Back at it

January 4, 2010

With the many parties, events, traveling, seeing family, and general time consumption of the holidays in the rear view mirror, project work has reconvened in the shop. What felt like apathy was creeping over the house today, while both occupants tried to get the new year moving in a progressive direction. After aborting the skiing plan, the shop was heated up, lights turned on, and back to the tasks at hand.

Yesterday a bit of skiing took place, after which the boat shrieked for some love and attention. I hopped out to the shop and did what small projects I could. The scarfing of the cabin side stiffeners seemed about the ideal amount of labor.

There is something very soothing and peaceful about a sharp plane running over CVG fir, peeling paper thin shavings off without noise or dust.

A bit of time was spent looking things over and plotting the next move. It looks as if a shopping trip is in order, both online and here in Spokane. Fuel tanks are now necessary to have on hand, as well as picking up some MDO for the seat boxes.

Today, using some mild weather, the epoxy came back out. With a shipment of System 3 high build yacht primer enroute, the fairing needs to come to a close so the area can be primed, final faired, and painted before the roof goes on and makes the space uncomfortable to paint in. Better to utilize an open space when it is available, with a little final fairing and paint work inside a closed space when it is absolutely necessary.

The scarphed fir cured up overnight thanks to the IR heater cooking off the epoxy, so they didn't mind the stress of being bent into place. The normal process of pre-coating with neat epoxy, then mixing up the thickened glue, followed by clamping was the order of the afternoon. A little extra diligence in clamping and cleanup of squeeze out should make for much less effort on the finish work in the spring.

Did I mention that there is no such beast as enough clamps?

These additions should add enough gluing surface to clamp the new cabin top and side shelves in without mechanical fastenings, and offer bracing behind the later-added fillets and tape. A typical Clippercraft would have a 2" board that tapers to around 1"-1 1/2", but the cabin sides always looked a little tall to me. This larger 3" board should draw a lower reveal, making the apparent height a little lower, and giving the cabin sides a slightly leaner look, while adding a little more strength lower in the panel. Time will tell.

Residual thickened epoxy was smeared into the biax tape from the cabin side assembly to save a few bucks on the more expensive fillers that will be employed later.

Chilling off again here might make for tough epoxy use conditions, but the double overcoating needs to happen this week. Hopefully Mr. UPS man feels up to the task of bringing in the filler primer, and that bow area can get buttoned up pronto. Stick around, work is going to get done!

This is the cabin, forever.

December 23, 2009

The last of the good weather was used to the fullest extent, getting every ounce of heat out of the sky and the power bill. Day one included trimming the cabin front up a little tighter, then stitching it to the cabin sides, as well as bracing it to some clamped formers. This sucked... Luckily I took no photos, so there is no evidence.

On the next morning, the fillets needed to be placed, filling the gaps between the side panels and the decks, as well as making a nice smooth radius for the biax and woven tapes to lay down on. This was done, as well as cutting the overage from the cabin front.

Trimming the cabin front, then rounding the corners and filling the seams made for a shapely cabin front edge.

Here is a shot of the shapely cabin front, all her brilliant, water shedding roundness on full display:

Using MarinEpoxy fast hardener I was able to do morning fillets and afternoon glass. This is ideal for both expediency and strength, as it allows the epoxy to cross-link and become a single cohesive piece, instead of the fillet bonding to the wood and the glass bonding to the sanded fillet.

Thanks to some leftover supplies from my last project, I had a couple rolls of fiberglass laying around to use for this project. The exterior received 12 oz 6" 45/45 biax tape which is bulletproof, easy to lay, extremely strong, and quite pleasant to work with, minus the unabashed lust it has for epoxy.

Thankfully, my friend Jerry showed up to have a look at the boat, just as I was gloving up to start glassing. I began laying goo down, then rolled on the glass, and he just graciously picked up the laminating roller and started pressing the fabric into the epoxy. This made work much faster, as I normally have to alternate between mixing, laying epoxy, and pressing it in with the roller.

Using these tools makes a layup tighter than a frog's ass, which keeps epoxy usage down and increases strength, reducing the glass-epoxy ratio to 50% or less. Inside I chose to go with something that wasn't quite as strong, but is more versatile and easy to fair. The lighter 9 oz. 4" woven tape goes down with very little epoxy required, and fairs with the slightest amount of compound.

With the cold moving down again from the north, Christmas around the corner, and family making a surprise visit from South Dakota, work has crept to a halt. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, and please come back for a visit before the new year. I have a feeling things are going to kick back up, as the seat boxes are starting to gel in the plans department.

Starting to look like a Clippercraft

December 18, 2009

It was downright balmy in the shop this fine afternoon, cresting at over 40 degrees. With heaters, I think we achieved over 50! It was actually warm enough for the medium hardener to start kicking off before it was all spread.

With such fortuitous weather, the side panels must be glued. I did a little detail trimming to give them more shape, close up the fitment against the deck, and added some slope to the aft edge to make them more visually appealing and not as tall to the eye.

