Time adjustmentFebruary 21, 2010Just a quick installment tonight, as there hasn't been as much work done as I'd like but there has been some progress. That foredeck has been trimmed and cleaned up to give her lines a much sharper look and she's really growing a personality of her own. The main project of the weekend was to get the side decks completed as they are the last external surface that requires construction aside from the cabin windows and roof. It took several cuts to get the shape correct, but it finally worked out with some overlap on the outside edge. As you can see below, they are laid up of two layers. First the 3/8" ply goes on to generate the shape and upper fair surface.  With these in place, the shape becomes more clear as to where the cabin roof will attach and how she will shed water. Note the way the cabin sides and the foredeck all work together as a single shape line on the boat.
 After those cure up, the second piece is added to give stiffness and strength. This is the addition of some scrap 6mm 5 ply that I had laying around. Once I have a few extra minutes, the interior of this will get a big thick fillet, but other tasks pulled me out of the shop today.
 Crappy job of focusing on the nice fair cabin edge to bulkhead joint instead of the actual subject matter, but whatcha gonna do? I also took a few extra minutes to dry-fit the new steering wheel and see if the cabinet would allow the 11x15 hatch that I purchased. At first glance it looked like it was going to be too big to open. Luckily, the offset of the steering wheel allowed for plenty of room for the big hatch to open. Good news all around!
 Work tomorrow, then this week should bode well for a high progress ratio, with warm temps and rainy days.
Change in the airFebruary 17, 2010Visually some big things have changed in the shop this week, and it gives the feeling of progress, real progress. It might be a little misguided to think so, but at least we are looking different, not just the same old wood boat every day. All the sanding in the last post generated plenty of dust in the humidity and rain we've had lately. Unfortunately that dust stuck to the boat. Seizing an opportunity afforded by a bright, warm, sunny day, she was wheeled out into the garage for a nice cold water rinse and wipe down to shed all that grime.  It is nice to get her out and start to get a feel for her scale as a whole now. The dust rinsed off quickly, and a 3 minute wipe-down resulted in a clean hull that only needed a quick wipe with odorless spirits to be ready for primer.
 One of the quickie projects I try to fit in between things curing and the shop warming up was fitting out the steering setup. At first I was concerned that it wouldn't line up and won't fit because the steering tube was too long. Well, as you can see, I was wrong:
 Once the wheel is in place, it will slide out perfectly. Next up, a quick dry fit of the cabin roof to make sure we are ready to glue it up and make this not only a cabin boat, but a stiff cabin boat.
 Here we can see the dry fit cabin roof, with about 75% of the clamps necessary to hold it fair, as well as the new primer coats.
 For followers on the various forums, you will know I had a struggle in deciding if I had too much deck camber. Well I left it as-is, and here is the final product:
 That gorgeous ribbon striped mahogany once again makes an appearance on a Clippercraft, and will be coated in a clear System 3 product that should give a clear, glossy coating without the repetitive hassles of varnishing. The paint has been cut in at roughly the waterline, but it was a guess at best.
 After three days of coating the boat in primer, my hands are covered in whiteish speckles, but we are nearing at least a phase completion. The paint will be ordered tomorrow, and the hull will be deemed finished on the exterior in a couple weeks. In order to continue construction and hpoefully get the interior primered, the cabin top went on today.
 Of course, one can never have enough clamps, so this is as good a job as I could accomplish with the clamps on hand. I have many smaller sets which just didn't have the opening to handle that tall piece of fir, so my hope is that it looks fair when it cures up.
 That curvy cabin ended up relatively sexy, I must say. Port lights are on order as we speak, ovals at the recommendation of some fellow boat builders to keep an elegant appearance to her exterior, not leaning too hard on the workboat look. Off to shift in the morning, allow that roof to cure up, and fiberglass will ensue next go-round.
Getting nervousFebruary 12, 2010I have come to the conclusion that there are not enough hours in the day. I have to either get up at 0700 every day or I need to start working later into the evenings, because the boat isn't completing itself. I've also split off several projects to be done at once, so I can start working on another part if paint is drying or epoxy is curing on something else. Should help the production rate considerably. There was a short period of nausea yesterday when I discovered my dimensions had somehow gone haywire. I included too much arc on the trunk cabin roof, cutting the main bulkhead higher than is necessary. It will be a fast draining boat, and the cabin roof will be stronger for the radius, but she won't look like a standard ClipperCraft. Note the height above a flat plane. This is very much a conic projection, but a bigger one than I'd hoped.  From aft, one can see how steep it will be for electronics mounting, but as they say, Feces Occurs...
