Pax 20 Assembly Manual corrections

Builder's Forum
1

I hope that my experience will help future builders. Beginners may be confused by an error on sheet 1 of the plans: crossection C-C is not the location of bulkhead # 3. The crossection and the plan view do not agree. Easy enough to figure out if you're familiar with plans and boats, but just saying. The bigger problem I found is that the manual does not treat the installation of the deck at the stern. The tech who answered my inquiry call was very helpful, but obviously there is something wrong with the manual. I apparently was sent an older version; I don't know if the newer version addresses the stern deck issue. The issue is that in order for the deck to install onto the planed sheer clamps, either the kingplank under the deck has to planed off at the stern, or the sheer clamps and the stern transom have to be inlet for the king plank. The manual says nothing about this. An experienced builder can figure out the two options to install the deck, but a beginner will be flummoxed. The tech said the recommendation is to inlet the king plank by paring away wood from the inside edges of the sheer planks at the stern, and inletting the plank into the top edge of the transom, then gluing on the other transom. Ahah! They included two transoms for a reason...I thought it was just an oversight, or because previous builders had boogered up one and needed an extra. Well, the manual says nothing about gluing the two transoms together to make one of greater thickness, if that was the intent. I built the boat with a single bow and stern transom, and with the end pours, can't imagine that there will be any issue with strength. If the designer wants a double thickness transom, the manual should say to glue them together before they're installed. At this point, I see no reason to glue on an extra transom at the stern, especially since fiberglass has already been applied over the one transom. I hope that CLC will 1: amend the manual to clarify this issue and 2: get rid of previous versions of the manual. Oh, and one other point! There is a photo of the stern following sheer clamp planing, and the caption says that the Pax 20 transom does not have the notches. It clearly does have notches on the transom that was sent in my kit, which makes the photo confusing.

 

 

 

 

2

After puzzling over the transom issue some more, I believe that CLC sent the wrong stern transom with my kit: they included the PAX 18 transom, instead of the PAX 20 transom. I compared the full-sized transom pattern on the PAX 20 plans with the transom that was in my kit, and they don't match along the upper edge. This would explain why the manual's photo of the stern transom I referenced in my original post says that the Pax 20 transom doesn't have the notches seen in the Pax 18 transom. Had I been sent the correct transom, the work-around procedure I used to install the stern deck flush on the sheer clamps, transom and end pour might not have been necessary. Live and learn. My advice: when you get one of the PAX kits, compare each wood part with the pattern on the plans. If they don't match, you might have been sent the wrong part. It seems that CLC has a problem with pulling the correct parts for the Pax kits, as they also sent me the PAX 18's shorter sheer clamps instead of the longer ones for the Pax 20, which I noticed after scarfing the short ones together. CLC promptly sent me the correct, longer sheer clamps when I notified them of the error.