Sitting on her trailer...

OK...so I'm finally getting around to posting this only about 4 months past the day I originally wrote it and saved it as a draft. I'm more caught up in actual building than writing about it. But time for a catch up.

Spring is finally here. But days alternate between 40 and 80 degrees and sunshine and rain from moment to moment. We're building a new home, and our current one is up for sale. So my wife is demanding that I keep the "shop" nice and clean so as not to offend prospective buyers. Seems like I spend as much time cleaning up as I do actually building, when I get to spend any time at all!

Anyway, here are a few shots of recent progress. I got several coats of epoxy on the outside of the hull and it's as sanded and smooth as it's going to get. We won't call it a museum quality finish, but 'twill serve. My son and a neighbor helped to lift her off her cradle and place her onto her trailer. I was tired of looking at her upside down. Nice to see her right side up again, and I figured it would be easier to attach the lower sheer strake rub rails from a higher position. Got the rub rails installed which was fun. Nice when planing and sanding and gluing all work out the way you want them to with no major fuss or "do overs".

Spanish Cedar lower rub-rail. Left over material from when I built my CLC Tandem Wherry. 

Rails are glued and screwed. The bungs turned out nice. You really have to look close to even see them.

Got the bow-u-bolt installed too. I was worried about not being able to drive a 12" drill bit straight through the false stem and inside stem without the bit wandering off course. Ended up being easy as pie. So that was encouraging.

There's the bow-eye. You can also see a dry-fitting of the bowsprit.  I have the heel snugged into my samson post. That post is temporary, though. It's way too big for the size of this boat. I'll make a new one about half the size.

I also got the king plank roughed in. I need finish shaping the main mast before I position and cut the mast partner hole in the king plank and trim it to size. But she fits pretty well into the bow of the boat and I managed a pretty clean job of mortising the holes in both the king plank and the samson post for the butt end of the bowsprit. Fun work chopping a mortise by hand. Makes you really feel like you're doing serious woodwork. :)

Mainmast, kingplank, samson post, and bowsprit. Should make for a pretty sturdy combination

Next step is to flip her back over and paint/finish the outside of the hull. Maybe this weekend?

A hinged main mast

I saw an article in Woodenboat magazine (WB #237, March-April 2014) about a year ago describing a simple but elegant mast hinge. I figured that a hinged mast would be easier to manage and set up than standing on a boat on a trailer and manhandling a free-footed 15' spar with all the lines and rigging doodads. So I copied the article and put it on my desk for future reference. This past weekend, I made the mast and hinge. 

For two reasons, I decided to forgo JW's hollow mast design and try out the birds-mouth method. First, I thought having a lighter mast would be good for boat-handling (less weight aloft), and for  ease of rigging-from-the-trailer. Second, I wanted to gain woodworking experience by using the birds mouth technique. 

I bought a nice piece of 16' sitka spruce, and managed to completely destroy it. I had purchased a birds mouth router bit from one of the woodworking mags, but I don't have a router table. So I improvised one. The bit sort of worked...but my table didn't help, and I managed to mangle all my staves beyond usefulness. Not wanting to shell out another $200 for a plank of sitka, I figured I could use prime clear pine. I bought some 8' lengths from Home Depot, and used a rented contractor table saw to make the 45-degree angle cuts after scarfing them together to make 16' lengths. The table saw did a much better job. 

(Note: I keep thinking that a router has the potential to be such an amazing tool. But that thing scares the be-jeezus out of me. The bits are wicked sharp—I sliced my hand wide open and deep just grazing one of them while reaching for another tool! And much as I try, I find that the router has an amazing ability to instantly destroy a perfectly good piece of wood if you're not extremely careful. So for the moment, I use it only when absolutely necessary. 

Anyway. If you want to try making a birds mouth mast, there are some great calculators from Duckworks that can give you all the dimensions you'll possibly need. Here are some pix from my efforts:

Upper mast all glued up. I used cheap hose clamps about 1 per foot of mast length to hold it all together.  The very top and very bottom of the mast have an octagonal solid ash plug. The lower one to hold the hinge parts, the upper one for a solid place to attach the peak halyard block. There's also a solid plug about 18" down from the top where the hounds will be. 

End view of the birds mouth mast. I'm pleased that my math and geometry (never my best subjects!) worked out right and that my cuts were sufficiently accurate to give a nice fit. My dad was kind enough to let me know that a good carpenter would never leave his plane edge down on his bench. Point taken.

Gluing up the stub-mast. This I'm starting square. I'll shape it to an octagon at the deck-level, and then round it where the hinge parts meet.

Here's the bottom of the stub-mast. The square bit will fit into the mast-step installed in the boat a few months ago. 

