Taking shape

Almost all of the bulkheads are on!

Bulkheads one, two and three

After the all important morning coffee it was time to head out to the boat shop. The goal today is to get bulkheads one, two and three glued up. After spending the morning measuring and cutting the notches where the bulkheads fit over the stem keel batten and seat front stringers everything is now in place ready to strategies clamping and gluing. But first it is now time for afternoon coffee. Then back out to finish the job. The picture from the aft is taken with me standing in the cockpit of the boat. The stringer on the starboard side is temporary.

Holidays

Progress made between family and friends over the Holiday season has been good. The center case has gone on, as well as the stem and bulkhead four. I was thinking today of how it seems like just yesterday when this stage felt far off. It's exciting to see it all taking shape. Here's some pictures of where we are at now. Also I have the next week off. My goal is to put as much time in as I can over the next few days. Happy holidays!

Symmetrical

The starboard seat front stringer is on! My personality generally likes things to be in order, even, symmetrical... Having only one side on, the bottom panel did not look symmetrical. I think thats why when I finished gluing and clamping the second one on I had this uncontrollable smile it made me almost feel guilty for being so happy. Like I am supposed to save this kind of inward joy for when I have a kid or something. It felt good. I am also starting to master the art of taking a step back and admiring the progress that has been made. My past employer, Mark Cramer started me in this teaching. I remember when a piano had gone through a full restoration and was now complete it meant that a French press and two coffee glasses were in order. Coffee, nectar of the gods!

wood bending 101

You would never know that there is around 2 inches of snow outside the shelter. I was sitting at five degrees inside and over ten degrees when I put the plastic tent back over the gluing area. Last night I brought the seat front stringers inside after cutting scarfs into them and glued them together in the living room. Today the port side seat front stringer got put in place. This was the first wood bending I have ever done. It wasn't a big piece, but still rewarding to see it take shape. I think tomorrow is a Christmas shopping day, so maybe on Thursday I will get to the starboard stringer.

Lost and Found

Finally! Today's temperature has been in my favor. After being able to spend so much time each day after work on the boat and then to have to stop because of the weather for a week was hard. It felt like "something was missing" The only work that was done out in the shop was Christmas tree prep the other day.
This morning I set up a tent over the whole length of the bottom panel with lamps inside and a thermometer. After monitoring the temperature change inside the tent I decided that it was a good day to glue the keel batten onto the bottom. Pilot holes got drilled and counter sunk from underneath. I made sure that in the area of the center case, where the opening would be cut out I had the screws go around the perimeter. There is a scarf in the keel batten so I glued this together at the same time as gluing it to the bottom. It wasn't a lot of time spent but it felt good to be back out there! Crawling around under the boat today and working inside this tent made me think of when I was younger and we would build forts in the yard out of whatever we could get our hands on.

Weather permitting

I'm at a bit of a stand still at the moment, this last week we had a few very windy days which brought a lot of cold air from the north down. With that there was a big drop in temperature. At the moment I don't have a lot of cutting that can be done. Mostly assembly with epoxy. For fear of risking an unstable cure with the epoxy I am waiting for warmer weather to move ahead. According to the weather forecast it should be warmer this weekend and a few days this week. Not like being back home in Manitoba, where once winter settles in it's there to stay for a few months or more. So for now I will have to allow the weather to pick and choose which days I can make progress.

Bottoms done, It can only go up from here!

The bottom is cut out and the raised rungs on the building frame are cut to the right heights. Also the positions of the bulkheads and seat front stringers are marked on the bottom panel. This is where the boat begins to take shape! I remember a couple weeks ago feeling like there was so much to do until I was at this point. Lots more to go!

Scarf Joint

The scarf is done and gluing! It's an 8:1 cut. The plywood is 9mm thick, so the cut is 72mm back on each piece. did it by sight and feel, no jig, with a power hand planer. The pictures below are where I stopped a bit short. After I flattened by hand with a surform pocket plane, a block sander and a straight edge. Then I did one more pass with the power planer to really smooth it out. Turned out great!

