Progress At Last.

The weather forecasters, clearly embarrassed by my last post, have conjured up a fantastic bank holiday weekend.

Genuine, original Blue Skies.

So I got to do a little work on the boat.

The last of the side panels is now in place, glued, screwed, and mostly trimmed.

The battens are now laid in place, and clamped. I did this partly to see how it looked, and partly to see if the battens I cut months ago were actually long enough.

The one on the far left is of course, too short, and had a knot the size of a plum about 1/3 of the way from the front. 

I see a bit of cutting and scarfing to make up a new batten. I have no more planks long enough to cut a new batten from a single piece.

Balcotan PU does a wonderful job of gluing oak, provided you have a perfect joint and lots of pressure.   

Irish Sky Gray

If you look at the Microsoft colour tables for application developement it has colours like WhiteSmoke, and Wheat and Alice Blue. Charming names. 

But for Gray, they have DarkGray, LightGray, or DarkSlateGray not quite so imaginative.

Had they travelled to Ireland they could have had:

• IrishDrabGray
  
• IrishDrizzleGray
• IrishDownpourGray
• IrishIt'sBeenRainingForDaysGray
  

Or my personal favourite

• IrishWhere'sTheFeckinSunGray?

Needless to say, progress on the boat has been slow.

I have however gotten very good as tying down the boat cover to avoid pools of water collecting in it. Practice makes perfect.

A scarf in place

The weather forecast for the weekend was a very mixed bag, but as happens about seven times a week, the forecasters were just plain wrong.

It was beautiful today, so we did some family things involving water slides and screaming, and then I added one of the forward side panels.

It was scarfed in place on the frame.



Some deep jaw clamps, and a deck screw provided pressure along the scarf.



And this is what it looks like from the inside. The plastic is the remains of a ziploc bag over a block which crosses the glue line, there's a deck screw applying pressure. It's tough and epoxy will not stick to it. 

You may notice above a small piece of plywood clamped to the frame. This L shaped plywood and another make up a rest for the panel so that I can locate it properly with one pair of hands. 

Sarah is not yet old enough to draft in as an apprentice boat builder.

Broken drill bits.

Fuller Stepped Drill bits rock. You get to drill your counter sink, clearance hole and pilot hole all in one go. Nice. However, if you mistreat them, like for example, trying to bend them around corners because there's something in the way of the drill, they will snap off at the step and leave the part of the bit in the wood.

This is now a problem, as traditional methods for extracting broken screws don't work well on the hard metal in drill bits.

This combined clearance hole and countersink proves just the thing for removing broken drill bits. 

The broken bit was #8, so I got one of these counter sink/clearance hole drills in #10, took out the drill bit, put the outside part in a brace  and cored out around the broken bit enough to get a needle nose pliars in.

I'd strongly suggest a brace instead of a power drill. High speed metal spinning in the vicinity of stuck hardened metal seems like a really bad plan. 

Pics

Here you can see the newly glued, screwed and trimmed panel in place.




And a closeup of the tapered ply, ready to be joined to the forward panel.




The front panel will simply be fitted to the scarf and trimmed to fit the chines and sheer, so the exact positioning of the aft panel is not critical.

I coated the edges with epoxy as my tarp cover is far from ideal, and I wanted to avoid soaking the end grain if waterlogged tarp ended up lying against it.

Some planking in place

I made quite a bit of progress over the weekend. I have the two aft side panels glued and screwed in place.

A simple piece of folded wire allows you to mark the position for the screw.


There is a screw every 3 inches on the chine and the sheer clamp, the aft panels are 8 foot long, and theres another 4 or 5 screws on the transom.
The works out about 70 3/4" bronze screws.

Fuller stepped drill bits all the way. They drill the pilot hole, the shank hole and the countersink all in one go. Use care, they are fragile at the step, and if you drop or abuse them they will likely snap.

I started out with a Yankee, but moved onto my Mikata 14.4 NiMh Drill/Driver for the second panel. Set at 5 on the clutch, it sank the screws just below the surface every time. That's part of what you pay for with a good tool. Consistancy.

I have trimmed one side back to the chine and transom, the other side is awaiting my attention. Trimming to the sheer clamps will wait until it's all flipped over.

The ends of both panels have scarfs cut into them, the forward panels have matching scarfs. The forward panels are trimmed after they are put in place, so lining things up is easy.

I'll need a few temporary blocks on the back of the scarf and a few temporary screws to put it together, thickened epoxy will do the rest.

Pictures will follow soon.

Or Scarfing....

Thanks to Jim Ledger from the Wooden Boat Forum for pointing out:

What about the plywood end grain in the butt? 

What about the flat spot in the panel where the thickness is doubled?
What about drainage on the bottom of the boat?

What about the ugly butt block showing on the interior?