Once they were near perfect, it was off to the races. There was a final mockup and dry fit with the clamps in place, then the gloves went on to start mixing. I did have a brush-throwing moment when I realized I had prepped and glued everything up, but neglected to tape or plastic wrap the end of my many clamping blocks. Infuriating to say the least, as I had to stop with epoxy kicking off to put some cling wrap on the wood.

After that situation was mitigated, the rest of the simple glue-up went very smoothly.

What little amount of wood was removed from the aft edge of the cabin sides really made a difference as to how bulky and boxy the panels seemed. This will be even more effectively mitigated when the clamping/gluing trim board is added at the top of the panel. It will be tapered to a shape that accentuates the cabin most effectively.

When trying to get the angles of the panels right, we have to decide an effective way to hold them with what we have in our respective shops. The cabin sides needed to stay at the prescribed 8 degree angle bow to stern to give the boat a consistent smooth line, but I had very little to hold them with. Enter clamps, weight, and strings. Remarkable in its effectiveness, the panels are securely held in one plane with the clamps, and enough tension exists to pull strings tight to keep all the panel angles within a degree of ideal.

The cabin front is built, but this boat builder is completely confused as to how exactly I'm going to hold it in place without either breaking something or pulling other panels out of alignment. Stop back by in the next few days, see what happens!

Frigid conditions

December 11, 2009

Work has slowed tremendously due to the bitter cold that has wracked the Spokane area. Daytime temps barely creeping into the double digit range, below zero at night, and serious negative wind chill factors have slowed progress. A lack of finances to insulate the work space has created a bottleneck, as I can't generate enough heat to do fiberglass work some days, and others it is just too cold to work.

Luckily the task necessary was one that wasn't terribly heat intensive this week. The side panels have now been scarphed, cut, and temporarily mocked up for inspection and final fitting.

Here is a quick run through the progress. The scarphs were cut with a combination of a DeWalt RO sander using 40 grit paper, and a Stanley hand plane. This makes fast work of plywood scarphs in the 8:1 range.

Next they were coated with neat epoxy, using MarinEpoxy from BoatBuilder Central. This will get the joints properly coated so they don't end up dry and coming apart.

We then mix in some wood flour to thicken the remaining epoxy, coat both sides, then line up the joints and nail them to a plastic coated surface to hold the joints steady, firmly, and securely until the joint cures under the light of a IR quartz heater.

The finished product:

While that was curing up, might as well take some time to do a little final mocking and fitting to get everything just right. I took the original windshield (a low runabout affair), turned it upside down, and fixed it to the rafters at the 17 degree angle I plan to use. Then a few pieces of wood to simulate a cabin top and side, just to see how it all lays out.

I like the feel that the cabin side templates gave, so the saws make another appearance. The last order of the evening was to place the actual cabin sides (the aft edges untrimmed yet) and get a template made for the cabin front.

Please ignore the height of the front panel, it was not trimmed to the appropriate radius as of the time of the photo. Here you can see the curvature imparted to ease the lines in front, and allow better ability to shed water and tolerate wave pressure.

The holidays are creeping up fast, so work will be spradic at best. Hopefully the time comes available to complete the cabin front, the cabin sides get glued in place, and the fwd cabin top gets placed. Keep checking back to see the progress!

Cabin sides templated

December 2, 2009

We have some weather issues ahead, so time is of the essence! It's taking a turn for the colder here in Spokane, with the lake freezing up a little more each day, the rowing shell growing a little hoary frost, and the work boat getting iced into the dock. 3 heaters in the shop, but I'm not sure it will be enough to do epoxy work.

Today the cabin side mockups were used to create cabin side templates. There is no better material out there that I have found yet than cheap lauan ply, a staple gun, and clamps to create templates quickly. Here is a short photo series for the lower cabin sides.

Initially, I used the mockups to draw a good representation of the deck curvature (a significant shape in a dory hull). Transferring this curve to some 24" templating stock, I left all other edges square to have the maximum working room.

To minimize tophamper and give her a nice clean shape, a straight, level line just below the tip of the bow is created from the bulkhead height to the cabin front area. I use a 1/8" aluminum bar stock strap to draw lines and give a visual representation to look at before making final marks.

Once it all looks right, lines go down and saws start up. I've come to the conclusing that one needs to work by eye with boats more often than not, as measurements and drawings are okay, but have a habit of not turning out appropriately sometimes.

Just for the fun of it, let's see where the cabin might end up and how it looks proportionally.

With a little remaining time and some extra templating stock, might as well get the cabin front laid out and see if we can't bang out a template. This was a bit of a challenge, as the bow deck camber and the cabin top camber are slightly different, plus everything is on a slope to make her a little more sleek. I drew the deck camber first, cut it, fit it, then pulled the top camber from the main bulkhead, cutting the sides by using the cabin shapes instead of measuring it.

A very pleasing amount of accomplishment for a 4 hr work session. Unfortunately it's time to dig back into the pocketbook for more cash, as the scrap plywood supply won't provide enough stock to build the cabin out. Hopefully tomorrow the cabin side blanks can be taped together and prepped for lines transfer before shift. Here is a final shot showing the side decks and the small amount of slope added to the cabin sides to keep the boat from looking boxy.

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