July 13,
This is not my first post this month but the first one actually about working on the S.V. Wren's Reward. Yep, in case you missed it, she finally has a name. My wife says that the Wren is my spirit animal. Always busy and needing to get something done. Maybe the Wren will find his reward one day.
The shoulder is still healing and I'm not suppose to do very much with it but this weekend I was able to make some good progress on the boat. I've worked out the side floorboards with ventilation and I'm finishing off where the transom meets the deck. I'm putting in some serious structure there. Pictures coming soon.
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| I've figured out how I'm going to manage flooring the interior. I'm going to install 1/4" strips of wood perpendicular to the longitudinals and screw in light wood slats with a gap or vents at the top. This should allow plenty of ventilation. Here I'm basically bending in dead wood in order to attach the 1/4" batons. In order to bend the wood to the hull contour I've used a bar clamp and hammered in a wooden wedge between the bar clamp and the dead wood. |
July 19,
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| Time to finish framing the transom. I'm using 5/4" oak sawn to shape. Once this piece is properly fitted, I'll fill in behind and install this piece last. |
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| Cutting this rather complex joint. My first one in awhile,. I actually screwed it up and had to redo. Luckily, the piece already had the curve on top and I used it as one of the pieces to fill in behind. |
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Checking the bevel for the deck with a stiff baton. I was able to use a skill saw on these with good results.
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| Another view of checking the bevel with the baton. |
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| The first piece is screwed in with #10 1 3/4" silicon bronze screws. |
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| The second piece is screwed in with #10 1 3/4" silicon bronze screws. The part of the frame sticking up above where the deck will be will be cut out and removed later. The nice curve on the transom will be better established and finished. |
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| Finally the last piece is embedded with thickened epoxy and bolted in with hot dipped galvanized bolts to the transom frames and #14 silicon bronze screws and #12 stainless steel pan head screws. Obviously, I ran out of silicon bronze screws. I think the stainless steel pan heads are not as good but I've really gone overkill on this one so I think I can get away with them. Once the epoxy is cured, this will be as strong as a solid piece of wood. Next task is to chisel out the transom frames that stick out above the deck. |
July 26,
I spent the weekend epoxying in some of the framing members that I had temporarily installed. I'm out of screws but I have more on order. I also worked out a bit of the cockpit framing and started to make up a new athwart laminated beam for the rear of the cockpit.
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| I've removed the frames above the deck. Chisel, drill, sawzall, electric sander and almost used my teeth. It was quite a chore to remove that section of the frame. I had screws, stainless staples and epoxy holding it all together. It's a bit rough in those corners but I'll fill the imperfections with thickened epoxy. |
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This nice laminated beam will transverse the cockpit where the pilot seat will be and mark the edge of the deck-cockpit transition.
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