Making the mast round. Not the plane on it's side ;P    Nothing more gratifying or better smelling than a nice pile of wood-shavings. I took somebody's advice and made sure all the staves grain was going in the same direction, which made the planing a joy. No tear-outs. In this photo, you can see the two stainless hinge "cheeks" with a hardwood spacer between them.

Here's a dry-fit of the hinge assembly. The entire hinge is 18" long.  The bolts are 1/2" stainless, counter sunk into the mast, except for the "lock" pin for ease of access. The stub-mast has not been shaped yet. 

different view of the hinge

Flipped and 'Glassed...

Amazingly, I was able to get her flipped over by myself and using the leverage of a couple of my little "Burro Brand" knock-down sawhorses, was able to position her bottom up for some detailing on the outside. Once you've spent months looking at a boat from a certain angle (on the jig), it's very strange to turn her over. She looks very different and it takes some getting used to.

As I search through the photos, I realize I didn't take any pictures of the fiberglass operation. At any rate. It proceeded quickly and without fuss. I enjoy fiberglassing. There is something very satisfying about smoothing all the fabric and wetting it out and squeegeeing the resin to all the right places. I did a pretty clean job of it, and then proceeded to putting the skeg together. 

I laminated the skeg from various pieces of white oak and mahogany I had laying around.

Here's my improvised jig for compressing the sternmost laminations. It's useful to have a collection of bar clamps. The plastic sheeting covers it so that the compression blocks don't get glued to the skeg. 

After the glue sets up, you can see the various laminations. In this photo, you can also see the difference in color between the naked plywood planks and the area that's been fiberglassed. 

Here's some detail of the centerboard trunk bits. I tried to give them a graceful curve both going in and exiting the trunk. The screw holes will be filled later. 

View of the shaped skeg toward the stern

At this point of the build I went into a sort of depression. There were several things happening. One, I was berating myself about the quality of my workmanship, which I consider to be substandard. Friends look at what I've done and are all suitably impressed. But I look around at what other builders have done, and I'm blown away by their skill and accuracy. So there was that whole thing happening in my head. 

The other thing was the false stem. Early on, I had read where somebody recommended tracing the stem frame onto a piece of ply so that you could bend the false stem to that curve later. I did that. And I laminated up a beautiful white oak false stem. It bent to the curve very nicely. But when I went to put it onto the boat, the curve was wrong and there was a yawning gap between the forefoot of the boat and the inner edge of my false stem. To beat all, the oak laminations and epoxy were SO hard, I couldn't get the darn thing to flex one little bit. So I had to scrap it.

What followed was about 2 months of trying and trying to laminate directly onto my hull. It turned out I was making my laminations too thick and they were snapping right at the tightest curve. I tried different methods, of making a go of it, but every time, right when I would get to the critical moment, the lams would snap.

Finally, I planed down several more staves of white oak to about 3 or 4mm thickness and managed to glue them up in place using nails and sacrificial ply to hold it all to the hull. Sheesh. My least favorite part of the build so far. 

Finished Planking!

I just realized that I hadn't posted in a while. I figured it had been a month or two...but SIX MONTHS?? You'll probably think I have completely abandoned the project, but you would be wrong. We had a cold Wisconsin winter that seems to be dragging on as even in late April, it's unseasonably cold and windy. I worked in the garage as much as work, family, illness, and other commitments would allow. So let me give you an update. I'll do this as a series of small posts so that in the future, it will be easier to reference the various stages of the build.

First off, I finished the planking in the beginning of December 2014. I took the hull off the building jig and cut the various boards down to size to build a little cradle on casters, so I can move it around the garage, and out the door to work on it during nice days. Also, as I begin to move into the finishing stages, it will be better to do all that nasty sanding outside where the dust can blow away and not coat every tool and clog up every corner.

View on the cradle from the port stern quarter. She looks good from far, but far from good! 

At first glance, the sheer looks pretty nice. as you get closer you can see that some of my mis-measurements and bad cuts make her a little less attractive. Lesson learned: Fair your planks before you attach them to the boat. I thought I could use an edge planer to smooth down those little humps and valleys once I had the plank attached. It's not as easy to do as one might think.

View from the port bow quarter. I tried some of the phenolic micro-balloons in an epoxy mixture to make a fairing compound. You can see the brownish purplish smudge on the bow in an attempt to make my first gain-cut look a little better. The top plank where the edge meets the stem didn't turn out as nice as I'd like. But once the false stem is attached and the bowsprit is in place, I don't think anybody will ever notice.

Nice sun-flare of my phone-camera. View from the starboard stern quarter. 

View from dead astern. Pretty symmetrical. 

'Mid-ships view. Love those Welsford lines, and the nice little bulge in the belly. Just like the builder!

