Seats fitted

The seats are all fitted to the boat. The glue is cured on the supports, the vertical supports have been cut to fit (they will be glued next session) and the seats are in place. The side-arms for BH2 and 4 are cut and ready to be glued. The knees are cut and almost finished. Inwale spacers are cut, the inwales need to be scarfed and they'll be ready too. Things are moving.

Here's a great example why you want to diagram out the dimensions of the front seat per the plans, and then trace something to what you've actually got in the boat before you cut:


Unless you're a very gifted woodworker, of which there are many out there (this is an AMATEUR BLOG, remember?) tracing will be beneficial. The dark black lines are per the plans for the GIS. What you see is what my front seat ended up being to fit in the bow. A little wider up front, very close in the middle, and then wide again in the rear. I've got a few ideas how this came about, but I'm glad I didn't just cut and then try to fit it only to find huge gaps both in the boat and in my wallet as I shelled out 60 bucks for another sheet of ply. This is not a big deal in the end, it's truly a slight variation of shape up front, and so it goes.

Here's a few exposures of my beautiful craft as she comes together. Looking good!

Seat cleats, gluing, daggerboard

Ok my pretties:

Today I decided to start gluing again after a long hiatus. My back is good enough now that I can bend into the boat now if I'm really careful. We had a couple days where the temps were above freezing by a few degrees, so the garage temperature came up as well. With a well placed $12 heater from Lowes, I glued up the seat cleats for the bow, center, and stern seats.

This was another typical gluing disaster, messy and sticky. The bow went first. I decided to use two screws to get the side cleats into position, the ply-leverage method is a good one, but I didn't need the added stress of a cleat swimming out of position. Two 1 1/4" drywall screws and I knew nothing was moving. You'll notice that the vertical post has yet to be glued, I'm waiting for everything to harden up so I can just get an accurate measurement.


Afterwards, I threw some plastic over it to make a heating tent thing. Very rudimentary, but quite effective.


Next up was the stern seat cleats. You may notice the bricks holding down the cleat along the floor. I did not use fasteners for this one, or its mate in the bow. Alternating the bricks supplied the weight and kept it from sliding around. Also, two screws per side cleat.


I did get some small gaps along some cleats, but when I pour glue all over them for the seat fitting, these will fill adequately. These are not necessarily structural, though they hold the seat which through its fillet along the side will be, but there's enough glue there. Also, no water gets in here anyway. Or put another way: If water gets this watertight compartment, I'm really screwed anyway.


AND FINALLY

I've started on working on something other than the hull. The daggerboard/centerboard and the rudder. Technically, it's a daggerboard. Storer and others likes to use the word "foils" which I guess it correct, they are foil shaped, as in airfoil, but I've never heard that term before, ever. It's always been "blades." So I'm sticking with blades. Maybe it's a New England thing.

I ripped up my 5/4x6" cedar planks to strips between 1-2". My bro-in-law is making a cherry countertop for his renovated kitchen. I was welcome to the scraps. So my daggerboard has cherry leading and trailing edges, with a middle spice-it-up stripe. The rudder, whose stock is not complete due to wood lackage, will most likely get two strips, for and aft, though I really would like a center stripe to match. This blank was also joined, as in, I used a joiner. Tight. I really went all out for this one!

Getting small items done

Slowly but surely, carefully, things are coming along!

My second gunwale is scarfed and glued! As you can see, the epoxy will glue your bricks to the wood too! I had to chisel the brick off the wood, and it left brick behind which was further chiseled. This is my nicest, tightest scarf to date... on this side. Little more of a gap on the other side which is too bad, because the tight side will be glued to the boat due to a curvature in the wood that already nicely conforms to the hull.


