Send Them North

Strapped down and ready to ride

2011-05-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Alright. A few measly hours behind schedule, we are headed out onto the freeway.

Oil change. New ratchet straps. Lots of snacks, courtesy Summer and Susan.

The boat looks and feels sturdy. We have the stock for oars, the gunwales, plus lots of fir plywood and odds and ends. This is going to be fantastic. We are both looking forward to a lot of thumbs up while rolling down the highway.

First stop is Eugene, OR. We planning to stay at the lovely abode of Gen and Germ. Apparently they have two boats in their front yard, so we'll be right at home.

Time just keeps on ticking...

2011-05-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

So here we are. Its May of 2011 and the boat still has a ways to go. We've had some obstacles to progress over the last year or so. Drew moved down to Cali, JD has been in Olympia, but he's been leaving for far away boat jobs each summer. Its meant that boat work has been relegated to the winter, which just isn't that functional or appealing in our plastic hut of a boathouse.

The latest movement on the boat front is a plan to drive it down to California. There are a variety of reasons this might be a good idea. To wit,

Drew has time on his hands, supposedly.
Drew has access to a shop that actually has walls.
No rent is charged at said shop.
JD is leaving again for the remainder of the summer.
It will be fun and hilarious to drive the boat down.

As far as reasons it might be a bad idea? There is pretty much just that one pesky one....DANGER DANGER DANGER! Okay, not really, but we will be strapping a 18 ft boat on top of JD's 14 ft pickup. Hey, its gone 258,000 miles already, whats another 800 with a boat on top???

So, as long as we don't have any mechanical problems, encounter any massive windstorms, or blow out all our tires (knock on wood), the boat will be in CA by Wednesday of next week!

For reference, I've attached a picture of us trying on the boat for size. Note, this is not the final loading position...

Gluing in the centerboard case

2010-03-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

We decided to spring for a belt sander

2009-11-22T07:16:00.000-08:00

Recently, some coats of epoxy failed to cure smoothly. The outside of the boat is now covered in ridged epoxy, leading us to discover how annoying it is to try to scrape basically the entire hull of the boat with loud, repeatedly dulling sharpeners. Faced with another couple of hours of scraping, we decided to purchase a belt sander. Probably it'll be even louder, and take just as long, but, whatever. Maybe it will be less annoying.

We went to the box stores. Shhh. We thought that if worse came to worse, we could take the thing back. Here are a couple of videos of our visit. The first one is Lowe's, the second Home Despot. Enjoy:

In which we review the Porter-Cable Compact belt sander, the Black and Decker Dragster, the Skil belt sander, Dewalt belt power sander, and more?!

New Shop

2009-08-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

I've mostly completed setting up the new boat shop on the west side. We're now in a pole shed with quite a bit less space than before, but a lot more light and air.

In preparation for continued work on the boat I've built a new work bench, and just today finished a big cabinet that will store our tools securely and accessibly. I'm very excited.

Tomorrow I'll be able to work on the boat straight away.

=========================================

Edit: Many moons later, we added plastic walls so that we could heat up the boatshop for the purpose of getting some of our epoxy to cure....check out a graphic illustration below.

More Landing Gear

2009-05-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've been working on all the pieces that will attach to the bottom of the boat to protect it. I've pretty much finished the skeg, and the rubbing strips I think I'll finish up today. Once those pieces are installed, the outside of the hull will be ready for paint.

This picture (above) shows the two pieces that make up the skeg being glued together, the bow-block coated with epoxy and down in the distance to the left are the two rubbing strips with their scarphs.

Here you can see the finished skeg sitting approximately where it will eventually be glued down. I made it substantially heavier that the designs called for, and tapered it down to 3/8". Looks pretty handsome, no?

Bow Block

2009-05-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

I carved a nice oak bow block to protect the bottom where it'll hit the beach a lot. It needs a little more shaping and sanding, but I think it looks nice. I also cut strips of oak for the rubbing strips that will go on either side of the bottom. Sorry, no pictures of the strips. Maybe later when I'm putting them on.

Gift Certificate Time

2009-05-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

My mom, Susan, bought a fifty dollar gift certificate for Olympia Supply at an auction supporting Safeplace recently. She gave it to me, and the picture below shows the stuff I bought with it.

