Quick update

April 21, 2010

This is just a quickie because what was done today was very time intensive and actually created FAR more work to do, but such is life.

Did some detain and prep work for fairing all the new tape and fabric on the boat, which ate up some time. Managed to sweet talk the wife into helping get the roof blank up to start having a look and do some raw trimming.

Looks like we had a little sag off the jig (no shocker there), but the big surprise was that the 8' I thought would cover the 5' long cabin with some good sized overhangs turned out to be roughly 4" longer than the overall opening!

Well, time to just mark it for trimming and prep the aft edge for an addition. It should work out well, however, as I can laminate it in a little tighter radius, add some bulk, and get a stiffer roof for my labor.

Set her up to have a 7" overhang forward for keeping the windshield dry and to drop the apparent height of the cabin down a ways. 3" overhangs on the side will do the same, and add some shade to the mix on sunny days. All in all she feels big still, no question about it.

Back to the plywood retailer tomorrow, add some length to the top, and mess around with epoxy until I can't stand it anyomre.

Sunny days

April 20, 2010

The sun makes me nervous. Literally, when it is nice and sunny and I'm looking at a boat that isn't even primered on the interior yet, I get very spooked that this isn't gonna work out. Not enough hours in the day, not enough skill or speed to get the job done.

Getting the most out of the day, I did all the structural members necessary to get the roof panel supported as well as sheathing the trunk cabin roof for waterproofing and strengthening.

Luckily I had taken a few extra minutes and gotten the fabric laid out and trimmed/notched/darted in place before I went to work, so it was a quick procedure this morning.

I love working fabric down on a warm (but not hot) day because you can get the tightest layups.

The aft section of the cabin needed some support to keep the sides stable as well as distribute some of the load up top to the gunnels in a beefier panel, so I built some 9mm ply sail panels. Those in conjunction with the 1 1/2" x 1" cleats added up top (from a 2" x 12" board ripped for the roof jig) on the sides made the landing for the roof as well as added some much needed stability to the sides.

These all in conjunction made the sides quite a bit stiffer and removed some of my doubt for such a thin panel. Luckily this will keep the weight down tremendously and keep her from getting the CG too high.

A bit more handsome each day, but definitely all business and all work.

Tomorrow should see the fillets placed to stiffen up the joints and dress her for waterproofness, and possibly even a trial fit of the roof panel to trim it and start measuring for the appropriate radius and overhangs.

Skipped Depoe Bay

April 17, 2010

Normally this weekend we run down to my hometown of Salem, Oregon to visit family and make the jaunt to the Depoe Bay wood boat show, see the coast, visit with friends, and in general just have a good time. This year didn't work out quite so well, with the fishing season looming and the boat far from completion.

Today I was afforded a few hours to mess around in the shop and get a project done. SWMBO did the lawn thing and some varnish work on her rowing shell, while I taped all the fillets from the previous post. Photos anyone?

As you can see, I went heavy on the outside. The windshield panels were done in 6" 12oz 45/45 biax tape for strength and durability, while the cabin sides needed something wider. I cut some fabric from a previous project and had forgotten it was 17oz 45/45 instead of 12oz. Ah well, I needed 9" tape, so I made 9" tape.

The garage is empty of cars today, thanks to good weather and other stuff happening, so I was able to shoot some different angles for the viewership. Something to get a little better scale of the boat. Here's the dance floor:

And a nice shot/overview of the boat as a whole, from an angle that you might see more often that brings her appearance more to scale.

Tomorrow the last of the glass gets applied to the trunk cabin lid, waterproofing all the seams and adding a little strength for dropped objects or boarding green water.

Too late to post

April 16, 2010

Well I had a bunch of work done before I went to the station, but I worked until 11pm that night, so I couldn't get a post in, as I was going to be listening to an alarm clock entirely too soon. Less talking, more photos this post!

All panels were completed, trimmed out, and prepped for windows, then fitted and stitched.

Up front.

And a look from inside, to get a little idea of scale of the cabin and visibility.

Late in the evening, SWMBO left for a function, so I built the roof jig (at a 5" crown) on the ground in the smaller building, now that the boat has been moved out.

Then everything was wet out, then a coating of thickened epoxy was troweled in place and the panels laid up, clamped, and screwed in place.

Getting late, SWMBO felt pity on me, so she made me a strawberry, banana, and pineapple smoothie. Such a lovely woman.

After returning from shift and errands, it was back to it. Got in the boat and laid all the big fillets in place to start stiffening the cabin up and prepping for glass.

Radiuses were laid on all the surfaces as the glassing should go fairly quickly and be summed up in the near future. Just need to do the taping and the fabric on the trunk cabin lid. All will be overlapped down the fir cleats to waterproof her to the same level as a production boat or better.

As a parting shot, here's a cutaway shot to see how the construction has gone to support the walls. This is borrowed from both Clippercraft and Renn Tolman.

In to town for a social/charity function for a fellow firefighter that is battling cancer, see you tomorrow!

Good long day

April 13, 2010

Phew, got to get a real day's work in today, and it was awfully nice. I had planned on cutting and gluing the cabin sides today, but that transitioned immediately after clamping them, noting that until I have the windshield panels cut, I can't get the dimensions right. Until the dimensions are right I can't figure out the windshield cutouts. I can't make the windshield cutouts until I know the camber of the roof. So I just made all those pieces instead!

Initially I banged out the 1/4" hydrotek wheelhouse sides.

Then came the templates for the windshield. They were close, but not perfect, so another set was made that more adequately represented the size and shape of everything.

I decided that I could both reduce the amount of scrap in the shop and save myself a trip to the plywood shop by making the windshield panels out of 3/8" ply instead of the 1/4", making it bulkier, stiffer, and tougher in the event we take a hard green one in the snout.

