More fiddly bits

February 25, 2010

Phew, another page archived off, so please take the time to get caught up if you are reading the page for the first time, all the previous posts are on the right of your screen, categorized by phase. So many things have been completed in the past few days, let's just jump right to the work. This will be a photo laden post, so grab a cup of joe and settle in for a few minutes.

The helm has been fit out and mocked up for clearances and tolerances now that all the parts have arrived. It looks like it was made to be there when placed in the boat.

Of course I have a serious aversion to anything sticking up on the back deck for nets to hang up on, rods to break, lines to get cut, etc. This means no cleats on the decks. Thought it is very painful to do, it is time to bore big holes in the finished planking on the boat.

Chase those with the saber saw.

And Voila! We have hawse pipes worthy of the name.

If the hole saw is out, let's use it for everything we can think of. Next up were the two fuel fill/vent combo units, thus the odd shape.

Hell if it's holes we want, hole's we'll have! 5 rod holders, coming right up! First we align everything, giving a 3 foot spread between rod tips across the boat. Per a good friend, I will be setting up for a 5 rod trolling setup. This affords for 3 rods for salmon, 4 off the corners for halibut, and a full 5 for albacore.

The rod holders are 30 degree angles, so they required a little bit of modified technique. 1/4" offset with two holes seemed to do the trick, with a little fixing in the end.

Following that, of course the crappy little saber saw strikes again.

Here, in all the lovely majesty of it, is the 5 rod setup. Outside rods are around 40 degrees away from the direction of travel of the boat.

The tank is now repaired, and much to my satisfaction. She air tests out to 3 psi with no leakage.

That ridiculous oval hatch that was utterly unusable from the factory got a refit today. I swapped the hinges from the engine cover (replaced with much heavier duty units) up to the corners, split the panels along a bulkhead inside, and rehinged them with the salvaged ones from below. This gives the battery compartment the same setup as before, but allows the sides to be available when the engine cover is down. I'm sure others have done this mod, but I still feel like a pioneer.

Under the foredeck, the head was nicely buttoned in, but it turns out it was too close to get a screw out type inspection hatch to fit, so I had to make a little 1/2" plywood buck to space it properly. 30 minutes later...

This evening, the helm was glued in place with a rather bizarre but effective clamping technique. I'm not sure what exactly created the inspiration, but suffice to say, the thing is stuck.

While all of these items were being achieved, the Sureform came out and tidied up the previous week's side deck lines.

I will detail further the tank repair in the forums, as that should get the broader audience. The G-Flex product from Gougeon did work very well, and surprisingly enough, stuck like crazy to the crosslinked polyethylene. I think we are nearing the stage for primer...

Longboarding

February 28, 2010

This isn't the most exciting post in the history of this site, but I want to keep everything current, so here is what was accomplished at the shop over the weekend.

With the new summer schedule (longer weekdays, weekends off) I try to seize any chunk of time 30 minutes and up to get a task or two completed. Today, after a glorious morning skiing, I had a couple hour window to finish the templating I'd started on Saturday for the throttle binnacle console. It went through two iterations to come to the current plan, and I will think on this while on shift before I commit to it.

Initially it would be more level, so a stick frame was made. Hot glue and some scrap fir slivers make very quick work of this.

Later that was translated from sticks and glue to templating plywood, with a few extra side panels placed to show the shape of the whole console. More hot glue was sacrificed.

Turns out, once in 3 dimensions, that looked like crap.

Why not try it on a longer slope, attached to the seat box in the same way, but with one panel instead of two to reduce bulk and give it a leaner look?

Ahhh, much better. I did do some side panel mockups, but it was pretty half-assed, so it will be left off the site until I can redo them into something presentable.

Thanks to the quality posters at the Bateau forum, a recommendation was made to find a set of oval windows instead of square ones to accentuate the cabin lines a bit better than the square ones. I thought that to be a quality idea, until I found that most opening oval port lights cost around $300 and up. Ouch! After weeks of looking, a bit of luck happened, and a boat on the west side of our state happened to not need a set of windows ordered for it. Quite a bit less cash was exchanged, and here they are.

They aren't in exactly the right spot, but you get the idea. I think they look really sharp, so thanks Bateau guys, for a great idea.

Shift day tomorrow, then two good hard days of work in the shop until a little hiatus. Keep checking back, there will be progress!

Planning Ahead

March 4, 2010

Alright most of today was spent doing little junk like gluing in the throttle binnacle console (which I didn't take a photo of. Oops.), cleaning out the 3" of sawdust coating the entire floor, cleaning all the shavings and dust out of the boat itself, and operating the long board. Nothing photo-worthy until late in the day, so here is out entertainment for this early March day.

I had a couple hours, much epoxy curing on the sides of the boat (filling in low spots for fairing), and a need to keep progressing. Out comes the template stock again, and let's get cracking on that cabin top!

First the obligatory big square piece.

Now we need a rough approximation of a windshield angle.

A little wonky and hard to picture in the head without a windshield panel, let's whack something together for that.

Better. A little closer look at the way she lays?

Hell this thing might just turn into a real boat one of these days. The cabin looks a little longish, and most importantly the distance from windshield to face is a little long. This will give her the appearance of a very small windshield and little visibility from inside. Let's shorten the spread between the 'ol melon and the windshield itself a bit.

Makes the trunk look a little longer, but I think it is a small price to pay for making the visibility out of the cabin far better. While I'm stumbling around in the bigger building, might as well take a photo of an angle that I don't normally get to.

There you have it! That's where we are today, in hopes that the cabin will go together relatively quickly once the interior is primed and painted. The temps are getting tolerable in Spokane, which means I can do more with the days I have off, and can expand my work shifts by not having to wait until the shop is above freezing. The current thinking is finish out all the remaining construction/assembly/fairing on the interior, paint the outside, prime the interior, paint the interior, then slide her out into the bigger building. At that point, I will build the cabin sides and roof in the shop, and rig the boat when things are curing or drying. That's the plan, anyways.

The passing of an old friend

March 20, 2010

Well my fine friends, it has been 16 days since this poor excuse of a website has been updated. You ask "Why, why must you make us pensive for the next installment"? Well there was a little detour south of the border for some sun and a missed opportunity to fish, a few shifts of work to pay for my hobbies, and the new modified schedule of weekday work. But here we are, back at it, and with a monster installment. Grab your favorite drink, free up a few minutes, and let's get back to it.

The bulk of the recent work? Fairing, fairing, sanding, and fairing. Lots of longboarding to make the cabin sides look smooth once the paint goes on, as she needs to at least look somewhat decent from the outside. No half-assing should be allowed on the areas where the dock walkers will be looking.

While the various little fills and quickfair dollops hardened, I finished up the templating and construction of the throttle console. First the templating stock came out and got cut and hot glued together.

Followed by some scrap from a previous project being cut to the template sizes, screwed on some Phillipine mahogany cleats, and glued her up.

Then, more fairing...

Using Renn Tolman's technique for attaching a cabin roof and windshield, I started making the cabin front doubler, which is a shaped piece of ply which defines the lower edge of the windshield panel shape and gives a landing for all the vertical pieces. I like the idea behind it as it stiffens the boat, is easy to shape, and doesn't rely on cleats that hide rot and require more srews.

I did a quick and dirty measurement of spans, distance from face to glass, and brought it out by thirds for a 3 panel windshield.

And then I went to work for 48 hours.

This morning, on two hours of sleep, I got back out into the shop for a guilt work session, knowing I had been neglecting the boat and seeing that looming tuna opener on the horizon. First thing in the shop? More fairing...

Next I figured that the portlight situation could be ironed out in about the amount of time SWMBO takes to run, so I went to town cutting big holes in the freshly faired surfaces.

Thanks to a Craigslist find, I dug up these 18" long oval portlights for about 1/3rd their retail cost. Then I made up a template from the cheap lauan yet again, and started drawing ovals on the boat to find the right location.

Well, they aren't going to cut themselves, so in went the drill and the saber saw. Ulcers notwithstanding, the cutting went reasonably well and had only a mild amount of split-out.

Wow what a difference in the cabin!

Though it will require somehow modifying both the tube length on the portlight and the beauty ring, I will hopefully get the pieces trimmed back from their 1.5" depth to the 3/8" planking thickness of the cabin sides. Here's a shot with the window and beauty ring in place.

Wrapping up this installment, we need to have a moment of silence for a true and dear friend who is no longer with us. We've spent so many hours together in the shop, making things, cursing one another, and in general cooperating and producing boats for the past few years together.

My trusty velcro sanding pad bit the dust this week. 4 years of hard labor and several boats, she just couldn't perform anymore. I spent the last two work sessions watching sanding disk after sanding disk get rocketed off at tangents almost unimaginable from the sanding pad, on which the velcro refused to adhere any longer.

A sad day indeed, but one that was coming headlong at me for more than a month.

The outstanding question on the horizon; Do we build the cabin roof now, or fit out the interior in the shop then build the cabin roof last? Therein lies the question.