A bunch of sandpaper of various grit, acetone, nitrile gloves, and a little brush attachment for the shop-vac: $45.

Scraping and Sanding

2009-05-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

Sanding, Re-Coating, Sanding, Coating Again

2009-05-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

After all the excitement of flipping the hull over and seeing the smooth epoxy coating on the bottom, the hard (one might call it tedious) project of fairing the bottom and topsides was a little harder to get into. I (Drew) started right away though, wanting to get it over with and to move along to more interesting tasks.

I've spent a good deal of time sanding and recoating the hull to get it smooth and fair (more or less). This is very time consuming. The first go-round I went over the whole bottom with 80 grit on the belt sander. There were bubbles under the coat of epoxy that I wanted to expose so that the next coat could fill them. The mylar trick was supposed to obviate the need for additional sanding and coats of epoxy, but because of the bubbles I decided to go about the sanding and re-coating process. I think that it needed to happen anyway, because the surface was somewhat uneven and needed fairing. I ended up sanding into the fiberglass in some places because of the bumpiness, and it became much more obvious when the low areas had their sheen and the high areas were all roughed up.

This prepared the bottom for the first (and I had hoped, only) coat of epoxy after the wetting out of the glass. I coated the bottom, hoping to come back and do some sweet finish sanding and be more or less done with it. As mentioned, it didn't really work out that simply.

I hadn't realized how far we were from a smooth, fair bottom. Also, this coat picked up some dust or something and ended up pretty rough. Thankfully when I sanded again I didn't go through the epoxy to the fiberglass except where I was feathering out the glass on the garboards. The feathering looks good by the way. I scraped all the rough spots out with the scraper, then went back over everything with the orbital sander and 80 grit paper. Then I rolled on one more coat of epoxy on, which I think with a sanding to get all the whatevers out will be all we need. I sure hope so, because sanding all this epoxy and glass feels like turning expensive glue into dust (and cancer).

After reading a little more about glassing I learned that all the problems with bubbles and less than perfect transparency can be dealt with by raising the temperature of the epoxy. This makes it thinner, which in turn allows the bubbles to work themselves out before the glue starts to set up.

Apparently 70 degrees is like the absolute minimum for a perfectly clear fiberglass layup. That's probably about where we were when we did ours. Our epoxy consistency was more or less like a thick syrup. This thing I read said that it should be about as thin as water for the best wet-out results. So, on the next boat we need to remember to get the epoxy up to about 85 degrees when we're doing fiberglass so we get better flow. Also, we should spend more time sanding prior to putting anything on. I think everything post-layup would have gone much better if the surface was better smoothed out to begin with.

To say it mildly, I'm super tired of sanding and sweeping and vacuuming, but there's still a lot more cleanup left to do. I've got a hair dryer now to warm up the epoxy in all those fills on the sides. The wood flour mix becomes super hard with the epoxy fully cured (I should have scraped them off when I knew it was the right time, when the glue was still a little elastic), so it's too easy to dig in on either side of the fill. The hair dryer warms and softens so I can scrape the stuff off. Baah!
Well, we're getting there. Soon another part of the boat will be presenting problems of its own.

Flipping Out

2009-05-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

This was perhaps the most exciting step so far in the whole process. It didn't involve any real work, just disassembly, and moving the hull off the frame. For the first time we got to see the hull right side up, and yes, it really looks like a real boat. Like it could float us as far north as we might like to go.

Here we are unscrewing the boat from the building frame.

The boat is very light now, without any of the decks, thwarts etc that we'll add later on. Holding it like this takes very little effort at all. This will serve us well when we're hauling it up and down the beach.

Though all the imperfections are clear to the builders it looks good at a glance, and perfectionism was never our intention. Every step that we've put our effort into, however unskilled or hesitant, adds a layer of unique beauty that's specifically tuned to our own (sentimental) eyes.

There's still a lot of work to do, and flipping the boat was a little premature because the hull still needs to be cleaned up. Premature, but oh so necessary. We needed to see this thing stand alone. Now we can call it a boat, and it really is. It's a boat, sitting on its old building frame.

This is What a Fiberglassed Bottom Looks Like

2009-05-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

We were worried, but things turned out all right (like we knew they would). The mirror finish idea was nice, but we weren't going to use it anyway. Painting was always the plan. There were bubbles in the epoxy that needed to be sanded out, but the pictures look pretty awesome anyway, no?

Fiberglass!

2009-04-19T21:42:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, it's not the itchy kind (unless you tear the fabric apart into its constituent fibers).

Fiberglass, epoxy and mylar sheeting

2009-04-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, these are the petrochemicals we love and love to hate.

For the most part, though we call our boat a wood boat, it does contain a lot of components that are decidedly not wood. In fact I recently stumbled upon (in the non-2.0 sense of the word) a classification schema for wooden and "wooden" boats. With a "Genuine Wooden Boat" sitting at 1.1, our boat, or a "Piecewise Laminated Wooden Boat" was listed seven steps down at division 1.2.2.

Anyhow, all this is leading up discussing our recent conversations about adding a fiberglass sheathing to the bottom of the boat. Back when we were choosing plywood for the hull, we passed over locally cut/made douglas fir which requires a complete fiberglass encasing to prevent "checking." We specifically chose fancier, more expensive plywood, okoume (probably logged in Gabon, made into plywood in "France" and China) so that we wouldn't have to glass it. We didn't want the added work or cost, and we wanted something closer to a wood boat at the end of the day. Not a plastic boat with some wood inside it.

But while Okoume doesn't check, its soft. And since we want to be able to drag this boat around, land on barnacles, in surf, etc, we need the bottom of the boat to be fairly resilient. And that means in addition to some skids that we'll add, we need to cover the bottom in fiberglass.

To that end, today I traveled down to Tap Plastics, located on the northern edge of the Mission district here in San Francisco. It was recommended to me by George at Coast Marine, the excellent chandlery up near Fisherman's Wharf. Tap has a really cool old storefront, and a lot, no really, a lot, of plastic stuff. If you are in the area you should stop in sometime.

There are two main types of fiberglass, and we went with S-glass, the 4 oz version. S-glass is fancier and has a higher strength to weight ratio than the more common E-glass, but mainly we chose it for it reported ease of application and out of the potentially misguided hope that it may be more abrasion resistant. Just fyi, the S-glass was $8.50/yd at Tap, and we priced the E-glass at $17/yd at West Marine.

We will be using the same Systems Three epoxy that we've been using for the planking and framing. It should be more than adequate for the glassing we're planning.

We are also planning to try a technique that I saw described on the duckworks website. So I also picked up 16 ft of Mylar sheeting at Tap. They didn't have any available by the foot that was as thick as the .03" mentioned in the duckworks explanation, but I bought some at .005". We'll see how that treats us. Looking at some of the pictures from their step by step, I have my doubts about the accuracy of their reporting. Anyhow, the guy at Tap seemed to think .005 was fine for surfboards so we'll see.

A Whole Boat!

2009-04-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

At lot has been done since our last post. The boat is now fully planked. And just today Drew finished attaching the outer stem, so the hull of our boat is now complete! This is excellent progress. It looks like we will in fact have the boat ready to be able to move by May.

Before the boat will be ready we are going to put some fiberglass sheathing on the bottom of the boat to guard against abrasion during our beach landings. The fiberglass will just cover the bottom, ie the oval shaped plywood piece that is more or less parallel to the water. There will be a little overlap, and the cloth should come up an inch or two all the way around. This will help protect the base of the stem and the garboard seam, and hopefully prevent the glass from peeling off to easily.

In this picture, the starboard sheer strake (the plank closest to the basement floor) is not actually glued on. Since this shot was taken, Drew and I glued this plank on, and Drew spiled and cut out a matching plank for the port side. Brant (whose name i'm not 100% sure on how to spell) came down to help drew glue that one on. In drew's opinion, the boat looks pretty darn good. I'm excited to see it.

In D.M.'s post of March 25th, he voiced the larger goal of having the boat movable by May. It now looks like that will be totally feasable. In order to be ready to turn the boat over, which will essentially make it available to move, we just need to glass and paint the bottom. Of course, after that there will plenty of work to do before the boat is actually "done." (seats, decks, oars, oarlocks/tholepins, a name, etc).

Look for more action here in the next few days. I'll be up in Olympia for the coming weekend, and we should have access to a camera, fingers crossed.

The Man Himself

2009-04-08T07:39:00.001-07:00

JD, Dory, and Me Makes Three (No Camera)

2009-03-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

Due to a severe lack of camera, I haven't taken any pictures in the boatshop in quite some time. This is part of the reason why there have been so few posts (none) since October. The other reason is that I haven't been in the boatshop very much at all. I have however been there a little. And JD has been here since my last post, and he is in fact here, in Olympia today. Which is why I'll be at the boatshop, and also why I'm posting now. Some explanation must be made, pictures or no, of the progress that has occurred and what we intend to happen from here on out. Here we go.

Since the last picture that showed the boat, I've added the next row of planks. This involved cutting a bevel into the top edge of the garboards so that the next plank would lay neatly, and with a good flat gluing surface. Once the mating surface was prepared I made a spiling pattern out of doorskin, and scarphed the planking stock for the topsides strake. Then I had to figure out how to handle the long planks , get the surfaces glued and attach them while keeping it positioned just so. I succeeded fairly well I think, but there's definitely some fixing to be done as we move on to the sheer strake.

Yesterday JD and I devised a system for pulling the lumps out of the topside plank so we can accurately cut the new bevel and fair for the sheer plank. I think we can cut the bevel today. Then we can make the pattern for the next strake. I'm thinking that it would be good to use 1/4 in. plywood for the pattern making, because it will bend more like the actual plank and won't deflect when I'm laying out the pattern to mark the spiles onto the planking stock. This probably doesn't make any sense, but it will when you see the boat. In your gut you'll know that I was spiling, avoiding deflection, cutting bevels, correcting errors, etc. and that it all adds up to a beautiful hull, right?

The big goal is to have the boat moveable by May. I'm going to be really busy, but it's a totally achievable goal. And it will put us well on track to rowing on the Sound this summer. Yesss!

San Francisco to Olympia is a Long Commute

2008-10-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of a tree in the eveing light. It is a couple blocks from the boat shop, and I walk by it every day that I go there. For most of the year it's a fairly non-descript young maple tree, but for a couple weeks it really put on a show.

JD was here and now he has gone and I'm alone in the boat shop again. Three days is not long enough. However, we made a great leap in our progression toward actual boatiness. Two garboards are glued in place, and they'll soon be ready for the next planks to be attached.

[Warning! The next passage may contain indeciferable technical jargon. Read at your own risk.]

I still have to cut the overhang off of the port garboard in the stern, and then check the curve of the sheer side (top) of both garboards. Then I'll bevel the sheer edge of the garboards where the next planks will lie and we'll be ready to rock again. I anticipate the beveling taking some time, and I need to sharpen up the planes again, but all in all things are moving along.

I won't be in the shop for a few more days as I'm working up at my mom's house, putting in some new windows, but maybe I'll get in there this weekend if Abel doesn't have any work for me.

Excellent Work

2008-10-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

Today we installed the port side garboard strake. When I say we, I mean JD and Drew were both in attendence. No video conferencing, no Skype chat, but real, honest to goodness person to person collaboration. It was excellent.

Yesterday we glued on the starboard strake. The aft end had a moderate gap around the transom and we just filled that full of epoxy. I think it will be great.

The port side was a little more problematic since we broke off both of our little drill bits while drilling pilot holes. Without a car we started to get nervous since we had already spread epoxy basically everywhere.. but we called Steph who saved our freaking asses and went to the hardware store and picked up bits. See figure 2.1

Thinking About Oars

2008-10-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

JD will be here soon to help with installing the garboards. I haven't been in the boat shop much since they've been finished, but I've been doing some research into oars.

I've found a few recomendations for the leverage ratio an oar should have, but the concensus seems to be that you should find an oar that is comfortable and moves your boat along well. So much for formulas.

Maybe instead of jumping into building three sets, I'll build one set at a time so we can test them.

Planning

2008-09-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I planned. I thought about the planking process, what we'll need, and the steps that happen after that. I got to thinking about the rudder, which I lofted (drew full size) on the table and changed a little from the pattern. I thought about the centerboard and centerboard case, and the decks that will be substantially different than those the designer calls for in the plans.

I'm waiting for JD Ross to come up from San Francisco so we can attatch the garboards together. It's a two person job. In the meantime I might be able to get a start on the oars. We're going to need six of them, three pair, and that's a lot of work.

The New Table, The New Garboard, The News on Scarphing

2008-09-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

I built this huge table for laying out the planking and gluing it. It's made of a 4' x 10' sheet of 1" MDO. It's plywood that has a leveled surface that's covered with paper. It's easy to draw on, and really smooth and flat. I was hoping it would be a little stiffer, but it's good enough for a gluing surface. The half sheets are light enough to move around easily by myself, so I unscrew them from the horses and double them to make a stiff enough surface for scarphing.

I glued the port garboard scarphs today. I'm definitely getting better at it. I think that these ones are going to turn out pretty well. Better than the last seven anyway. Maybe by the time we get to the sheer strake I'll be expert at this plywood scarphing thing.

The most important things I've learned are things that I "knew" already. The subsurface (the bench or whatever the scarphed objects are sitting on) really has to be perfectly flat, at least the part directly under the scarphing zone and a bit past. Otherwise the plane will bridge over the low spots or take too much off the high spots. The clamping strip that's nailed or screwed through the scarph should really be exactly the width of the scarph. It's also nice to wrap the strip in plastic and staple it on so there's no plastic flapping around, allowing a clear view of the joint once it's clamped.

A Visit From Andy

2008-09-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

Our old friend Tetris Wassertron visited the boat shop today. Helped clean up a little, and kept me company while I slowly moved ahead with the port garboard.

Port.

2008-09-18T18:29:00.000-07:00

Last week I patterned and constructed the starboard garboard. So far this week I've fixed my mistake at the stern, and begun preparations for the port garboard.

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but the plank that I made for the starboard side ended up a little short from top to bottom in the stern. Yesterday evening I added a piece to that section, which I faired in today. So the starboard side fits now. When the boat is all planked and we turn her over, I think we'll probably want to add a stringer along that seam from the transom to frame number six to shore up the small joint and ensure structural integrity.

As I suspected, the plank that now fits on the starboard side doesn't exactly fit on the port side, meaning the boat isn't exactly symetrical. Hopefully this minor asymetry won't affect the tracking and handling of the vessel too much when she's in the water. I think the effects will probably be neglegable as the disparity is within an eighth from one side to the other.

Garboard Ho!

2008-09-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

So, does that look like a boat or what? It looks like a boat. Maybe we'll just have a garboard canoe. Keep it low profile.

Or maybe we'll make a whole boat and row to Alaska. I'll have to talk to JD about it. Canoe?

I cut out the garboard and test fit it today. It mostly fit. The part that doesn't, well, I'm going to have to fix it.

More Scarphing

2008-09-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

I worked a little more slowly today. I needed to be really careful with the garboard scarphs because I have very little leeway for error. The angles that I measured, and the distances that I calcuated with the pattern left me only a quarter inch or so at each end.

But now the garboard is all scarphed. The next time I'm in the boat shop I'll transfer the spiling marks from the pattern onto the big scarphed board and cut out the first plank.

Patterns and Spiling

2008-09-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

I've finally finished all the fairing. The new battens (thank you John Gardner and Howard Chapelle for the dimensions) made what was once almost impossible into a relatively easy task. I still spent several days working my way along each frame, making the bevel just right to accept the planking.

Yesterday, I ended the day making the pattern for the garboard plank. This is really exciting because it means we've made it to the next major part of the project (and the part that makes the boat a boat). We're now separating the inside of the boat from the outside, making it a floatable object.

Today I finished making the garboard pattern, and spiled the shape of the plank-to-be onto it. Spiling is the process of transfering a three dimensional shape onto a flat piece of something (probably wood) that's held against the object. In this case the object is the hull of the boat, the transfer tool is a compass, and the flat spiling stock is 1/8 inch plywood bent around the frames of the boat. (The pictures will make it a little clearer.)

After finishing the pattern and spiling, my problem this morning went something like this: I have one eight by four foot piece of plywood to make the garboard plank with. The plank is about 17 feet long by twenty or so inches wide with a big curve. How did I get 17 feet out of 16 feet? Very carefully. Look at the pictures to discover my fancy style.

Lining Battens

2008-08-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Here you can see my newish toolbox (that I built!) and part of the process of scarphing a couple lining battens. The toolbox illustrates that I've been traveling with my tools, to my house and back mainly. The lining battens illustrate my lack of trust in our offsets.

Now She's Scarphed, Cut the Bottom Please

2008-08-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

Scarphing the Bottom

2008-08-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hey! Let's do recaps shall we? Everything I've posted so far today is already represented on here somewhere. And this isn't anything new. But we've got all these great pictures, so let's use them.

We scarphed the bottom. You enjoyed the time-lapse already. Now enjoy some stills (I command you).

Action Shots, or How to Look Like You Know What Your're Doing in a Boat Shop

2008-08-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

That Damn Sheer Clamp (Inwale)

2008-08-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Now that I look at this picture again, I think that those crutches (in the background by the window) in the boat shop were probably a bad idea. What better way to jinx a project than hang crutches over it.
The intended object of discussion in the photo however is the big chunk of wood glued into the sheer clamp notch. (That's not supposed to be there... shhh.) This is our way of making a fair curve happen on the sheer line. It might be working, but when we did it we had yet to discover either of our two big layout mistakes. It looks pretty good though, no?

Stem Layup

2008-08-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

As you can see, we alternated the direction of the stem laminations (hence the blue and wood-toned stripes) to counteract any thickness inconsistencies. But this is obviously old news.

JD Leaves, Drew Sweeps Up and Makes Coffee

2008-06-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day in the boat shop since JD flew south. During the intervening period I took a week off from boat related things, saw my sisters, went camping, and visited JD's ancestral homeland as well as the eventual site of his burial at Mold, WA.

I tried to emulate the pattern of work that JD and I developed while he was here. I stayed a little long at the coffee shop and worked the crossword. I made more coffee at the boat shop. I went to the hardware store and bought garbage bags, a dustpan and a small broom for sweeping up an enormous pile of wood shavings, the "fire hazard" Tim joked about last week.

While I worked I listened to Beowulf, translated and read by Seamus Heany. I couldn't help but think of the future, looking a little like a Spear-Dane myself, rowing into some distant fjord. I didn't have any sword to brandish so I sharpened a hand plane and set to work on the shims that JD and I glued to frames 3 and 5 before he left.

I think the fairing of the frames is about as good as it's going to get, given the flaws we've made permanent so far. Tomorrow I'll work on the stem and transom, and then... planking begins!

Gluing the bottom on

2008-05-07T17:22:00.001-07:00

Today we finished up the limber holes, and decided we were ready to glue the bottom on.

Here is a video of us doing just that.

Cutting out the bottom

2008-05-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

We're hoping this video might be a little more entertaining than the last few. Enjoy.

Scarphing

2008-05-05T21:25:00.001-07:00

Okay the sheer clamp is on for good

2008-05-04T19:42:00.001-07:00

No taking it back now. This epoxy is serious.

The great sheer clamp debacle

2008-04-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today is the sixth day we've been working on the sheer clamp. It has been haunting our dreams.

We've made a lot of small adjustments, including some changes to the structural layout of the frames. We now believe (though we may be delusional) that things are more symmetrical, plumb, level, true, fair, and all other words that mean good.

This picture below shows us in triumph (for the moment) next to the boat with sheer clamp temporarily attached. If you can pull your eyes away from the riveting sight of my ass, the 2 sheer clamps can be seen held to the stem with the two c-clamps and pink string.

Background information

2008-04-23T22:22:00.001-07:00

To the left is a picture of the completed boat design that we are building. I hope this sheds some light on the subject for those who've asked. The design is called John Dory, and was made by a Scottish man named Iain Oughtred.

Mounting the stem

2008-04-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

We also mounted the transom, but you can't see that in this video..

Marking and cutting out the transom

2008-04-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of shots of us working on the transom. Its a piece of dark red meranti, which is also called "Philippine mahogany," though I guess its not technically mahogany.

In the this shot you can see us working on the bevel that the planks will line up against. Hopefully...

This is a look at how the transom will eventually be mounted to the rest of the boat. