It's a Boat Party

Yes, people can tell it is a going to be a Boat and not an Airplane !

Today we had a build party and finished up with the sheers. We epoxied the strips of 5/8" thick Mahogany together for the last sheer. It was fit into position, screwed and clamped. My brother Gary was amazed how many clamps we used (52) and we still could have used more. My Brothers, Gary, and Joey came over along with my nephew Travis which made the job of gluing everthing up a simple task. When I clamped up one of the Chines, I was all by myself and not only was it a tough job but it took three times as long. (left to right...Ted, Gary, Joey)

Ted, Joey, Gary & Travis Gauthier

THE BONES OF THE BOAT ARE DONE:

I call it the bones of the boat because it is the main structure. Well not all the structuce because there is certainly more to do once we flip this thing over but for now we are done building the framework. I am very happy with the all the joints and my epoxy work. Next job in order will be to begin the fairing. Fairing is when you bevel all the pieces to make a smooth transition around the bottom of the boat giving the planking a solid resting surface.

I have attached some photos of my crew and our progress so far.

The Breasthook / Sheer attach point.

The Sheer clamped into positon.

The Sheer / Transom intersection

A closer look at the intersection joint.

Chines - Sheers and Limbers

Chines
The Chines are now epoxied into position. They were a real chore. Having two 3/8" pieces for each chine I needed to epoxy them together and I found that it was easy to do with them clamped in position on the frame. I just separated the two pieces and used a foam roller with epoxy resin and squeezed the roller between them, then clamped as I went along. The following day my brother's Gary and Joey came over and we cut the chines to fit the stem and transom and then epoxied both chines into position.

Sheers
The sheer bending went great. Soaking the strips in the PVC tube for 48 hrs and then wrapping them with hot towels really worked well. I am limited for space because I am building in my basement so the plan was to bend one sheer (two pieces of 5/8") and clamp for a day. Then dry for a day. Then I removed the bent wood sheer and flipped it over and clamped it to the other side where space was limited. Then I bent the next sheer using the same plan, soak in water for 48 hours and using hot towels....All went well. The best thing that I did was to make a clamping block for the breast hook. This gave me something for the pipe clamp to clamp on.

Limbers
Limbers are just drain holes in the bottom of the boat that allows the water to move aft and find its way to the drain plug. I used my router with a fence attach to make the limbers in the rear battens. I did not put any limbers in the Keel because I was not sure if that would make that area weak. I will need to do some research to find out what others are doing. If I leave the keel separating the limbers then I will need to install two drain plugs, one on each side of the keel.

What's next?
I will need to epoxy the sheer pieces together and fit to the notches in the frame. Then cut and fit the sheer to the breast hook and transom, epoxy and screw it all together.

Bend Wood with Steam and Hot Towels

I have been working hard on the boat but the progress did not show so it has been a while since my last post. My brothers Gary and Joey have been very helpful. Gary has been pushing me along when things sometime come to a slow crawl.


I glued up stiffeners on Keel and Battens. This process went along just fine with no surprises. Just cut the marine plywood to fit and mix up some epoxy and clamp.


The Chine Log pieces proved to be a real challenge. After snapping this very expensive piece of mahogany the first time, I did not want to repeat. I came up with new plan to soak the pieces in water for a couple of days. Gary came up with the idea of buying a 4" diameter PVC drainpipe and gluing a cap on the end. We placed these 16 feet pieces in the pipe filled with water and strapped the pipe to the handrail in the stairway. It sure helps to have an understanding wife.

After the pieces soaked for a couple of days, out to the steamer they went. Gary and I removed them from the steamer and clamped them into position. Yes, success....so I thought. This process worked great and I would do it that way if I ever had to do it again. The only thing that did not turn out just right was the front section between the frame ( frame 5.5) and the stern. It needed a little more twist. We solved this problem by making a jig. We just screwed some blocks down on the table. We wrapped the pieces in very hot towels and poured hot water on the towels keeping the wood wet and hot. After about 30 minutes of this process, the wood was placed into the jig to dry for 24 hours. The results were great.

The buckets underneath the chine were used to collect the dripping water and boy did this work great. A couple of dry towels wiped up what little water landed on the basement floor.

Now that the Chine logs are bent to the approximant shape it was time to epoxy to two pieces of wood together. This was easily done with a temporary clamp to the forms while spreading them apart and applying epoxy with a foam roller. The hard part was the clamping. I used every clamp I had and it took a good hour to get them all in place.

My next job will be to epoxy to the other two pieces of the second chine log together.