My mast step and mast partner are glued up, in place, and ready to be cut open to fit the mast and then glued down. I doubled up the mast partner because the top of BH2 can be easily twisted by hand. By doubling it up, it stiffens it considerably. This makes me feel better after the chaotic gluing job around these bulkheads:


My bow knee came out well except for two things 1. I forgot that it was to be placed OVER the stem. My stem comes up to the edges of the ply, no room to slip it over. This means I will have to either slip it behind the stem or on top of it. I will ask Storer for recommendations. My bow was also considerably wider than the number provided by Storer for the knee. I would highly recommend tracing real world bow to your piece of lumber prior to cutting. Remember to keep the gunwales fastened. My stern knees, by comparison, came out great (I traced the real deal and did not go by the numbers provided by Storer). The great thing about my stern knees is that they are interchangeable, as in, both corners are the same! Yes! Precision building yes! Notice my mail. This is where I throw my bills. Then when I glue on the aft seat, they will be sealed in forever, and all my financial problems will disappear!

Because my workshop is a walk from my assembly point in the garage, my hull is becoming my new holding bin/workshop.


It's also dusty in there! My lonesome bike, covered in wood dust. Primarily this dust is from the wood cherry countertops being built by my brother in law right behind me, but the picture is cooler if everyone thinks its coming from my boat!


In addition,

1. my side arms for BH2 and 4 are cut and beveled to the sides (again, I waited until I got my boat assembled to match them to the actual hull)

2. inwale spacers are cut

I would like warmer temps in the garage before I start gluing things. As of right now, strictly hull, non-gluing, I need to do the following:

1. Cut out the mast holes in the partner and step

2. Scarf inwales

3. Finish fitting bow seat (waiting for gluing of seat cleats)

Other than that, rudder, daggerboard, mast and spars, centerboard trunk.

I am very close to having a totally completed hull.

Back in action

OK ALL

Been on a bit of hiatus. I've been working like it's going out of style, my back has been totally thrown out (getting better slowly), and I haven't been feeling motivated. That's changing. I'm running out of wood. There are things to do. I'm hoping to pick back up the momentum and get this project back on track!

The past month hasn't seen much project. I've been piecemealing it together bit by bit, but essentially, the seats are cut out and the seat cleats are cut and beveled. No gluing because the temps have been hovering around 34F 2C in the garage. All easy and self explanatory, except for one thing (bow seat) which I will get to next. Bevels were marked, by the way, by lining up the cleats to the BH's and taking a pencil and marking my boat's angle... Storer recommends 11 mm on all cleats, I do not recommend that it would be too much on some portions of my boat. A custom and accurate bevel is just as easy as a pencil mark!!!

Some obligatory GIS pics:

First: Framing for the bow seat. Notice the shim on BH1... If you remember, dear intrepid reader, BH1 is the only BH that sat correctly on the chinelogs, every other BH sat too high and I had to shim the bottoms to meet the bottom panel. Hence, on BH1 I had to shim the top to meet the bow seat. This will necessitate a shim underneath the ply that will back the center cleat on BH1 as well.


Bow seat almost in place:


Detail of the cleats meeting at the stem. Notice rudimentary notches cut to accomodate the fillets around the stem:


The seat slowly moving forward. My experience with the bow seat thus far will differ from the plans. I would strongly suggest marking out the bow seat on the ply per the plans in the manual, (remember the 15mm extra!!!) THEN take measurements from your boat itself and map them out on top of the lofting you've already taken for comparison. My boat has a slightly different shape in the bow than the plans are expecting, and my seat will fit, it's just going to take lots of shaping and a little luck to make it fit without any significant gaps. Don't sweat it like me, just back up your measurements with what you have on the ground in your workshop.


Stern framing, note my space heater for when I decide to glue. The transom center cleat support had to be notched to fit around the backing I glued on for the rudder bolts. Woops, I didn't leave 6mm to squeeze the support in. Also, the angles are all off. Something doesn't add up, either the height of the transom cleat, BH4, or the angle of the transom itself. OH WELL!


Rear seat is fit. This one went smoothly, just a little annoying. A little gap on the port side, but no big deal, it will be covered by the epoxy fillet. This seat fits better than the bow.


No vertical supports have been cut yet, I'll do that when I glue everything else in place, that way I'll get a nice solid measurement and they will custom fit without things moving out of the place.

I'm struggling with scarfing the "real" gunwales, they are not going as easy as the chinelogs did. Next up, mast step and partner. Maybe after that a marathon gluing session and then I can work on blades, mast, spars, etc. etc. Onwards into the new year with my GIS!