Back on track

The centercase is now fiberglassed on the inside and all put together. Everything is now back to normal after the mishap with the side pieces for the centercase. I took some time today and organized all the scrap pieces of wood and tidied up a bit. Now its time to move ahead on the scarf joint. There hasn't really been any point so far that I have felt hesitant about. But for some reason this scarf joint has me. Maybe it's because there are many comments online in various posts and articles about the difficulty of this cut and how it needs to be perfect and you need a jig... I don't really want to make a jig. If I thought I was going to be making a few of these boats then maybe I would make a jig. So instead I'm going to make the measurements and plane away! On another note I have to say I am quite pleased with the progress so far and how things are shaping up. It's a big project but it has been very relaxing and rewarding for me so far. Just one small step after another. With the use of the yahoo group and previous builders blogs, sites, or Flickr accounts I feel like there is a lot of support for new builders. Having those resources has been very beneficial.

What? Everyone else gets a shot of this!

I clamped some of the pieces up, to get an idea

of what it will look like.

View from the aft

Inside of the centercase fiberglassed

Getting ready to scarf

comments

I fixed the comments section so that anyone can comment without being a member.

Not as planned

This morning I went outside to unveil the centercase parts that had been glueing overnight. Once I had the plastic covering off and the clamps all put away, I noticed a big mistake. You might be able to see from the pictures in the last post. What happened in my frenzy to glue-up and take pictures of it I managed to make two identical pieces. With the seat supports glued on the same side of each panel instead of on the outside faces of each panel. Not sure of how to un-glue epoxy I pulled out my power hand planer and worked everything down till I was at the plywood panel, then some scraping and sanding finished the job, I cut new pieces and glued them on to the right side this time. Lesson learned. Other then that I managed to fiberglass the other inside surface of the centercase and glue the end pieces on to that one. Not a completely lost day.

Leading up to the scarf

In anticipation of loosing shop space once the jig is fully set up and the bottom panel is attached I have been trying to get as much of the bulkheads and centercase completed beforehand. I now have all the bulkheads ready for placement except the transom. The seat fronts are cut. All my 1"x 6" rough cut Douglas fir has been dressed. I borrowed a thickness planer to do this then on the table saw cut the keel batten and all stringers. I have taken a risk and glued bulkheads four and five together with their braces. The risk is that if not properly measured they will be out of alignment when fitted to the bottom panel and centercase. All of the pieces for completing the assembly of the centercase are cut. I have also decided to fiberglass the inside of the centercase, this will have to be done before the final assembly stage. Once it is put together there wont be enough room to do anything inside. The centercase is a big job, since there are many pieces that need to be attached. They all can't be attached at once, some on the inside some on the outside. Each gluing faze needs 15 hours for the epoxy to cure. Patience!!! This is all leading to the bottom panel and the joining of two full sheets of plywood with a scarf joint. -My excuse is the shop space, I think I am actually avoiding getting on with the scarf joint. An eight to one angle cut along the end of each sheet of ply then mated and glued. The result is a four foot by 16 foot sheet of plywood.

The parts pile

The Measuring pumps make it a nice product

to work with. The pumps automatically give you

the right ratio.

Clamping in the form of weight.

Keeping an eye on the tempurature while waiting

for the epoxy to cure.

Time well spent

Surprisingly enough I think this has been the first weekend that I have been able to spend a good amount of time working on the boat. Up till now it has been after work during the week. Over the last few days I have been able to get the doublers on bulkheads one and two and the stem glued up and notched. I also have the port holes and ventilation holes cut out for these. I am super happy that I'm going to be able to work ahead with the epoxy using a lamp and plastic sheeting to keep the temperature up. That could potentially take a few months off of the overall build time. YAY!!!

Stem and First three bulkheads.

Stem Glue up. It was twenty degrees Celsius

under the plastic.

Rain and Wind

It's been raining each day now for over a week, around 250-300mm for the week. My make shift shop has been holding up. The rain hasn't been a problem, I get more worried about the wind. Ever since I started opening up the ends to let the wind blow through it hasn't been as much of a problem, I just have to keep a watch on the forecasts. Maybe it's a little crazy to be doing this boat building thing now, It's cold, wet and windy. On top of that it gets dark around five in the afternoon. But I think for me thats part of what drives me.
If its not a challenge or if its what "most" people would do then I feel less inclined to do it. I think thats maybe why it was so easy for me to get into sailing. I like a challenge as long as it makes sense. Having a worth while product when its all said and done, and being able to enjoy that for years to come makes sense. I also think a lot about how there are people out there who have these thoughts and dreams of someday doing this or that or building a boat or whatever. Yet, life goes on and maybe they aren't able to get around to those dreams. I think for me being younger the idea is that these kinds of activities are for when your older or retired, when you have more time. But I like thinking, why wait! Lets go! Just do it! So, It's two degrees Celsius (36 F) Its raining, you don't have a shop, your renting an apartment, How do you build a boat in this situation? Perseverance. Good landlords. Amazing girlfriend and be willing to work in less then ideal conditions.