And to kc8pql  for his comment:

Suck it up and do proper scarfs. You've worked to long and hard to chicken out now.

So I tried scarfing, or at least, I've cut the scarfs. 

I just stacked the 2'x8' sheets of ply with each 2½ inches back from the next, then I ran a power plane down the steps. I had a scraficial peice above and below as I've read that the top and bottom ones don't turn out so well.

Now I have to either

• Glue them and put them on the boat.  or
  
• Put them on the boat and Glue them

Handling 8 foot parts seems easier, but I am concerned about how well I can join the scarf when the ply is sitting on a curve.

I'm leaning towards gluing them in the kitchen/dining room (only dry place that's long enough) overnight on a friday and fitting them on a Saturday.

Wish me luck.

Butt Blocks

I have after much consideration decided to use butt blocks.

My reasoning is that I can do the but blocks in place so 

• I don't have to store the 16 foot scarfed panels
  
• I can manage 8 foot panels all by myself without calling in help.
• From other Builders work, butt blocks are indistinguishable from scarfs in the end product.

However, my smallest screws are 1/2 inch I suspect that they will just project through the two layers of 6mm ply. 

I think that judicious use of a file / dremel may resolve that little detail. 

"planking"

Can you really call it planking when you whack on great plywood panels ?

Regardless, the planking has started. Cutting a 4'x8' sheet of ply* into 2 2'x8' sheets is not trivial unless you happen to have a panel saw. 

To do it on a table saw, you really need extended rollers to allow you to control it. A typical circular saw is a little big and heavy for cutting 6mm ply.

So..... More Tools!!

I got an 18v trim saw. This one was a cheapo special, against my better judgement, but I reasoned that I'd only need to cut a few sheets, and I may never use it again. When will I learn ? The Battery won't hold a charge overnight, but freshly charged it's not bad. 

To avoid massive breakout on the ply, I make the first cut about 3mm deep, half way through the plywood. This means the blade is exiting the wood moving forward rather than up. The plywood is supported by the wood in front of it, no breakout. Then I follow the same cut with the blade just through the wood. This is easier that you might think. The saw is small and easy to control with one hand.

The result, at the cost of a little extra work, is a nice clean cut.

So I now have the first two panels clamped into place on the frame.  The fit looks really good. Of course these are the aft panels. It's the fit at the pointy end that's difficult.

(*2440mm X 1220mm doesn't metric make things easier?) 

A sense of Urgency

We are bringing forward the building of an extension onto our house.

Unfortunately, where the boat is now sitting is about where the new dining room window will be. 

So I need to get the boat to the stage where I can flip it.

I'm guessing that if I finish the ply skin and then glass the hull, I can flip it and move it. Later I'll need to flip it again to paint it, but I can live with that. 

I need to think about how I will support it when I flip back it for painting, or I suppose I could tilt it up at 60deg and paint one side, then go around the other side and do the same.

If I go to flip it back over for painting, should I wait to put on the deck until I've righted it ? Or will the deck give it better rigidity to avoid damage in the flipping ?

It's a Glen L 14, so the extra work in flipping it twice is not a show stopper.

Anything I should know before I embark on this course of action ?

ToDo List

• Cut & fit Plywood Skin
  
• 4 panels
  
• 2 of 2x16 foot, 2 of 3 x 16 foot - I have to scarf join 8 foot boards.
  
• Fit transition joints
• Glue & Screw into place
• Putty the screws.
• Fair Hull.
• Epoxy glass the Skin.
• Paint it.
• Flip it,
• Some internal framing 2 x 9' x 3 inches each side.
  
• Blocks for the coming (I want to round it at the front, even though the design is simply square.)
• Paint inside
  
• Seats + Varnish or Deck Oil
• floorboards + Varnish or Deck Oil
• Plywood deck
• Coamings
• Mast Step.
• Paint deck.
• Make up mast & boom, including sail track in mast & sheave for Mainsheet Halyard.
• Varnish mast & boom
• Fit mast hardware.
  
• Make up rigging.
• Make up centerboard, glass
• Make up rudder, glass, paint.
• Attach cleats, blocks, fairleads, rigging, sail tracks.
• Carve name plates.

I suspect I should be done by Saturday June 6th 2015 

;-)

Fair Enough....

The laminates worked just fine, it's more or less ready for the plywood skin to be attached.

I can see a few places where the thickened epoxy may go on a little thicker. But in general it looks good.

Given that it's a family dinghey with a hull speed of 5 knots, and I'm not likely to be out in weather where it might get up on a plane* I think it's fair enough.

*Has anyone ever got a Glen l 14/15 on a plane?

Detailed Bevelator Pictures

I cut some wooden blocks to just fit inbetween the vertical guides.

 I drilled a hole for the bolt - this needs to be very precise. 

When the wood is bolted very tightly in place, you put the whole lot down on a flat surface, and screw in the aluminium strip. I've shown the result here. You need to do it in place to get it any way accurate.

You can see a small gap on the right of the strip - the plastic guides on the planer sit there.

This is accurate to about 1°

Bevelator 1000 Pictures and Update

The laminations on the chine are in place, I will leave them till at least tomorrow to completely dry. Then I will mark the fair curve and trim away. I set up a batten to follow a fair curve, and all seems well.

I finished the heavy work on the second chine, and on the keel using the Bevelator 1000, shown here. As I described before, I've bolted an aluminium strip to the side of the planer. The strip rests on edge against the chine when you are doing the keel, and vise versa. 

This really does make light work of fairing the chines and the keel. It is not perfect, but it gets you into the ball park real quick. A little work with a Jack plane will finish the job now that the bulk of the wood has been removed. It's only off by about 1°.

The shop vac makes life a lot easier. There's about 2 buckets of shvings that are Not all over the garden. The Bosch in the picture has a switch so that it can take a vacuum on either side. That makes all the difference in the world. 

Oh yes, the planer goes through bronze screws just the same as Oak, there's not even any different sound (at least none I can hear over the shop vac, and while wearing ear muffs)

Laminations

So, last night, under the glare of a 500 watt site light, I added the two laminations to my chine. I used microfibres with the epoxy this time.

I think they will be better as a glue, fiberous and all that.

I see some careful consideration as I mark up the curve that I want to fair the lamination too. Some serious thinking, measureing, holding plywood in place to see how it will all fit together.

Given the surface area available to glue these things up, and given that the oak should all expand and contract in the same direction, I have no fears regarding Oak & Epoxy.

Time I guess will tell.

Thanks Harvey

Just a quick note say Thanks Harvey.

The band saw made life easy for cutting 3/8" thick laminates from 2" Oak stock.

I replaced the rubber drive band, and the old blade, and added a new fence, total cost, a whole lot less than a new band saw.

It's such an innocuous machine, hardly as noisy as the Shop Vac when it's just running.

(For everyone else, Harvey had an old Band Saw in his workshop that he donated to my boat project)

Next I'll glue the laminates into place to build up the chine near the bow, and then use a batten above and below the chine to mark out a fair curve. A little work with a power plane, followed by a long sanding board and I should be back in business.

That was a PITA

First, I will refer to a previous post boats-are-easier-than-carpets

I decided that it would be better to remove the first laminate, and replace it with a correctly sized one, rather than try to just add more laminates and fair them down.

There is a concern that White Oak does not Glue up well with Epoxy.

I am no longer concerned about this. My Epoxy glues my White Oak just fine.

The only way to remove the laminate turned out to be cross cutting it down to the glue line every 1/2 inch or so, and chipping it out with a chisel, just like cutting a housing for a lap joint.

Even doing this, in most places the wood did not come off at the glue line, A sander with 80 grit will tidy up the mess this weekend.

I used some scrap ply to see how much extra material I need on the chine to ensure that the side and bottom planking meet at most at a 180 degree angle. It's about 5/8"

At least I think know what I need to do now.

I suspect some more time in the Thinking Chair before I set to it.

This is not good.....

Even with my lamination, my chine is too far inboard. It's not a great picture, but that grey thing is a straight edge running from the stem to the sheer strake. I have and bevelled the stem and started bevelling the sheer strake. The straight edge is sitting on part of the sheer that will be faired away. But not much. Even when I finish fairing the sheer, the chine will still sit inboard of the straight edge.

I think my lamination was too sharply tapered. I will either add another lamination, or more likely plane it back and add a single less tapered one. I suspect I'll build it up with ply tacking into place first to see exactly how much I need to build up.

Bevels R Us

 

I really should have taken a picture, but this should give you the general idea.

An aluminium strip is bolted to the side of the planer (there's a hole for bolting on a parallel guide).

The strip is edge down.

You alternately plane the chine and the keel, with the edge resting on the other. Take off a bit at a time and voila.

Dave

Good, and not so good

Fairing is going well now that I have moved up to using a power plane. I have bolted a strip of aluminium to the side - it's edge facing downwards. It rests on the keel while I plan the chine and vise versa.

The results are ok. I'll tidy up with a Stanley #4 Bailey.

If only it were all that good.

I was a little premature in my self congratulation over the nice joint between the chine and the stem. I still contend that the joint it very nice, it's just in the wrong place.

Now that I've started fairing, I can see that it's joined to the stem too far back.






My first thought was to trim the stem back to the chine, but on reflection that would change the entire profile of the stem, and I am not sure it would change it in a good way.

I see 2 oak battens about 3/8" thick at one end, tapering to nothing, laminated in place from the stem to about the first frame.

Wish me luck.