 3/8's lags for the blind joints.

The stand:



The base and lower lateral joint:



Uppers and upper band:



The bands are through bolted with block fore and aft between them and edges driven in afterwards to pin the keel

We also built new shop doors since the yard tore up the old front moving it. These are attached to the upper wing doors so the whole thing can open to 16' wide or 12'6" when the wings are closed. They also have casters to prevent sagging.