July 2016

July 25, 2016

Finishing up the keel stump.  I've built up the keel with plywood and planed it perfectly flat to receive a final plywood cap.  I've altered the original pattern so it now duplicates that last plywood cap.  I will then be able to continue building the keel on the workbench and bolt it on later using the nice flat mating surfaces.

This is the built up portion of the keel with the plywood capper off to the left.  Notice the nice horizontal stripes that are  the different plywood layers.  I used these stripes as a guide to maintain a smooth even cut when I leveled the stump.  The bottom of the image shows the aft end of the keel which slopes forward 3 degrees.

This is the forward part of the keel.  I also worked on the transition from the keel to the bow.  I think it needs  more faring but I don't want to cut too deep.

Looking aft.  Each of those colors is a different layer of the plywood.    

This is the keel stump with the plywood cap temporarily in place with two metal pins fore and aft.  The  pins locate the cap in the correct position and will be removed after it is epoxied into place.  They are great for quickly placing the part in the correct position after the epoxy has been applied.  Epoxy makes things very slippery and the part to be fastened in place will slid around making a mess.   I used drywall screws to fasten the cap in place after the epoxy was applied.  This gave nice even clamping pressure.  The screws were removed when the epoxy was partially cured.  If you allow the epoxy to fully cure, it will grab the screws and you risk breaking them off when trying to get them out.  There are no permanent screws in the entire stump.  I do not want anything to interfere with the drilling of the keel bolts.  A screw could redirect the long drill bit or dull it.   The 3/4" stainless keel bolts will be sufficient to add mechanical strength to the keel.

June 2016

June 2016,

We are almost ready to start fiberglassing the hull.  Only a few more things I'l like to get done first.  One of those is building the ballast keel stump.  The is just leveling the bottom of the hull where the keel will bolt.  I started by building a pattern of the external keel as it would be up against the hull.  I laid this pattern in place on the hull and marked its outline on the hull.  After removing the pattern I made sure that the hull within the outline athwartship  was level.  This required filling with more filler strake or planning existing hull off.  The result is a level surface (athwartship) that I can start building up the keel stump.  The next step is to take the keel pattern and transfer it to 3/4" marine plywood.  This takes two pieces 8 feet long and we will call this a keel slice.  This first layer or keel slice is fitted into place and bonded with epoxy and stainless staples.  I perform a similar transfer and make another keel slice out of 3/4" marine plywood but this time I have shortened the forward piece around two inches.  This is because the forward part of the keel sweeps back at a 45 degree angle and the aft part of the keel sweeps forward 3 degrees.  I purchased the straightest 2X6X14 foot long piece of pine I could find and mount it edge up to the new keel slice making a ~16 foot long section that is rigid.  Using a 6 foot level I place this keel slice in place and temporarily fasten it so that it is perfectly level.  I actually left out a few steps; One is attaching the 14 foot 2X6 to the pattern first and setting it into place so that I could measure how much shorter the keel slice would be which is a function of the separation of the installed keel slice and the perfectly level pattern.

Leveling the second keel slice using the 2X6 and a 6 foot level.

You can see the first keel slice which conforms to the hull along its length and the second above that is perfectly level.  The space between the two slices of keel will be filled with plywood.

 The gaps between the two keel slices will be filled in with plywood.  I am planning to use 3/4" plywood to fill as needed with square cuts and then the triangles that remain will be over filled with 1/4" plywood.  This way, when I sand the edges smooth, I will only be sanding the 1/4" plywood and will have a reference every 1/4" of vertical measure.  It's also a good way to use up that left over scrap 1/4" plywood from the hull construction without using a lot of the expensive 3/4" plywood and sanding most of it into dust.  The top slice will then be permanently bonded to the keel finishing up the keel stump.

