I make my first bevel

I had to bevel the seat cleat on the transom for the rear seat. This is a harrowing proposition for me because, a: I do not know how to bevel things, and b: I do not want to screw this up too much because then nothing will fit. Fortunately, I had the mind to ask over at the Storer woodworking forum first, and basically, I take my hand plane to it and plane away. So that's what I did, and I successfully beveled my seat cleat the 4mm. PHEW! Not so bad! Of course, I say that now. Time to start learning how to keep my plane blade sharp. Here's a pic, but the cleat is not oriented in the correct position, worry not GIS fans!

Framing the transom

Ooooh boy, I'm in it now. I got home after being on the road for almost two weeks and immediately picked back up on working on the boat. I decided to frame the transom. I cut the cedar parts to frame the sides, the bottom, and the seat cleat in 2:45. I thought it would go significantly quicker, but it didn't because it was a little more complicated than I thought, and my framing was fraught with multiple mistakes. I also do not have a solid piece of cedar for the top piece, which needs to be wider than any of my stock. Maybe I'll use two pieces, maybe that will have to wait.

The first mistake was correcting an old one... the transom needs 7mm of extra on the sides of the ply and 12mm extra on the bottom. I figured this was extra that was going to be cut off, so I threw in a few extra mm to make round numbers. Turns out the 7 and 12 is important, because I will be basing the bevel of the sides and bottom off these numbers. Fortunately I read the section first before, cleaned up the lines to the correct length, and then cut and sanded smooth.

After that, it was a comedy of errors cutting the cedar to fit appropriately. In the end, it looks good, tight, and straight. Next up, I have to glue it all on and/or seal the ply in epoxy and then glue it on. I also do not know how to bevel any of this stuff. This is something I am going to have to ask about for because I don't know how to do it simply and without screw up. Time to phone the collective.

Epoxy purchase

I ordered my epoxy yesterday, and it was a move that was not anticipated. Originally, I was going to drive down to West Marine and pick up all the jazz that I needed for the boat, namely the 2 gallons of epoxy, hardener, glass, glass tape, etc. I quickly jumped online to check the prices and, just for laughs, compare it with the epoxy kit for the GIS that is offered at Duckworks. The math heavily favored the Duckworks kit, even with the shipping costs. I get everything for $275.25, including shipping. If I went to West Marine, the epoxy and hardener alone would be $270. The math was so blatantly obvious that I went with Duckworks, even though I have a heavy allegiance to West Systems, as I've used significant amounts of it on my old Laser (hull #194). So I'm going with a new epoxy, for cheaper, and with the theoretical sign-off by Storer. In essence, this cannot be a bad decision. We'll see!

EDIT: I'm still not home yet, but I got the call: "What are in these boxes that showed up in the garage?" So far, so good. The packages came 4 days after I ordered them. Duckworks is in TX, I'm in NH, so I'm very pleased. I had a note added to the shipping instructions, and Sandra added it to the label. Everything was dropped off as I requested.

Ripping my stock

Not much to report today, I just ripped my cedar stock for the bulkhead framing. A table saw is very nice to have. I just bought one at Sears for 119 bucks. I needed to adjust the blade angle, and that was annoying, but other than that, it was a good buy. In little over an hour I ripped all my cedar stock for all my BH framing needs, and then some. The initial 63 feet of cedar I got for this was the perfect amount for the BH's. I still need some stock for the chinelogs, because I don't want to do any joinery.

I start 12 days on the road on Sunday. Boo.

Cut out bulkheads and transom

In 2:10, I cut out, planed to acceptable limits, and slobered over the fact that I have cut out the remaining major parts for the hull-- bulkheads and transom. Daggerboard case and seats still remain, but for the most part, I see lots of part that look like boat! YES! I jigsawed out the BH's, and planed them carefully to the lines, with a little room left over to sand down by hand. The hand plane is awesome, but it rips out the inner ply at the corners, so I have some empty corners on my BH's, nothing that some epoxy won't fill in.

She arrives! Booya!

Lofting bulkheads and transom

Yesterday I lofted the bulkheads and transom, except for bulkhead #4. Everything went smoothly and was straightforward except for a little hiccup with the transom and a previous mismanagement that precluded me from being able to loft #4.

