Trip to Armstrong Millworks

Well it was time to go to Armstrong Millworks in Milford, Michigan and select the African Mahogany for the decking on the boat.  Good friend and Squirt Builder Art Atkinson volunteered to tag along and help me with selecting some great boards.

When Art was ready to re-saw his wood for the deck on his squirt he used his shop bandsaw to resaw his wood and he said that although his bandsaw did a good job, it was a painfully long task. I have basically the same bandsaw so I selected the easy way out and asked the guys at Armstrong's to resaw and sand the boards to the 5/16th thickness that I needed. Looking back, this was a great decision. The boards turned out great and now they are almost ready for installation. I will still need to run the edge on the jointer so I have one straight edge and then rip the boards to the correct width. Bottom line: Armstrong Millworks is highly recommended by me and others. I have been getting my wood supplies from them for years and they have always been great people to work with.

Dennis Armstrong

Adam is planning the rough wood

Adam and Dennis are resawing the 16' X 10" Mahogany

Art Atkinson lending a hand with the sanding

Ted Gauthier happy with wood grain

Sub Deck Milestone

 My big milestone this week was to epoxy the sub deck onto the top of the boat.  I used 1/4" Okoume Marine Plywood for the sub deck.  Once again my brother Gary came over and spent the entire day.  A very good friend Dave Pohl helped out for a good part of the afternoon.  We had a great system set up with one guy mixing epoxy and then spreading it out, drilling, countersinking the holes and then putting in the 3/4" silicon bronze screws.   Now that the entire sub deck has been installed, I will need to get the overhanging material trimmed flush with the edges so that the stainless steel bumper rails will fit properly along with the cabin areas so they will accept the trim molding.

Making the Sub-Deck

I was able to get a lot done on the project this Saturday with the help of my brothers Joey and Gary.  They are always there when I need them.  Most of the winter I had been working alone on the boat and did not need their assistance but now it was time to start handling large sheets of 1/4 " marine plywood.  Sometimes when you have more people working on a project it does not mean that you will get things accomplished twice as fast but this time we were really able to make good use of everyone.  Yes, I could have done this part of the project by myself but it would most likely taken me several days and not near as much fun.

The large square wood blocks where used as a washers to support the screws so they would not pull through the plywood under stress.

On Sunday, I took everything apart and flipped the decking over.  Everything received a coat of epoxy.

There is still a lot of work that will need to be done with the sub deck.  All the seams will need to be glued and clamped with epoxy.  The screw holes will all need to be drilled and countersunk to the correct size.  This will take time because I want to be sure that I have as much done in the cockpit area as I can before covering the deck.  It will be much easier to do it while the deck is open than to crawl under there later.  I will also need to do a little bit of fairing in one or two spots where the sub deck did not lay down as nice as I expect.

Steady Work and Making Progress

I have been slow to update my blog because there is little to show for all the work that I have been putting into my boat project.  I have been working on something almost every day.

Rebuild and paint the shifter control selector:  I cleaned, polished and painted the shifter control center and then installed all new cables.  I started to look at the control cables that I received with the used motor that I bought and found that the old cables were all rusted.  After giving it a little thought, I think it was best to just replace them with new and not worry about them breaking.. A safety thing for me..

In the photo below you can see the shifter all painted and put in its place.  Also the radio was installed by cutting a hole in the mahogany and mounting the brackets.  Here you can also see the red courtesy lights that I installed for a total of four LED strip lights.  The walls will have upholstery that is yet to be installed.

The wiring project on the boat was much larger than I ever imagined.  I am amazed how much wire is in a simple boat.  I now have about 80% of all the electrical installed and tested but most of it still needs to be secured.  I used a brother label maker to identify each end of each wire and then covered the label with clear shrink tubing to secure them in place.  I also did this when I built my airplane and the time it took paid itself back many times when you need to do repairs.  

The switches in the first picture are: 

Top = Key switch

Left of the switch panel is a little button switch that is for the courtesy lights

On the Switch panel from left to right are:  Horn, Anchor/Nav, Stereo, Bilge Pump1, Bilge Pump2.

Everything is connected and working but not secured

Volt, RPM and Fuel Gauges

Installed supports in both the main and passenger cabin areas around the deck.

 I made two speaker mounts that I installed just under the front deck.  You will not be able to see them when seating in the boat.

