I have the cabin sides installed on my Weekender. I am confused on how to place stringers on the top of the cabin sides (for the cabin top to attach to). It seems that the instructions more or less say to cut curved stringers for the front of the cabin (up to the first cabin rafter?), then install the cabin chalks and the front and rear panel joiners (where the cabin sides meet) and gussetts - all installed an inch below for the cabin top to attach to. Is there any stringers attached from the front curved stringers to the rear (between all the chalks, panel joiners and gussetts)? I hope this question is not confusing. Bottom line is the directions do not appear to show a stringer along the entire length (sides) of the top of the cabin sides for the cabin top to attach to.
Jeff, working from memory of how I did my Vac, I placed the aft roof stringers up to the panel joiner as stated in the plans. My first rafter fits over the panel joiner as I recall. The second rafter (fwd) fits to the cabin wall and was placed prior to cutting the rest of the side stringers. With the rafter temporarily placed a 1x4 was laid up on the cabin wall and marked to give ~ 2" of surface area following the curve of the house wall. This same process was repeated for the rest of the wall going from one side around to the other. The pieces were cut on my small band saw angled for the lateral slope of the roof. Everything was sanded for finishing and glued and screwed in place. These pieces can also be cut with a jig saw with an angled blade. If you have a sloped front to the cabin wall this is a bit harder as the wall angle is not constant. On vertical or squared deck houses the angle stays the same all the way around. If your curve or angle isn't just "right" some 5200 will fill the gaps and insure good adheason, that or thickened epoxy if you prefer. Hope this helped.
Jeff,
There is "something" to screw into along the whole cabin. Basically, there is stringer everywhere there isn't a rafter. What I did, was to install stringers along the whole edge (since I cut them out at the same time as the lower ones). Then, I just cut out a little pice of stringer large enough to fit the rafter in place. Just be sure not to put screws in the place you plan on removing stringer. You could also measure and cut to length.
I installed the gussetts and chocks and rafters this weekend already. I figure I will just piece in stringers in between.
I don't know about anyone else, but I had one hell of a time trying to get the front rafter chocks installed. I cut and sanded really nice looking chocks with nice curves. Then I go to install the darn things and find out I need to sand the hell out of them to accomodate for the curve in the hull side, the curve in the rafter, and the angle of the cabin deck etc. Uggh. I think this was one of the little headaches you figure out yourself that instructions don't warn you about.
actually, I don't think the stevensons sweat the details. I for example, just let the screws pull the cabin sides to the chocks, and just set the rafters on top without matching the angle.... the rafters meet the chocks at the visible front edge, so all is well. Yours probably looks a lot nicer during a close inspection though. I'm afraid I have very limited sand patience.