From Ply to Sheaves and Bronze Strips.

I've marked out a 4x8 18mm Marine ply for the transom, centerboard and floors and laminations for the stem and breasthooks. Now all have to do is to cut it out.
Marking it out was made far easier by
* a little spiked wheel with a handle, bought in a fabric shop. Put down the carbon paper and roll the wheel along the lines.
* a T Square made from two offcuts of PLY screwed together at right angles. Or you can buy one for €20 - really if you are building a boat, a T Square should be trivial to make :-)

The only down side is that the forecast for the weekend is rain, so I doubt that I'll get much cutting done.

In the mean time I've been trying to find a good source for for the cute little bronze bits and for fibre glass and epoxy (ouch that's expensive stuff, and it's considered hazardous for shipping which means I can't just buy it in from the US.).

I plan to make the cleets from wood - just for fun. But for things like the strap that holds the sheave for the centerboard, all I need is about 8 inches of 1" x 1/8th" bronze strip. Fine. Only nobody wants to sell less than an 10 foot strip. And shipping a 10 foot strip of anything is expensive.

It's the little things. It's always the little things. The Devil is indeed in the details.

A weekend off

Life is full of deadlines, work, college and full of things that need to be done, like putting up a security light, or wiring a light in a cupboard, or handing up another stats project. I need another deadline like I need an itchy rash.

Building a small boat, should not be like that. And this weekend I did nothing on the boat. We visited my parents in law. Went out in the evenings, looked at a house for sale that we couldn't afford anyway - didn't like it much. But there was no progress on the boat.

In my actually free time, a scarce commodity when you have a rug rat, I read - admittedly I read books about boat building, scarfing short lengths of wood to make up a mast, and books about woodwork jigs.

So there's not much to report about the boat, other than when I am working on it, I really do enjoy it. I don't work on it just because I feel I have to.

A little off topic

We have a general election coming up.

The immediate impact of this is that

• A tribunal set up to investigate corruption is going to defer questioning our glorious leader until after the election.
• There's speculation that the winning government may reform stamp duty on houses. So no-one is buying houses in advance of the election.
• Everything that stands still for more than 35 seconds has a poster on if of some politician grinning smugly, usually in a suit that costs more than most peoples monthly pay cheque.
• The Canvasers are coming. You get home from a hard days work and have dinner, then sit down to read a good book and the door bell rings. Some twit with a badge whom you have never seen before in your life feels he's perfectly entitled knock on your door and ask if he can count on your vote -
  I'm trying do decide on a new sign - "No dogs or Politicicans*" or "No peddlers of politicial ideology or other useless tat"
• And finally the graffetti artists are stepping up to the mark. "If voting really changed anything it would be illegal"

So please make the effort, go out and vote 1,2 and 3 in order of your choice

• The Corrupt
• The Inept
• The Idealogically Bankrupt

* Actually dogs are ok if they are house trained

The Keel

This weekend I cut the Keel. It's basically a 12'x4"x5/4" board. 5/4" being the thickness that when planned will end up 1" net thickness.

One thing that I did along the way was to put a fresh set of blades in the planer/thicknesser. Big difference, huge. Oak really is hard on steel power tool blades.

Now I need to put a 7 degree bevel either side of the center, and to cut out the slot for the centerboard. The slot will be interesting. I see some test cuts first in a peice of scrap. Actually I see a lot of test cuts in a lot of peices of scrap.

It seems like a milestone. I still have one frame peice to cut, then I start trying to assemble things. I can imagine having to recut some of the frame peices, but it should be easier now that I have learned a few things along the way.

I can see me recutting the transom frames. It was a bad plan to start cutting them first. What was I thinking. Cut the bevelled frames first. I also cut them with a jigsaw. Fine for the curves, but the long straight edges to be cut at a bevel really do cry out for a tablesaw.

People keep asking when it will be done. Work has deadline, my maths degree has deadlines. I need another deadline like I need and itchy rash. It'll be done when it's done or shortly thereafter.

Lisnavagh Timber Project

I went down to Lisnavagh yesterday to get some Oak boards, and picked out a few boards with the help of William Burnbury. They have a system to track every board, so they can show you where it came from. They even print you off a photo of the tree. They are very much into sustainable use of the resources. William was kind enough to email me the picture of the tree for my blog. From the history that William provided this fell itself so I don't even need to feel guilty about it being chopped down.

Now all I need is some good weather to turn this old tree into a boat.

More general progress

Yesterday I made a cross cut sled for the table saw. This rocks. Table saws should all come with with a cross cut sled. Only then saws would cost more and you can make them yourself. There's so many pages showing how to make one, this is just off the top of google. It makes cross cutting and angles soooo much easier.

I also started cutting the peices for the frame that I will use to build the boat on. That feels like a big step. I know I have a bit more to do before I start setting it up, but it's all progress in the right direction.

Since I had no good oak, I made use of some bad oak. I took some long thin strips that I had ripped for test peices and made up a test bed by simply screwing some scraps into a scrap plywood board. Then I bent and glued two strips around a bend that one one single strip twice as thick would not have bent around. The glue up went fine.

This is how I intend to deal with curves. Forget steaming, rip and laminate. Now that I've tried it, I will feel more confident about doing it for real on the boat. A test scarf on a batten and on a scrap plywood board are next.

Oh yes, any more toys, a bosch power planer. Much and all as I love hand planes, beveling a 12' oak keel will be difficult on my PT85, so a power hand planer it is. And as a bonus, the guide for my bosch belt sander, which makes bench sander out of it will fit the planer and acts as a parallel guide so that I can plane rebates. (for all the rebates I make 8-)

General Update

I put a decent blade in my table saw, a Freud LP30M. Cuts straighter, and quieter.

I also got one of these Digital Angle Gauges. Put it on the saw table, zero it, put it on the blade, it's magnetic, and you can set the angle of the blade to 0.1 degrees

I started cutting the last frame peice only to discover that I had board made up entirely of sapwood. See my earlier post on sapwood.

This put an end to the boat work for the day, so I planed a peice of scrap to the thickess of the mitre slots and ripped 8 battens for use as runners when making various table saw jigs.

One thing that I found very useful was a cheap grout float. The sort that you use for grouting tiles. It's basically a handle on a small metal board with a rubber surface. It give you great control as you feed the wood, with the advantage that if anything slips and makes contact with the saw blade you stand a really good chance of ruining a €10 float rather than your hand.
(It's since been pointed out that the metal in the grout float would catch in the blade rather than simply being cut by it - this could be a really bad thing)

Wet stones and good blades

I had thought that shaving the back of your arm with a plane blade was an urban myth, perpetuated by the Old Woodworkers to make us new guys feel perpetually inadequate.

However, in search of sharpness, I bought some high carbon plane blades from Hock Tools and a set of Ice Bear Waterstones from Axminster. (Nice fast delivery on both counts)

So I spent the time flattening the back of the blade, then honing the front till I found the burr, then removing the burr.

And there you go. It lifted a few hairs from the back of my arm, not quite up to Gillette's standard, but sharper than anything I've managed previously.

I am converted. My old wet and dry paper collection will now be reserved for flattening the wetstones. I've already ordered a course 220 grit wetstone to do the back of the cheaper blades, which have far move visible machine marks.

Curves

They say that to mark a curve, use a batten. They don't say you need 15 hands.

With a batten held in a curve by a peice of twine, you must shorten the twine until it curves the batten to the correct length. This proves difficult. How do you shorten the twine and tie it off at exactly the right length.

I used course twine and twisted a pen into it. Now I can set the curve by simply pulling the twine further up the pen. I can slide the loop of twine up the pen away from the batten, and this curves the batten a little more.

It gives me very fine control over the curve in the batten.

If the pen is in the middle of the batten, then the curve will be symmetric. If I need the curve to be asymmetric, then I move the pen nearer one end than the other. The curve will be more pronounced at the end where the pen is.

Then I just clamp it in place and draw the line.

All with just two hands.

Progress

I know the photo looks like the logo for kids space toy, but to me it's progress.

This weekend I managed to cut all of the 4th Frame. Now I have the transom, Frames 1, 2 and 4. I'm mising frame 3 as I did not have a clean peice of Oak large enough for the cross beam. Frame 3 is next.

(The cross beam on Frame 4 is left long for fitting.)

Once that is complete, I have to get some marine ply for the gussets and for the stem.

And for the Centerboard.

Then there's the keel. That is a 5/4" * 4" * 12' Oak board, and Brookes only sell 9' boards. I think there's a little bit of work with the phone book in my near future.

More Planes

I've inherited these from my Grandfather. They look like they've been left on a shelf for quite a while... I guess some clean up is in order...

D

Why the slow down

In the last while,

* I've build a small tool shed (for the boat parts and heavy tools)
* Wired up some new light fittings
* Built a built in wardrobe
* Gone on holidays

So now I'm back building, hopefully there will be more to report..... And a few more pictures.

Planing Oak

I actually got some work don on the boat today. I took some of my rough Oak boards and planed planed and thicknessed them ready to mark and cut Frame and Frame 4.

It takes a lot of passes to get the cup out of the boards, but at least I can record the exact setting of the thicknessor so that each piece is the same thickness.

When running 7 inch wide oak through the thicknessor (A Woodster pt85) I can turn the handle about 1/8 of a turn each pass, and take off about 1/4 mm. Any more and the machine grinds to a halt. (Previous Posts)

I guess it is a little unfair asking a hobby machine to deal with 7" wide oak boards. But if I go slowly it copes. The finish would drive a cabinet maker to drink, but then I'm making a boat to sail, not to stare at.

I've sort of decided to redo the transom frame. Now that I have a table saw I reckon I can do a better job of the bevels. But that's another day.

I set up the table saw fully last night. The Easiest way of getting the side extension tables level with the main table is to take off the guard, lower the blade right inside the saw, flip it upside down on a large table and attach the side extensions there. They cannot but be level with the saw table. Worked a treat.

The forecast is poor for tomorrow, so I will probably settle for simply marking out the frames and then try to cut them after work during the week.

D

More Toys - A drill driver

I have lived from some time with a cheap and cheerless 18v portable drill. Pretty good when the battery was charged, but the battery didn't last very long, and I drained a battery just doing the floor of my "boat shed".

Then I came across this Makita cordless impact driver set . It's a world apart from my old toy cordless. The quality is obvious in just handling it. The impact driver easily belts screws into solid oak without any of the usual ruining of the screw heads. And I got it up in the US for less than half the price of buying it in Europe. Add a €20 transformer and off you go.

By the way - why are power tools so much cheaper in the US? Who's making a small fortune on the ones sold here in Ireland?

A boat shed

Not so much for putting the boat in, but rather somewhere to put some of the accumulation of tools and parts for the boat, to free up the kitchen.

I couldn't find anything the size I want so I built one myself.

Meet Vic

The internet is kind of like a big Club, where you can go and find other people who are interested in the same sort of things that you are. Chances are someone's done what you are trying to do, or something similar, and wrote about it.

Or you can post a question on a forum, and (in among the wise cracks) someone will have the gem of knowledge that you need.

Only, you don't need to go there every Wednesday night at 7:45 pm. You can wander in when you like.

Recently Vic cam acros my little page, left a comment, and a link to his page. He's a little more ambitious that me, and his pages make great reading, so have a wander over here and leave a comment to say hi.

Comments are always appreciated on blogs. Means we're not talking to ourselves.
8-)

Trend Grabit

As sure as black cats have black kittens, sooner or later you will strip the head of a screw. hopefully you will have a Trend Grabit around. It's got a reverse cutting drill bit to drill out a hole in the screw, and a reverse threaded cone to dig into the hole and unscrew the screw.

One thing to bear in mind. You do have to drill out a hole in the top of the screw, even thought the screw may appear nicely drilled by your previous attempts to screw it in, the hole that the grabit makes is the correct shape for the threaded cone to grab.

There's a series of pictures here http://www.trendmachinery.co.uk/grabit/

On Power Tools

How woodwork has changed since the time of my grandfather. He would have cut lap joints with a saw and pared them to an exact fit with a small rabbet plane. The process would have taken less time for him, with his years of experience, but would still take more than a few moments.

Finding my collection of power tools expanding beyond the space to store them in my back yard shed, I was faced with obtaining a half height tool shed to place in some space under the kitchen window. Unable to find one to suit, I thought – I’ll build one.

In making the frames I needed to cut some lap joints. Since I was working in rough treated timber, a rough lap joint was more than adequate, so out came the Black and Becker Router.

I set up a batten to guide the router on a scrap price, and this gave me a marker for how far from the batten the cut would be.

I set the router depth to approximately half the thickness of the wood, and a few moments later I had half the lap joints cut.


In order to get the thickness right for the other sides, you must remove exactly the thickness of wood that remains on the first pieces. Place the router on a piece of board. Sink the router until the bit just rests on the board and lock it in place. Place the tongue you have just cut on top of the depth stop, and slide the depth pin down to rest on it. Lock the pin in place. You can now unlock the plunge on the router and reset it to the pin.



Routers may be noisy, dusty, dangerous things that can ruin a piece of wood in an instant, and ruin whatever flesh gets to near the whirring bit in less time still, but they do make life quick and easy.

Wear a dust mask and eye protection. Really Do.

A table saw

I started out trying to mount my circular saw upside down to a piece of plywood. That has a few problems.

• No mitre slot
• No parallel guide - you can clamp a piece of wood in place, but that's fiddly
• No blade guard - That's a biggy. I'm fond of each and every one of my fingers..
  

Either you mount the blade through the plywood, so the guard is always open, or you mount the base plate of the saw through the ply wood, but then the spring loaded guide tries to lift your work piece. No fun.

Given that you can buy a cheap circular saw for about €150 it makes little sense to try to save money this way. Sure it will have limitations, it's not a precision high end machine, but neither is your circular saw mounted through plywood.


I eventually settled on the SIP 01321 for €150 form McQullians in Dublin (no web site). The one I bought comes without a stand.

So far I have simply assembled it, but there is one or two things to be aware of.

Adjusting the blade to make it parallel to the mitre slot
The saw is held in place by 4 bolts. You loosen these, with a socket wrench, it's inaccessible for spanners, and then you move the blade, and then you tighten them. It's very hit and miss. I was expecting some manner of screws or micro adjuster. But then this is a €150 saw.

The mitre guide is a little sloppy
You can move it about 1/2 a degree either way. I see a few grub screws in it's future. Tap holes into the side of the mitre bar, place grub screws in, and adjust them to get a perfect fit for the mitre bar.

The Fence is not rigid.
The fence locks parallel to the mitre slots. This is GOOD. But a small amount of force can move the end of it up to 3/4 cm (1/3 of an inch). I imagine the simplest solution to this is to place a piece of wood perpendicular to the fence, and clamp it at the edge of the table.

The table is not flat.
If you place a straight edge across the table, there is light visible in the middle. Not a lot, but light none the less. I'm not sure how much trouble this will cause. I'll update this as I start using the saw.

The angle guide is a gross approximation
But I kind of expected that. It just means that I always need to check the actual angle of the blade, even for vertical. The stops for vertical and 45 degrees are too coarse to be useful.

Once I start cutting things, I'll post a little more about how many of these short comings are problems in real life and how many are just niggles.

D

It scrubs up well...

Ok, it's not shiny and polished, but then I don't really need to start a tool restoration hobby. I wanted a usable tool.

I took it apart, brused of the dirt with an old toothbrush, and soaked it in vinegar overnight.

A little more work with a toothbrush, some 320 grit carbide paper, and some machine oil, and voila:

I bought a new blade, as even after spending a half hour with 120 grit paper, I was making little impression on the back of the old blade. I could sharpen it enough to plane pine, but it was looking like a career to flatten the back properly so that I could get it scary sharp.

I priced a new one at about €85 + postage, so I guess this is a bargain.

The base is flat. Or at least, sufficiently flat that I cannot tell the difference.