Cutting out the seat fronts

Light sighted down the cut line to allow me to see

the pencil mark easier.

Without the flash!

Here is a shot of the built in blower on the jig saw

doing a good job of keeping my line of sight clear.

This is how we do epoxy work when its only two

degrees Celsius outside! I'm using West System

epoxy, cuz thats what I have used in the past. I haven't

used filler before though. The 406 Colloidal Silica by west

system is what I have chosen for filler. It thickens

the epoxy nicely. One nice side effect is that the squeeze

out doesn't drip and run as much.

No, its not a space ship. The plastic sheeting and the

lamp under keeps it above ten degrees celcius, more

then enough for the epoxy to cure.

Building Jig

It feels like its been a while. I haven't been idle. I wanted to do something about the amount of space I have to work in. It was beginning to feel small. So although I had good intentions of storing my plywood horizontally keeping it flat with clamps I have now built a rack with a slight lean to store the plywood on. Giving me an extra three feet or so to work with. It is still clamped tightly together with cheaper ply on the outside. Then I realized that I had too much room and needed to cramp it up again. I began the task of building the frame or building jig that the boat will eventually be sitting on during construction. I didn't think it would take as much time as it did to put together. What took me the most time was getting the cement bases that it would sit on level. Even then the actual length of each leg had to be cut to differing heights due to the ground being very uneven. I still have a few more braces length wise to add in. It wasn't really until I started building the frame that the size of the boat really sunk in. Then you can start to visualize and get a feel for the dimensions. My work space is going to be tight and cozy. I am thankful for the use of this space.

I have "Reefing lines" added to my tarps at each end

to allow the wind to blow through on really windy days.

Here you can see some of my new lights.

Cold start at 32 F. or 0 degrees Celsius

.

Not sure if they will stay or if they will get a layer of ply

on top, but I've got some shipping pallets as flooring

to keep me off the ground a little.

Cutting out Bulkheads

Now that I feel like I have spent more time working on and building the shelter for this project, then actually working on the project it's time to make some progress. The wood has arrived and the templates are traced out. There are no guidelines for marking out the pieces on the plywood, I feel like I have done a good job at keeping waste to a minimum. A step that I have been looking forward to has been to actually cut out the bulkheads. I purchased a Bosch barrel grip jigsaw Model: 1591EVSK. SO comfortable to use! As of today I have all eight bulkheads cut out and the transom as well. Now I feel like I'm actually starting to build a boat!

I have since added more light, so I dont have

to bend over so much to see my lines. Also I

have added safety glasses.

Shelter

Once I felt like I had a good handle on the plans and all the templates were cut out it was time to order the plywood and lumber. I decided on Marine Meranti (Phillipine Mahogany) Brand "Aqua-tek" BS 6566 from Westwind Hardwood. A few days before the wood arrived I realized I needed somewhere to keep it. My landlords have allowed me to build a shelter under their patio. Perfect! I've got around 10x20 feet to work in. It has been raining almost everyday for the last week so I am happy to say that the shelter is working perfectly. I bought an outdoor thermometer and put it up inside, My average temp. while working has been 10 degrees Celsius, thats roughly five degrees warmer then what the weather forecast is.

I have since closed in the open end

Getting ready to start tracing the templates

onto the plywood!

Research

After much research online looking for the right boat for the pacific northwest I came across John Welsford's designs. Beautiful boats and there are currently around five or six being built in this region. After more research into this design and finding the John Welsford Yahoo group, where the designer himself is ready to answer questions along with the many other builders who hang around the forum. Knowing that there is a good support base and the design seems right for the coastal conditions here I ordered the plans from Duckworks. The first step for me after receiving the plans was to first figure out what I was looking at and how to interpret the plans. After that I decided to make full size templates out of bristol board. I'm not sure if this is called lofting, but i imagine it is similar.