Starting to look like a boat with holes

One big step today. My brother came over tonight and we ripped all of the ten foot battens on my table saw. Then we completed installing the keel to the stem. Now all of the battens and keel are glued and screwed into position with epoxy.

I am very happy to see how nice all the joints are fitting together.

Boat Form is Built

I made a lot of progress over the last week. My brothers have been a great help. Brother Joey came over last Wednesday and Brother Gary has been with me every step of the way. Gary and I went to the nautical area in Home Depot and bought the lumber to build the boat form. The boat is built upside down on this form (jig). I would have had a difficult time this week without their help. Also, my very best friends Terry Kohler and Dave Pohl stopped by to see this project (we all built airplanes together). While they were here, I put them to work holding the stringers on the form so Gary and I could get everything straight, level and square. Having my laser light from my airplane build was a great help.

I was able to get my keel cut and fitted. We started out with a twelve foot piece and trying to rip that piece of lumber on my table saw in my basement without help would have been a real challenge. No worries, simple deal with the right tool and great help.
My Shopsmith, was a perfect tool to do the horizontal boring in the "Knee".
Other big accomplishments were getting the "Knee" mounted to the "Transom" and the "Keel". It is all epoxy (glued) and screwed in place.

The next step will be to mount the keel to the "Stem" (front of the boat, bow) and the Frames". Gary and I are planning on doing this tonight. Then boat building will come to a halt for a few weeks. I am going to Guanajauto, Mexico to fly my Hot Air Balloon and then I will be taking a weekend trip to Chicago to visit my daughter and son-in-law in their new home.

First Really Big Mistake

I have made several mistakes in this build but I have been able to overcome them without too much problem. When I talk to airplane builders, I always tell them the difference between good craftsmanship and poor is how well you can recover from your mistakes. Well I needed to take my own advice.

I was in a rush to build my transom, which I did by planning for a "short shaft motor". A short shaft motor transom is 15 inches high. Well, last week I bought an outboard motor for my Zip project and it is a "long shaft motor". Well, a long shaft motor transom is 20 inches high. No recovery from this one. I needed to build a new transom and with the price of 3/4 " marine plywood, that was hard to take.
Off to Public Lumber I went and returned with another sheet of Mahogany Plywood. Gary came back over last night and in one evening we built another transom. The first transom was good but the second one is really nice..... We are getting good at cutting angles.

Notice the center of each transom. The new transom has a taller motor board mount.

Starting Glueing with Epoxy

I began gluing up the Stem of the boat with expoxy. If you look close in the photo you can also see that frame number 5 1/2 is mounted into a block clamp on the table and I also epoxied up the corner gussets......

Epoxy, Fiberglass...makes me feel like I am building another airplane.

Found a Motor

Gary and I have been searching the Internet for a 40hp outboard motor for a while and last night Gary called and said, "I think we have a motor, lets go take a look". Located in Novi, Mi. the trip was about 45 min. away.
It was on an old broken down boat in a guys back yard. We hooked the battery up to it and turned right over. We disassembled everything and brought her home.

Of course I had to make a boat motor stand for it.

Making the Transom

Well, making the transom has been a real learning experience. My brother Gary has been coming over several nights a week and giving me a hand. We have had some challenges through out this build. We needed to wrap our brains around how we would cut the 12-degree angle along the bottom and the 10-degree cuts on both sides of the transom. We figured out 3 different ways do this but finally decided on building a jig. I drew the angle for the floor (bottom of the boat/transom) on the transom. Then I placed the Mahogany frame on this line. I then screwed another straight board on this floor line (the white board). The white board is the angled cut for the floor line. I then set up the temporary fence with the saw blade set at 12 degrees and touching the wood fence bottom. We pushed the transom thru the blade, a perfect cut we had for that side. We then flipped everything over and cut the other side. Same, plan was done for both sides of the transom.