First: The intrepid reader may remember that I did not offset the bottom of the boat to the edge of the ply. Instead of calculating where I could draw the centerline in order to maintain the bottom and the excess 20mm on the ply but abutting the edge, I just drew the centerline right down the middle of the ply to make my life a little easier. This came at the price that bulkhead #4 did not have the sufficient space to be lofted on the remaining ply. I will have to use my bonus extra ply that is available on the last sheet, which means I can't really screw anything else up, because I'll have to get another sheet. At 60 bucks.

Second: The transom needs 7mm at least of extra space along the sides, and 12mm along the bottom. I lofted the transom with the starboard corner at the edge of the ply, which meant that section would not get its 7mm extra. I easily shifted the entire drawing over 1cm. Also, BH # 2 and 3 and the transom offer approximately 5.5cm of extra ply to work with. Careful lofting was paramount. Efficient use of plywood, indeed.

Cutting the bottom and sides

So yesterday and today I cut out the bottom and the sides. Things went relatively smoothly and without major hiccups. My lines weren't as straight as I would have liked with the jigsaw, and a few times I came perilously close to cutting off too much, but disaster averted, for the most part. I flipped over the first side onto the remaining ply, traced, marked bulkheads, labeled everything so nothing got lost, and cut out the starboard side. This time, I gave myself a little extra with plans to plane it down to match, rather than screw the whole thing up. Initially I thought that maybe I had left too much, but my hand plane moves wood like grandma moves for her pack o' cigs. This is my first time using a hand plane, and I was very surprised at how quickly the job went. Everything matches everything else, so I'm feeling pleased. At the worst, I may have lost 1mm here or there, but things look good... (here's a pic of the bottom with 20mm extra)



...or so I thought, until I looked up at my two bow side sections and noticed an interesting, unplanned, unanticipated curve. From amidships, the gunwale is supposed to carve gently downward to the bow. My sides are perfect from stern to 3/4 of the way to the bow... when the gunwale gently rises up back the bow. EITHER: I haven't cut enough out from the bow, and I gave myself some generous extra working space, OR I removed too much in the forward section, just aft of the bow. I dipped down into the side, so to speak. Frustratingly, all the lines that mark the gunwale seem spot on, I remember sighting them and liking what I saw when I was lofting. I don't know what went wrong here.

Pause, while I go measure.

Compared with Storer's plans, all my points measure within 1/2 mm of where they should be. I don't know if this curve is an optical illusion, or what, but the math seems to be telling the truth.

WELL I'm going to go with what I have now, keep this in the back of my mind and hope for the best down the road. If I need to take some artistic license, so be it!

Lofted de bottom.

Today I whipped out the bottom of the boat, in pencil. Since I've already lofted the side, it went much quicker as there wasn't the trial and error period. The batten left a beautiful curve across the plywood, and I could see definitely, that this here was about to become, a boat. Pretty stoked, I am, as you can imagine. The only difference with the bottom is that measurements are given from the centerline. Storer has depicted the bottom of the boat lofted to one side of the plywood in order to save some wood, but I went for simple measurements and centerlined it right down the middle of the ply. Very satisfying results, all around.

Continued Lofting of side

Swiss National Day!

Today, I successfully "connected the dots" and traced out the outline of the port side. I bought small (4d) nails to mark the dots, and bought two 8' sections of floor trim to use at the "fairing batten" which would be my guide between the dots, as the batten would be clamped to the nails. The floor trim I picked was the cheapest, at $2.98 a piece. I thought this was a brilliant solution, and it WAS, except that I would have gotten a little better performance had I picked a square profile as opposed to the fancier convexed profile... the clamps would slip up the side.

A little bit of sighting down the line is a good idea, even though I TRIPLE checked my points of measurement, there were a few instances where things just didn't line up super smoothly. I interpolated the difference and it made for a very acceptable line.

The final product, seeing one side traced out on the plywood is a great feeling. When I come home from my trip next week, I'm going to rip that side out of the plywood. I won't be able to erase any mistakes then. Bring it.