Then the snows came and she never saw the light of day for another 4 months! Before moving her back inside, I muscled her off the cradle into the grass and rolled her around a bit. I wanted to get a feel for how solid and strong the hull was at this point. One of my friends asked where I planned to sail her. I told him Lake Michigan and maybe Superior. He balked at that and said he wouldn't be caught dead in my little pile of matchsticks on those bodies. But I have to say, as I man-handled her around, she didn't squeak, crack, or groan. She felt very solid indeed. Once we get all the 'glass and 'poxy and decks and such in place, I imagine she'll be a right solid little boat. 

Making Sails: I'm not as clewless as I used to be?

One of the interesting things about building a boat like this is that you have to always be thinking several steps ahead of where you are. For example, while planking the outside of the hull, you have to plan for and make the cockpit seating. Why? It is so much easier to get the fit and curves right if you don't have installed planks blocking your access and view.

Likewise, as I finish up the top layer of planking I thought to myself, "I need to finish the inside of the bow compartment. Waterproof it and paint it. And then working back from there, make sure that my mast step and holes for the mast are in the right place." Which made me think about the diameter of the mast at its entry point through the deck, and the angle at which it needs to sit relative to the waterline. Which got me thinking about the spars in general and that I ought to make them before I actually cut any deck boards, And then of course, before I actually cut wood for the spars, perhaps I should know the exact size and shape of the sails that will be attached to them.

All of this is to say that I decided I had better make the sails sooner rather than later. Then make the spars. Then test position everything so that I can finish building the hull. It's like building the boat in reverse order from what logic might otherwise dictate.

ANYHOO...I originally thought to buy a suit of sails. There are some excellent choices for ready-made Navigator sails. And then I came across the Sailrite site, which encouraged me to make my own. For giggles, I submitted for a materials quote from Sailrite, and discovered that the materials cost was actually quite reasonable, IF I stayed away from the rainbow of sailcloth colors available. I sent in the dimensions, so kindly provided by Mr. Welford on the sailplan drawings, and within a few days, I was busy down in the sail loft (neé basement). I was fortunate to commandeer the ping pong table, and my daughter's Singer Stylist sewing machine. Over the course of the next 2 or 3 weeks, as time allowed, I knocked a pretty white suit for Puffin. A few photos and comments follow.

I had never used a sewing machine before. The hardest part was figuring out how to load and thread the bobbin. Given the small size of my boat and her corresponding sails, a little consumer machine, like my daughter's Singer worked just fine. I might otherwise have said "worked great" except for one thing: the volume of sail cloth for even a small gaff main like mine is bulky and heavy for a small, lightweight machine like our little electronic Singer. I found that as I was feeding cloth into the machine, I was pushing the machine all over the table. Yeah. Pain in the rumpus. Also the throat depth of the machine was •almost• inadequate for the job. But other things like the myriad choices of stitch style (including a customizable 4-point zigzag stitch!!), tension adjustment, and even power to push through up to 8 layers of 5 oz dacron, plus 2 layers of nylon webbing were just fine.

Laying out the sailcloth panels for the mizzen sail. Decided to start with the smallest sail first, so if I really screwed up...well less damage done.

This is the mizzen head patch. Made up of 5 layers of dacron. Once it's all sewn together I'll appliqué it to the main body of the sail.

Cutting the batten pockets.

Here's the mizzen head patch and first batten pocket attached to the mizzen sail. 

Jib. Laid out and stitched up. No luff wire yet, and no grommets.

Detail of the jib clew patch. Here you can see the 5-layers of  dacron that reinforce this part of the sail that carries the greatest load.

Mainsail laid out and stitched. You can see two rows of reef points.  While JW's plans call for two full battens, the sail designer at Sailrite suggested partial battens throughout, which would not impact performance, but would make it much easier to furl and flake while at her mooring/anchor.

Detail of reef points and batten pockets.

Puffin logo. I wanted something that was reminiscent of a puffin without actually *being* a puffin. The logo is 5 oz dacron  appliquéed to both sides of the sail. Mistake here. I should have pointed the beak a little bit more to the level. I did it perpendicular to the head luff, forgetting that this is a gaff main, the head luff will not be perpendicular to the hull but rather at a slight 10-15˚ angle off vertical. Oh well. Call it Puffin Triumphant. Or Puffin Rising. 

Three finished sails. 

Detail of the jib luff edge. I opted for a roller-furling jib. So the luff of the sail is 3/16" stainless wire spliced to thimbles at each end. The luff also serves as the forestay. The corners of the sail here are hand reinforced with waxed poly sail twine.

Finished Jib clew. Nice leather dressing on the clew will prevent chafe from a flogging jib. Hand-sewn to the nickel #4 grommet.

Mainsail clew. Finished and dressed. Here you see the 5-layer patch, the edge tape, the nickel grommet,  the load-bearing nylon webbing, and the leather edge dressing. I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing this thing could lift 3,000 lbs. It's crazy robust.

A bunch of pictures, a 3rd Course of planks and a tiller

Fits and starts. Fits and starts. I wish the obligations of daily life would stop interfering with my building hours! Alas. Progress continues, and what follows is a random string of pictures of the work over the past few weeks. 

I'm inspired to make rapid progress at this point. I think I mentioned that we're building a new home, and I want this to be finished by the time we move in. I'm also harboring a little plan to launch my Nav in Florida when we head down there over Spring Break next April. So...6 months. But fall is in full swing here in Wisconsin, and the weather is getting colder, and cold weather, ice and snow make for longer hours in the shop, and less time enjoying Wisconsin's waterways.

So... on with the slide show.

Here I'm planing the bevels on the top edge of the 2nd course of planking and stringers to accept the bottom edge of the next plank. You can see I have scribed a line in pencil and am planing down to that line.

Here's another view of the same thing. The objective is to plane the plank and stringer down to the scribe line and close the gap between the plank and the vertical bulkhead. You can see I'm getting close at this point. I do this all by eye and free-hand, checking progress as I go with a scrap of off-cut ply. 

Current view from the step into my garage. You can see the 3rd row of planking complete. I'm fitting the starboard gunwale stringer. The port gunwale is on the floor, awaiting its fitting. You can also see I've dry-fitted the forward compartment "seat" top. This needed to be done as I was putting the 3rd course of planks on. Otherwise it would have been much more difficult to get right afterwards. I think the fun and challenging thing about building this boat is that you have to be thinking 3 or 4 steps ahead of where you're working, or it's very easy to screw and glue yourself into a corner. 

Forward port quarter view of progress. You can see I'm experimenting with phenolic microballoon-enfused epoxy as a filler on the stem sections. I got this idea from Barrett and her blog. Mix a batch of 'poxy, dump a mess of PMB's into it, and whip it up into a light "froth". Trowel it on, smooth it out, let it dry, and sand. Works great as a fairing compound. You'll see more of this once I get the boat turned over.

Front view. You can see the scribed lines on the top edge of the 3rd plank course. That's my planing guideline. I can't bevel these until I have the gunwale stringers finished, as they'll provide the final bevel angle reference point. I chose to do the gunwale stringers in 2 parts. Well...4 actually: two 8-foot length's of 20x20 poplar, scarfed into a 16' long piece. I think the samson post is too big and bulky, don't you? Need to size that down some.

Port side stern quarter, showing butt-end of planking so far. The bottom edges of the planks are not particularly fair yet. But I have a very nice little mini ebony smoothing plane that is working well to trim them. I'll get better pictures of that when I get the boat turned over. I've also clamped the rudder cheeks and blade in place. Because I want to make the tiller next, and I need to make sure the sizing is correct. 

Making a Tiller

So, I looked through the plans a few times and wasn't able to find any specific dimensions for tillers. So I measured the sketches of the finished boat that JW provides and scaled it up. I've decided my tiller will be 47" (1194mm) long with a 6.5" (165mm) rise. I will make it out of laminated Honduras Mahogany and White Oak—same as the rudder blade. Both the blade and the tiller will be 'poxied and varnished. Here are (most of) the steps:

Use a long piece of scrap wood to estimate and measure how long the tiller wants to be

Lay out a grid on a scrap piece of 3/4" ply and draw the lines of the desired shape.

Line up some cheap steel L brackets to use as clamping surfaces for the wood. 

All the the brackets screwed in place. I ran them out longer than needed.

Assemble yer laminations. Here's a stack of HM and WO in rough condition. I didn't take pictures of me running these through a thickness planer to bring each lamination down to 3/16" (5mm) thickness. But it happened. There is more wood than I will need for a tiller in this stack. I will also use it for the stem laminations and skeg.

Planed laminations, nice, clean and shiny smooth, alternating wood species for a stripy effect.

Dry-fit the laminations to make sure they can take the bend and clamp in place.

Mix up a batch of 'poxy goop. Spread unthickend across all lams, then, thicken the remaining goop with wood flour, spread that on all faces (except the outside ones), clamp it up and let it dry. Following SHOULD be a picture of me carving the laminated blank to shape with my handy spokeshave...but I didn't actually take any pictures of that :/

So here are some shots of a rough-carved tiller instead.

Voilá! A rough-carved tiller. Still needs some finessing of thickness. I want this to have some really sexy curves and a good hand feel. That will need to wait until my next shop session.  :)

Tiller protruding from between the rudder cheeks. Yikes. Can't believe I wrote that sequence of words.  Pin hole still needs to be drilled. Final shaping still pending.