 Recovering from that this morning, pressing on was the only option. It won't hinder the boat in any way, and will provide some much needed head room forward, so off we go. Found a possible set of portlights that are 7" x 14" to the outside dimension, so a quick tape mockup was made to get an eye for the size. Looks fine to me.
 A landing pad for the honey bucket was also constructed from offcut 1/2" MDO and some scrap CVG fir from the sole support modifications. This rests on the forward most frame and a glued in CVG wood block, making a sturdy base but keeping it removable for cleaning and maintenance.
 If the paint is out, use it on whatever you can, right? Inside the seat boxes, there was no need to use high dollar paint that isn't going to see the light of day, so I picked up some acrylic machine paint that I've tested a few times on cheap boats. It held up for exterior canoe applications for 3 years outside, so it should be a tolerable fit on the inside of a box.
 My blood pressure has gone up slightly thinking of ways to expedite the completion date and the ability to do sea trialing ASAP. May seems like tomorrow, and probably will feel like it as well. In that vein, I broke out the sander this afternoon and scuffed the entire exterior for primer. The weather has moderated so much here in Spokane that priming and painting are viable, where last year we still had literally feet of snow outside.
 Sanding seems to always get your face close enough to the boat to find all the little flaws. I sanded, but with a Quickfair chaser.
 Tomorrow is wildcard day, I have no plan. We will see what the shop says needs doing.
Shiny thingsFebruary 9, 2010Sorry for the limited number of photos in this post, but work and other tasks outside the shop precluded documentation today. Last night the cabin roof for the trunk cabin spent some quality time under heat, as I spent a solid 4 hours cutting a 60" long, 4" wide scarph joint on two panels, then glued it all up. This was time consuming to say the least, and a good reminder that I need a bigger plane and possibly a power planer someday. Scarph time notwithstanding, at least it was a major step in the project. This will be the lid for the trunk, the dashboard, and the last major style line on the boat that isn't visible in the construction phase. I didn't get a photo of the process, but I certainly have a photo of the final product after a night of gluing under the warm lights.  Mr. Sander came out to grind some fillets, some fairing filler, and some quickfair down to smooth. Photos were boring, they were not included.
Much more time was spent doing the final fit-out of the sole, which was found to be binding against the engine cowling. I had wondered what all the squeaking was about, and it turned out the sole was about 3/4" above the support structure, bound on the cowl base. After some trimming of the sides, everything now lays down snug to the base, doesn't bind or grind on the sides of the boat, and is a nice solid working surface. Lunch, then some time out on the lake bed finishing the dock repair from this weekend. Ice jacking occurred and made our dock taller, less stable, and did some damage to the structure. Nothing that a few hours of rooting around in the mud wouldn't fix. A few requests have popped up for the depth of and impression of space in the working areas. Here I have brought in our lovely model to give some spatial relativity to a 6'3" 200 lb human. Note in this image the cockpit depth.  Here, note the amount of dance floor left for other anglers, gaffers, etc all around the boat, even with my not terribly small frame in the way.
 Some shiny bits have shown up from Fishermen's Supply over in Seattle for the details. Looks like we have scuppers for our cleats, cleats for our scuppers, a steering system, new hinges for the engine box (making it removable as well as opening), dual vented fuel fills, and a hatch cover that may or may not be the right size. All so lovely.
 Last of the forward progress was the roof beam for the trunk. This was cut about a month ago and fitted into a notch let into the cabin bulkhead batten. Today it was screwed into place, then glued and filleted to lock it to the forward and aft bulkheads, tying the whole structure together and providing the primary support for the cabin roof. This makes for a stiff setup that doesn't require laminating parts, but does preclude a typical cabin hatch setup. Still weighing that one, may purchase two of them, may skip it altogether.
 24 hours at the office tomorrow, then back to the grind, putting the steering console in and gluing that to the boat, blocking out and setting up for the scuppers, and fairing the sides for the roof glue-up. More goodies are due in the mail this week, including glass and epoxy.
Honey BucketFebruary 7, 2010Some days I feel like this boat is going to be a breeze to get done before halibut season in May, other days I feel like it might be a huge push and a bit of luck to have her ready for the 4th of July weekend family event and tuna kickoff the following week. So let's start with the tidbits of completion. This was a compilation of small projects that needed to be done before larger progress could be achieved. We start this installment with the gauge cluster (original Clippercraft set) going into the now-faired controls console.  Cool, that's a little achievement already today! How well are those fuel tanks going to fit, since we are in here and all...
 Ooooh, that's a little snug, we will have to figure out a way to restrain the tanks without impeding their ability to flex and give Moeller their 3% expansion zone all around. Sweet, good progress, now let's finish cutting sole panels and get them tidied up so they fit all the newly-faired corners and such.
 Extra Razoo if you ask me. Now there is a sense of something actually looking like the finished product inside the boat. Sole goes down smoothly, seat boxes stiffen the boat up substantially, All wonderful achievements. Time to get down to a little, erm, business.
A good friend down the lake gave me a portable toilet for the boat for free, as he had no use for it and it had never seen any use. The scary part is once again, I have built something strong, clean, and made it all one piece. But, alas, it needed to be hacked apart and made into a hatch to install something. Out comes the circular and dozuki saws. Marked out an approximation of size for the toilet to be easily removed, and went to town.  After freeing it, time to put it back in and see how it looks set up.
 Not too shabby so far. The toilet isn't going to sit in the V shaped space on its own, so it is time to put in a pad. Just made a little piece of square MDO from the sole fit in the bow resting on the forward frame, and blocked up the other end with some CVG fir 5/4" stock. This made a level surface that I can screw cleats to in order to keep the pot where it belongs. Shall we see?
 Of course any good follower of this site knows that the fit MUST be tested before final certification can be completed:
 The model was feeling quite shy at the time, so please consider the modesty gesture as a sign of respect. Another task complete.
A couple hours left to burn for the day until some other event was eating up time, so why not throw together a batch of fairing compound? That tape on the seat box is looking primed to be faired, and needs to be ultra-smooth, as that is where prying eyes will be looking at fit and finish.  With a little bit of remaining epoxy, the panel supports and base support are glued up and clamped before closing up the shop for the night.
 As a nice addendum to this post, I just want to show the difference between lumber availability in western Oregon v. the available lumber in Spokane. The lighter colored wood on top is expensive CVG fir from a local woodworking specialty store, note the straight grain and spacing between rings. The darker wood below is CVG fir from the original Clippercraft build, out of the sole support. This wood has a ring cound aruond double or triple the newer wood, with gorgeous grain and amazing strength. I do wish more of this were available today.
 Today was Stupid Bowl Sunday, so I worked on the dock (massive ice damage this year, needed to fix some jacking that happened to the pilings), watched snippets of the game while eating and visiting with friends, and in the evening gave everyone my time in this post. Tomorrow we tackle just a little bit more of this Clippercraft gone awry.
Ear PainFebruary 3, 2010Ahh, archiving day. So the seat boxes have had their own page in the archive created, giving you an opportunity to enjoy the mocking and building process, as well as the swearing fit associated with the fuel tank debacle. After a brief trip to Canada to ski, we are back on the warpath in the shop. First stop was completing the fairing job on the seat boxes. I dropped a thick coat of phenolic microballoons on the tape seams (though I did it without grinding the selvage edge off the tape, I hate doing that) while they were partially cured before leaving. They had cured up nicely in 4 days, and sanded quickly to show the touch up areas still needing attention.  Not my finest work, sad to say. Plenty of grinding and a little extra Quickfair to get everything looking nice. This morning it was determined that waiting needed to cease, so I got out the glue board and went to town installing the seat boxes.
 On it you see all my goodies, such as MarinEpoxy and the medium and fast hardeners, a few mixing sticks, some commercial cake decoration frosting bags, and chip brushes.
A request was tendered to show my "Dairy Queen" technique for determining the appropriate consistency for a filleting compound. Thought being you pull a litte DQ tail in the compound and give it 10-15 seconds to sag. If it stands up proud the entire time, it's ready to stick anywhere on any angle.  Take that mix, grab your handy-dandy custom made filleting tool (scrap wood), and smash goo into the crevices until they look like this:
 Mixing assistant get over-zealous and mix a double batch on you? Cram it into new and interesting places. The boat naturally drains to a low point in the bow, which would allow water, gurry, blood, and other malodorous goodies to creep up into the sleeping quarters. Easy fix if you have too much thickened epoxy.
 Then, lunch.
After giving the fillets a few minutes to stiffen, come back in and coat them, along with the surrounding wood, with a liberal coat of neat (unthickened) epoxy. To that, add your fiberglass tape or cloth, brush it down with a dry(ish) chip brush, and fill the weave in any dry spots that appear after around 2-3 minutes.  Rinse, repeat.
 While I had aspirations of getting the cabin roof scarfed today, it took 7 hours to get all of this work accomplished. Ah well. I will skip a trip to Lake Roosevelt to slay trout tomorrow and get back in the shop. El Nino tells me the albies will be close to shore this year, so I need to get this thing DONE.
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