Later, when the boat is righted and the keel is ready to install, I'll bore the bolt holes through the keel stump first, align the keel and bore the holes through.  I will then cut out the ballast section and send it to the foundry for casting and pouring.  If I had a good lead supply, I would attempt this myself but lead is hard to come by these days.  All the tire companies seem to be contracted to someone in some manner and won't deal with me which leaves me buying lead on the open market and that is just too expensive.  So, I'll go with a cast iron keel for now.  The material is free but the casting is expensive.

Here, I have added the 3/4" plywood fill for the keel stump.  Notice that I still have the wedges to fill in front of the plywood.  I plan to over fill these wedges with 1/4" plywood so when I plane the excess of the 1/4" plywood down I'll still have the corners of the 3/4" as a running reference of how much material I need to remove.  More steps this way but less work and more accurate results (I hope).

May 2016

May 23, 2016

This weekend I have finished the lamination of the hull; all four layers.  I started this process on July 2, 2013.  I still need to do a little trimming on the port side and some sanding at the stern and bow but it's all installed.  That was 128 sheets of 1/4" plywood cut to 10" strips (640 strips).  For most of the hull, two strips were scarfed together (320 scarf joints) to make 320 16 foot long strips which were temporarily fastened to the hull.  They were marked and measured, cut and planed, resinstalled and checked (repeat as necessary), and finally permanently bonded to the hull with epoxy and stainless steel narrow crown staples.  Then the seams were sanded smooth.

This is where I was on May 21 working toward the stern.

This is the keel.  I'm preparing to trim the port side at the keel.

My new 36" X 4" long board for fairing the hull.  I built this from the 1/4" hull plywood which is fairly stiff.  I added 24 gage stainless steel to the bottom and wrapped it with 36 grit sandpaper.  Remember all those hand saws I went through when making the notches well that is one of the handles from one cut at a comfortable angle.  The front handle is just some rounded off oak.

Keel all trimmed up and ready for the filler strake.

All the plywood is installed toward the transom.

All the plywood is installed toward the bow.

All the plywood is installed toward the stern.  A bit of trimming and sanding is still needed.

May 30.

Finally, I got a camera with a panoramic setting so I can get the whole boat in one picture.  This is it.  The planking is completely finished with all the sanding trimming and fairing.  Well, I'll probably tweak things while I get the appendage keel stump built.  That is the last thing I'm building before glassing the whole thing.  I am also quite busy at cleaning the shop.  No spare sawdust hanging around during the glassing process. 

March - April 2016

March 8

Last weekend was a remarkable time for working on the boat.  The weather was perfect.  Except for a few last items the starboard planking is complete.  I still have to trim the edges, sand/fair the hull and add the last few strips to the stern all which needed to wait until I made some custom sized strips necessary to compete the stern.  Those custom strips are compete and I have the starter strip for the port side installed.  While finishing up the last layer on the last side, I'm starting to think carefully about the next steps.

•   Overall fairing of the hull (minimal because the hull is in remarkable shape).
•   Installing bronze screws through the planking into the keel and transom.
•   Installing the filler strake beneath the keel and sanding the planking flush to the filler strake.
•   Leveling up the keel with dead wood to create a platform (keel stump) for the installation of the fin keel and skeg.
•  Fiberglassing the hull with a layer of mat and woven glass.
• Building up a few layers of barrier.  This will be the West System epoxy with a special barrier coat additive.  
• Apply a few coats of epoxy paint.  

All of these should be straight forward although leveling up the keel of the fin keel attachment has take some thought.

March 10

I ordered West 206 slow resin hardner for the warmer months as well as enough thickener to finish up the hull.  I've also purchased another 5000 5/8" staples which should get me through the last bit of planking.  I'm ready for Spring, are you?

March 11

Sanding of the starboard side is almost complete.  I've started marking a few small low areas about the size of my hand that need filling.  This will be the majority of the fairing that will be performed.  I know I have a few larger areas in the bow area where the hull changes rapidly but I do not expect the need for excessive fairing.