Note that these are the rough cut parts so far, and are oversized for height in order to get the correct camber. They will lose some height by trimming, and visually much more when the window cutouts go in.

As those were held in place, I began working out the roof jig, cutting up 2' of 3/4" ply and a 12' 2"x12" for clamping stock. Turns out I need more 3/4", so I will end up in town regardless. Ah well.

Tomorrow hopefully will be laminate roof and tack weld the wheelhouse on and in. Check back, see how it goes.

Finally!

April 12, 2010

Finally I have a few days off in a row to work on the boat! Had to do a little ironing out of details first off because she's not gonna fit in the little building by the end of the week. Ran out to the Antique Auto Ranch to get a new carburetor and manifold for the Model A so she can be moved and driven a bit, then got back to the business of boat building.

Last week I got a couple free minutes and knocked out a small project. Picked up a pair of hatches that were reasonably close to the size I needed, so I picked them up cheap and popped some holes in the big seat boxes.

These will offer a nice little spot to stow random goodies, along with offering clear access to the tank, sending unit, and plumbing for maintenance. I didn't realize how great of a fit I'd end up with until they were mocked in place.

Back to the mocking phase, but this time it went very quickly as I had in mind exactly what I wanted. First, up went the quickie mockup panel I cut before we left for San Diego.

An inch was trimmed off the height to balance the look against the hull sides, bring the profile down just a hair, and lean her out. Then windows needed to go in to make sure helm visibility was clear and unobstructed.

One more shot from the inside, I think this will work out smashingly.

Obviously at this point I'm almost giddy, but it's 7pm, so in for dinner and dreaming of tomorrow's workload. Oh and I need to send some emails to see what is necessary for the window template process. Stay tuned, much is happening this week.

Too much office, not enough boat.

April 2, 2010

I have to apologize for such a lengthy hiatus from posting. A bizarre convergence happened between paying back trades, working ahead trades, and a shift of overtime all falling in a 20 day period. This resulted in an additional 96 hours of work within that period, meaning not much work could be accomplished on the boat, as well as no time to post up. To repay your faithful return, I have archived the previous posts and will be making a post that just might require a drink and a few free minutes, with many photos.

The four major work days I've been able to squeeze in have been extremely productive, however, with late bedtimes and short meals to boot. Hopefully they won't result in a divorce as well. Without further ado...

Using the Renn Tolman method for building out a cabin, I added what is essentially a dashboard on the cabin top. This acts as a doubler for screwing or fastening electronics to, as well as stiffening the cabin top, and lastly a base support for the windshield and side panels.

Once this was cured up (mind you I was working an odd schedule so often things were a few days apart), why not have a look at what a cabin might look like?

So far I have her mocked at 24" of cabin side height at the window level. I think I might peel an inch off that, as just a little change might make her a hair sleeker, and I don't need the 6'8" of headroom in the middle. It currently would have around 6'5" at the stand-up helm, which is pretty sweet.

I'm all ears on what people think of the height, so please post up in the forums or shoot me mail at the address on the bottom of the page. To my eye, she's just a hair tall in the roofline right now, but it will be diminished a bunch with the cabin roof overhang.

With that exercise, I was rejuvenated, refreshed, and efforts were to be redoubled. Then I started working a 24 on 24 off regimen. Nothing was accomplished...

Most recently, I had a whopping two weekdays free between shifts to get work done. What better time than to finish out the aft half of the seat boxes? To follow is a tutorial on building insulated seat boxes that will hold ice better than most coolers.

First off, get some high quality foam from your local roofing supply house. I picked up some 2" polyisocyanurate boards, coated with foil, from our local spot. This stuff has an absurdly high R value compared to styrene, which at this thickness is R-13. This should make ice last days on the boat, not hours.

Due to the shape of the boxes, the first panel must be cut in two pieces. This allows the foam to be placed against all the angles, bevels, and notches.

Trimmed to fit, and notched for the nailers, the piece is measured and a square second filler goes in beside it.

Rinse, repeat for the remaining square panels until you have the cabinet fully dry-fit.

Thanks to the foil backing, we can use almost any adhesive. I like the PL Premium product, as I have used it to build other crappy little cheap boats, and it makes a bomb-proof, waterproof joint. Glue her up and get the foam stuck in place.

Now the foam alone has something like 60psi crush strength. This will require us to spread the load so it doesn't get crushed over time dropping in fish and ice blocks. No sense reducing the R value that we paid good money for. I used scrap 6mm marine mahogany ply that was laying around, with the bottoms cut from 9mm.

Snazzy. Now to make everything strong and keep the water where it belongs, the joints were filleted and taped. This will keep the foam dry, the cooler portion wet, and never the two shall mingle.

I want these to be 50 year coolers, so the wood not only got a good dousing of epoxy on the foam side, but today I added a layer of 3.25 oz woven surfboard fabric, another roll of remnant laying around from the Oxford Rowing Shell project of last year. This stuff is thin, light, strong, and will make these completely waterproof.

No, that isn't a dry spot in the layup, but it sure looks like one in this picture. I dwelled last night for quite a while as to how to finish out the boxes. After much mulling, I decided to dig back into the scrap bin and pull out some 6mm again, this time making a top to the foam portions. This keeps the foam sealed up, gives a landing for the seat pads (which wil be MDO bases), and a surface to let the foam seal against, once I figure out how I'm going to do that.

Sorry again for the delay, which should be the last time I work that much in such a short time, with any luck. A couple hatches and the appropriate steering cable showed up, and electronics purchases loom on the horizon. Come back often.