The Steering system has given me my biggest head ache and I have spent so much time and money trying to resolve this problem.  The problem that I have been having is not getting enough right and left turn of the motor.  In the photo below was an attempt to install a splash well mount steering system.  In this setup I used an 11' steering cable.  I was not happy with set up so now I am attempting a linkage type steering system that will be mounted above the deck.  The Linkage type steering required a 12' cable and a linkage arm.  It will also require me to build a custom mount. In my next post, I will show some photos of that setup and let you know how things work out.

It is just a Stick

I have spent more than a week working on my side bumper rails.  Sure they look like a couple of sticks attached to the side of the boat but they are much more than that and very challenging to build.  When I think that I will just go down in the basement and a make something up in a few hours I should know that I am just day dreaming.  On the surface it looks like it will be an easy task but with a boat, there are curves everywhere and this was no exception.  The side of the boat has a curve up and down, along the horizontal axis with a nice twist.  Now the chore was to mount a straight bumper rail just at the right location.

The first thing I did was take my time and that paid off by building a stand to hold the wood into position.  Every time I put the wood back into position it was in the same exact spot.  Then I only had to measure, mark, plane, cut, and sand for two full days to get it fit just right.  I am very happy with the results.

I decided to epoxy T-nuts into the bumper rail making hard points so I could bolt them on from the inside of the boat.  This way I could pull to rail to the side of the boat making a perfect joint so I could clamp, caulk and epoxy them into position.  One trick that worked out well was to put wax on the bolts so the epoxy would not stick to the bolts while I was setting the hard points.

Now that the bumper rails are done, it is time to start working on the steering linkage.

Zip on Floor Jacks - Seat install

I have done a lot of work on my "Zip" boat project since the last time that I made a post on this blog so I will attempt to give you the rundown. The big milestone was on Christmas Eve when I had most of my brothers, son-in-law and nephews over and they all offered to help me lift the boat and it's cradle so we could place the floor jacks under it. Once everything was raised 12", there was enough room to put the 40hp motor on the transom. I needed to get that into position so I could start to figure out how all the steering linkage and electrical wiring would be connected.

Some of the other things that I have been working on were mounting the battery switch into the rear seat frame, making boxes along side of seats to hide wiring, steering cables, shift control box and of course a place for an afternoon beverage.

I have also built the seat bottoms and backs and started the upholstery project.  I really wanted to get the foam seats glued up to them so I could sit on in the seat and feel if the position of each on was correct.  I am so glad that I did because when I built the seat frames I thought that everything fit just right with enough room to remove them when I wanted, but I was wrong.  The seats did not fit after gluing up the foam pads on the seat bottoms and backs.  Ten minutes of trimming saved me major headaches if I had found this out after the fabric was put on them.

Whats next....fairing the top deck, and getting the steering control linkage figured out.   Begin the wiring process and having a lot of patience when things don't go just right.

Cutting Holes and Getting things done

I was able to work on the boat a lot this week and over the weekend.  I don't really have much to show for all the work that I put into this part of the project but a few things were real milestones.  Most of the week I have taking everything apart I previously fabricated so I could epoxy and glue them.  These items included the seat box frames, seat bottoms and backs and four side panels.  If you notice in the pictures, the interior of the boat is gutted.  The reason it is empty again is:  That is the process you need to go through when building.  You fabricate and then take it apart, epoxy it and then reinstall it.  It is almost like building several boats because you end up putting things together and taking them apart many times in the course of fabricating.

The seats are gone to the upholstery shop.  I ordered my own fabric and fabricated everything that I wanted to have upholstered and I found a real talented lady about a mile from my house who is taking on that part of project.

I spent a good part of the weekend cutting holes in the instrument panel for the instruments.  I will have an RPM, fuel gauge and a volt meter in the dash.  The biggest project was to cut a 2 1/4" hole and (3) 5/16" holes to mount the steering wheel.  I have been waiting a week for the 20 degree mount and it finally came in so I made a trip to West Marine to pick it up.  I did not have the correct size hole saw so I also made a trip over to my brother Joey's and he loaned me his.  A couple of 1 1/2" holes were needed in the bulkhead to route the steering cable and the rough mounting and fitting of Teleflex rack mounting system was complete.

I also mounted the bilge pumps and made a box to house the battery.  The battery drops right into the box and it is very secure.  I always worry about accidents and the possibility of sever weather so I added tie downs for budgie cords if needed.