March 17

Sanding, sanding, and more sanding.  I woke up this morning around 5:00 am and worked on the boat for a few hours before my real job.  Starboard side has been sanded.  A good supply of strips for the final layer of the port side have been made in preparation for a nice work weekend.  I had already switched to the West System 206 slow hardener for the warm days that we have had.  This weekend is going to be much cooler and I'll have to switch back to the 205 fast hardener.  All of the supplies I ordered on March 10 have arrived and I'm looking forward to making a lot of progress.

The port side final layer proceeding nicely. I still have a bit of sanding to do.

The right side is complete.  The left side is moving along.  I start as far astern as possible so that the strips lay on top of the last one installed.  This is much easier than pushing them underneath the last one.  I'll have to do that a little in the back but  it really saves me time to start as far aft as possible.  Of course you have to judge the angle the strips lay correctly or you will run out of length as you get to the fatter sections which happened a little on the left side.  I add a little filler piece and gradually change the angle until the strips are again long enough.  No harm in that.

Another view of the bottom of the boat looking forward this time.  You can see the filler triangles in this view.  Once they are sanded they will disappear.   

April  8,

I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when I got that strip in that laid flat and nice.  The middle of the boat hull has a tight radius just below the water line that makes it extremely difficult to fit the strips properly.  It requires screwing the unshaped piece, or blank, into place, marking, cutting and rescrewing the strip in place to check the fit.  More often than not this process must be repeated more than once mostly because the hull shape changes even in those ~2 inches (50 mm) that the blank is set off from its final placement. Very time consuming.  Now that  I am past that portion of the hull, the blank can be laid into place with only the clamps and marked, cut and checked.  This usually takes one iteration and goes much more smoothly.  I am done with the tight radius hull section and on to the easier smooth sections.

April 11,

Unfortunately I've taken on a temporary second job on the weekends to make a bit extra cash.  I still managed to put in a half day on Sunday and got 53 square feet (5 square meters) of hull installed.  Not a bad half day.

April 22,

I bit more of the hull installed and I've prepped some work for this weekend.  I'm mostly working on Sundays now that I have an extra job on Saturday.  Hopefully this extra job will only last a few more weeks.

Getting to the shorter and easier pieces on the bow.  This should go quickly.  I still have a good section in the stern to finish so no celebration yet.

A top view of the bow.  I still need to clean up the starboard side at the bow near the bottom of the hull.  I'll take care of that on Sunday.  Of course there is still quite a bit of sanding to do.

February 2016

February 2, 2016.

We had a few warm days that allowed a bit of boat building.  The heated epoxy box made it a breeze.  I've made quite a bit of progress on that last layer on the starboard side.

I have quite a bit of the last layer of the starboard side complete.  I've certainly gotten past the hard part.

You can see were I mark the panels at the keel where I will need to cut them,

Looking toward the stern.

Feb 17.  It's been too cold to work with epoxy for the last two weeks.  I've prepped some strips and look forward to a good day of boat building this weekend.  Temperatures should be around 65F (18C), a nice day for boat building.

January 2016

January 1,

Happy new year.  Everybody reading this blog needs to find a nice wood working project for the year. What better choice than a boat.  It doesn't have to be a large boat; a plywood dingy or day sailer would be a nice project easily completed in one year.

This year will see the completion of the hull construction.  With a little luck, I'll have her flipped upright by the end of the year.  Wish me luck.

Here is a tool I designed to help warm the epoxy on cold days to make it easier to dispense and apply.  Even on days where the temperature will stay above the minimum, the epoxy can be difficult to use.  So  I have made a wooden box for the epoxy with a warmer in the bottom.  The warmer is a simple 20 watt light bulb in a copper box.

A simple wooden box with a compartment in the bottom lined with copper.

Here is the copper compartment with the light bulb sitting on  the bottom.

A copper top to separate the light bulb compartment from the epoxy.  Probably not necessary but why not.  It will help protect the light bulb at least.

The gallon of epoxy with pump sits right in the box.  A hole in the bottom front lets light out so I know if the bulb is working

Jan 11,

I was able to use the hot box over the weekend.  Friday night I turned the lamp on.  Saturday afternoon, once the temperature got into the upper 50s (10 C), the epoxy was warm and flowed easily.  This significantly reduced the time I spent pumping the epoxy out of the can.  Of course I still won't  use the epoxy if the temperature gets below 40 F (4.4 C).  After making this box I actually found a nice article on the West System web site about cold weather bonding.  It is worth a read: http://www.westsystem.com/ss/cold-temperature-bonding/ 

December 2015

A friend of mine from Chicago, Tom Kuhn, came into town and spent a whole day with me working on the boat.  The port side almost has an entire third layer.  I have about a half day of work to get it finished and I'll post some pictures when I do.

Dec. 12

Okay, so maybe it was a bit longer than half a day.  I'm still not quite finished with that third layer but only have a few small pieces to install.  I have; however, finished much of the trim work and the tedious stuff.  I'm actually taking a little longer on the short bow pieces trying to use up shorter pieces of plywood in my waste pile.  I actually counted the number of sheets I have and have figured I will probably be short a couple of sheets.  Its even worse since I came across a sheet that had a glue gap on one layer that covered a third of the sheet.  I'll probably just chunk that sheet.   I haven't had too many glue gaps but this was ridiculous.  Small glue gaps can be reglued and clamped.   I ordered the plywood from Canada and I think the shipping on only a few sheets will be prohibitive.  Hopefully, I can find the plywood a little closer to home if I need only a few sheets.

The third layer is in need of some trimming at the bow.

Still need to do some trimming at the bow gunwale.   The seams have not been sanded in this area as well.

Almost finished.  A little trimming and sanding.

A view from the top (bottom) looking forward.

A view from the top (bottom) looking aft.

This is the completed bow.  All sanding and trimming is done.

All sanding and trimming is done.

Just another view.

December 20,
Just had a great visit from Jake who purchased a sister ship, the Edien, to this one over in St Augustine.   It's extremely useful to talk to someone who is sailing, or about to sail, a similar boat to the one your building.  We spent quite some time pouring over the plans and discussing what works, what doesn't and what might not work.  The boat currently has two main issues:  one is that the keel, made up of 4 layers of 3/4" plywood has rotted in a few places, the other is that there is some rot in bow.  The first issue is from incursion of fresh water around the main mast.  The damage was exasperated by the lack of limber holes between floor boards trapping water and that the inside of the boat was encapsulated with epoxy resin which prevented the wood from drying out (breathing).  The bow issues seem to stem (pardon the pun) from the design changes that the original builder performed.  The bowsprit was replaced by a thick wooden platform that was encapsulated in epoxy resin.  It is rotting and subsequently allowed additional incursion of water in the bow section.  Jake has done his research and is almost finished with the repairs.  He has replaced the keel boards with solid white oak scarfed together as best as the space allows filling up the space between the hull and floor boards where the ballast keel is bolted.  Two important lessons here.  Fresh water is a boats enemy and it will eventually get in your boat.  When in does, make sure it has a place to go (like toward a bilge pump) and do not encapsulate interior wood.  All epoxy resin allows some moisture to penetrate.  It is better for wood to get wet and dry than for it to get damp and stay that way for a year or more.  Also, maintenance is much easier.  Cleaning the bilge and repainting is much easier than grinding out half pealing epoxy and re-encapsulating.

Dec. 28,

I've made a great start on the fourth and final layer on the starboard side.  The weather in northern Alabama is unbelievable.  The temperatures have been in the 70's F and the lows only in the 60's F.  I've had to switch back to the slow hardner.  That will change soon.  More normal weather later this week.   Pictures coming soon.  I'm having some issues with the camera.

A good start on the final layer.  All my usual tools in view.  The clamps holding the strip in place.  The orange leaf blower which is invaluable for keeping the hull dust free.  The belt sander, drill and the pneumatic nailer.  

Another view of the same as above.