More progress and a few details

I feel like I made some great progress this weekend. Between kid's events and work it's been hard to get solid blocks of time to dedicate to the project. A little trim here, a little tuck there, but not any real time. Well, this weekend, there was nothing on the schedule. No games, no dances, no places to be. The weather started off chilly and ended up in the 50's on Sunday. I opened the garage doors, let the sun and fresh air in, and got down to work. Several things got accomplished:

I got the seat fronts measured, cut and installed. I made the rudder cheek assembly.

Cut the holes for inspection ports, and laminate a reinforcing ring to the inside face

Picture of the finished inspection port with reinforcing doubler ring.

Seat fronts installed and setting up. Trickiest part here is getting the angle right on the aft side so that the ransom angles back correctly.

Made the seat faces slightly oversized so I can plane them down once the seat stringer is in place. In this picture, the bulkhead frames are clamped on for dry fit/visual check.

Making the rudder cheeks. I had a nice piece of white oak, so I sized the plank, planed it to thickness and made the first cheek. I used this as a pattern for the 2nd cheek, and then used the sizing of that and dimensions from the plans to do the spacer blocks.

Simple geometry drawn on the plank

Rudder cheek, starboard side. Pivot point epoxy filled to be drilled out to size later. Stainless screws countersunk and covered over with thickened epoxy.

Front view of the cheek assembly. I'm quite proud of how this turned out.  The cuts and holes are quite precise and clean, and the whole thing feels solid and like something that will last.

I used a 3/16" rounding plane to knock the edges off the corners of the piece. It's one of my favorite tools. It cuts true and smooth, and leaves the piece with a wonderful hand-feel. If you click the image and look closely at the edges, you'll see what I mean.

Here are a few pictures from some of the little details that I've been working on evenings after I get home from work. Little stuff for sure, but stuff that's fun and will add to the overall nice finish of the boat once it's done.

This is the temporary king plank. I say temporary because I'm not sure I want it made from pine, which is what this plank is. Maybe it should be oak? 

I like this detail on the centerboard case. I shaped a piece of white oak to the proper dimensions, and then on the underside, I made 3/4 cuts through the plank every inch or so. The idea was to make the board flexible below so that it could bend to the curve of the sides of the case. It was then secured with epoxy and screws. Eventually, I'll make a covering board from laminated teak. 

This is the floor brace for Bulkhead 5. I used my Bosch jigsaw to cut the profile of the base moulding, and my 3/16 roundover plane to soften the top edges of the brace. 

Precision fitting the port seat face to where it meets the transom.  Nice fit. Right angle. 

Making the inspection ports on Bulkhead 3. These will be sealed with rubber gasket/o-rings and then mounted with  thumb screws. I don't anticipate having to take these off every day...


Now that the seat faces are in place, I'll begin gluing up each of the bulkheads in preparation for putting the stringers on. I'm quite nervous about this. As they say, this is where the rubber meets the road. I'll get to see just how far off my measurements were and how bad my cuts were! Hopefully, there won't be too much in the way of re-fitting.  

How's she lookin'?

Well, today I needed some encouragement. When you spend all this time making things that don't look much like a boat, you need some visual affirmation that you're actually getting someplace. So as my centerboard trunk was setting up, I dry fitted the transom and the first few bulkheads. This layout gives you some sense of what the boat will ultimately look like.

View from the port stern quarter

View from the bow. Once again, crooked cameraman. BUT...it's encouraging to be able to let your eye draw in the various stringers and planks to see that your measurements are not horribly off the mark, and that everything seems to be lining up right about where it should be.

Another view. You can almost see the sweep of the sheer and the counter turn of the plank at the forefoot. Almost.  ;)

Putting the centerboard trunk together

For some reason I've been really dreading this part of the build. I guess I'm afraid that if I don't get it perfectly right, then the whole project will end up badly.

Centerboard trunk sides. Inside glassed. Outside not.

Layers of epoxy to fill in the 'glass weave. Wood grain looks so pretty. Shame nobody will ever see it again!

Anyway...I cut the side pieces and 'glassed the inside faces of the trunk and milled some stout pieces of white oak for the end and top logs.

As usual, lots of clamps are needed to hold this all together. I'm favoring the blue Irwin clamps, which have a cool feature that allows you to flip the head around to create a spreader instead of a clamp. In this picture you can see that I'm pushing against the seat stringer so that the structure sits perfectly astride the keelson.

View from the stern. I know it doesn't look vertical. But it is. Checked. Checked again. Checked a third time. It's straight up and down. Just a bad cameraman I guess!

 I cut all the cheek pieces and bored oversize holes through them for the centerboard pin. These holes were then epoxied to make a nice hard-wearing bushing. I attached the seat stringers.

Here you can see the oversize hole drilled for what will ultimately be 1/2" stainless pivot pin. 

Before installing, I inserted the still-in-progress centerboard to make sure it all fit together and moved freely. So far so good.

Going on faith that nothing was going to change dramatically I then dropped the entire unit into the centerboard slot on the bottom plank, epoxied it all into place, and then glued the cheek pieces on.

Using Diettrich's method, I created both an epoxy fillet AND decorative moulding pieces to both lend strength and style to the trunk. Once the boat gets flipped over, I'll work on the bottom side of this structure. I will reinforce the entire union with stainless screws and fiberglass tape.

What's different from the picture above? The maple moulding at the base of the cheeks and on top of the cheek. Not the best picture, but I'll take more when the clamps come off. I planed the backside of the moldings to create about a 3/8" triangular hollow. I laid a "peanut butter" fillet down and then clamped/screwed the moldings on top of it. I think this will prove to be an attractive and strong joint.

Making the rudder blade

I decided to make up the rudder blade. This was a fun little project, and I think it's coming out great so far.

I started with rough-cut Honduras mahogany and white oak. Using my Home Depot-rented Makita table saw, I ripped the planks into roughly sized staves and laminated them together with thickened epoxy to form the rudder blank.

Oak and mahogany staves

Staves glued up into a blank 

I made a cardboard template from the plan specifications and used that to trace the shape onto the blank. Using my little band saw, I trimmed the blank.

Rudder blank is shaped and planed. Very pleasing work using a nice hand plane.

Then using the drill press, I bored the holes for the pivot pin and the rudder up-uphaul and down-haul hardware. Gotta make sure they're perpendicular to the plane of the blade!

Holes drilled for pivot pin, and up- and down-hauls

Then I used my router with a round-over bitt to shape the leading and bottom edge of the blade. 

Rounded edges. 

Here's the 3/4 finished rudder. I still need to taper the trailing edge, sand and apply several layers of epoxy to waterproof and harden it.

Shaped, planed, drilled and rounded rudder blade

After that, it's on to the rudder cheeks.

Centerboard cuts

After all the work of scarfing, measuring, cutting and trimming the bottom plank, plus the addition of the keelson and seat stringers, the prospect of cutting a big hole in the bottom of the boat was more than scary. I also have never really used a circular saw, so it was even more daunting. But as it turned out my fears were for naught. The measurements held true, the lines were straight and the resulting slot will accommodate the centerboard trunk very nicely. There's still a little bit of clean-up work to do on the corners, but it's mostly done. 

The chisel and edge-plane proved to be the perfect tools for the job of cleaning up the slot. 

You can see the supporting section braces underneath the cut-out, with a little bit of junk yet to be cleaned up  in the corner.

I also was able to get the first two coats of epoxy onto the garboard plank. Much easier to do now rather than after I get all the bulkheads on. It looks so shiny now...almost as if it were varnished...but it needs another coat, lots of sanding and filling in the weeks ahead.

Epoxied bottom plank

I finished fiberglassing the insides of the centerboard trunk. This will make it completely waterproof and very strong.

One side of the CB trunk glassed. The other...not. 

Now...I need to find a table saw to borrow from somebody. I've got some serious lumber ripping to do...Given some of the severe compound curves in upcoming steps, I was reading from other  builders that it's much easier to laminate the stringers, rather than bend thicker pieces.

A stack of rough sawn Honduras mahogany, ash, and white oak ready to be ripped and cut down to size. This wood will be used to  make up the rudder blank, and the CB trunk logs and top/

All these 1x1 poplar stringers need to be ripped in half. 

If the weather is nice, and I get a little bit of time this weekend, I am going to attempt to melt lead, cut a big hole in the centerboard and pour a 30 lb lead weight into it. Another series of firsts...more to come!

More Progress

 So once most of the parts were cut out and assembled, I assembled the building frame which is shown below. It doesn't look like much, but it is level in both directions and very sturdy and solid. Each one of the cross stations has a specific height which corresponds to the bottom curvature of the boat. Once the garboard plank is fastened on top, it will set up to the final curvature. Further additions of planks, keelson, stringers and bulkheads will end up holding the shape.

Building jig/frame. I see a nice bonfire in the future. :)

 In a previous post, I talked about cutting out the bottom plank. Below is a picture of what it looks like before fastening onto the frame. The plank will be held in place to its shape by a few temporary drywall screws that will be removed when the time comes to flip the boat.

Garboard (bottom plank) laid on top of the frame.  

Front view of the same thing. The curves look pretty fair. 

I tried taking a picture close to the edge. It's hard to get a feel for the sheer (curvature) of the board...but it looks nice. 

 Once the plank is positioned and fastened on the frame, I spent some time lining off centerlines, bulkhead stations, and stringer positions. I also pre-drilled and counter-sank holes on the bottom of the plank for securing the keelson. The photo below shows the keelson being glued to the bottom plank. I used white oak...a wood that has a very pleasing heft and solid feel to it. It's also highly resistant to rot; not that that will be particularly important as it will be encased in epoxy by the time I'm done with it.

Further proof that you can never have too many clamps when building a boat. Work has stopped until the epoxy sets up because I don't have any more bar clamps!

 I had to crawl under the boat to drive all the stainless screws that hold the keel in place. At this point, I have to say, I'm pretty glad that I build the frame at table height. I have a feeling I'm going to spend some more time underneath there, so it's good that there's a little room to maneuver around. I ain't as spry as I used to be!

View from stern looking forward. 

Side view. Here you can get a better feel for the curvature of the bottom.

Next up, fitting the seat bottom stringers, cutting the centerboard trunk slot, epoxying the entire bottom of the boat, and fitting the stem. 

I couldn't resist...

I managed to get the bottom plank cut out on Monday night, and now that the base shape has been established, I wanted to see what some of the bulkheads and stem look like dry fit. 

Before I actually get to fitting them, I still need to finish the base ladder frame. There will be 9 stations of varying elevations fixed to the frame that will provide the "rocker" or bend to the garboard plank. Once these are installed, I'll glass the inside of the plank, fasten the keelson, and then begin permanently fitting the centerboard case and various bulkheads. From here on out, it will start to look more and more like a boat. 

As many people have written before me, there are myriad details to this project. It's one of those things that if you actually made a list of everything that needs to be done to complete this boat, you might never undertake the project. I'm a bit impatient by nature, and I'm constantly fighting a great temptation to jump ahead and perhaps gloss over details. But I know from my limited experience that the more detail I pay attention to now, the less work I make for myself later on. I find myself having to think several steps ahead of where I'm working. For instance, in order to save myself a massive headache later, I need to fiberglass the inside bottom of the boat now, when there's nothing in the way rather than wait until I have to work around 8 bulkheads and a transom. Likewise, I want to epoxy encapsulate each of the bulkheads now before installing them, as it will be easier to sand and clean up when I don't have to reach round fixed installed parts and stringers. It's something that wakes me up at 3 in the morning sometimes as I come up with little details that I need to attend to before moving to the next step. 

So far, though, I'm having a blast, and greatly increasing my woodworking skills every day.

Oh yes...one big AHA moment yesterday. I splurged on a compact laminate/trim router. Cool little tool, but I underestimated its power. After turning it on, I applied it to a piece of wood to test it out and it jumped right out of my hand. Not once but twice! Luckily it didn't hit me or cause any damage.  But the thought of a router cut in my leg or hand or worse is a good reminder to respect ones tools and make sure to use BOTH HANDS on routers. Even the small ones. 

Starting to take shape

You can almost imagine the shape of the boat!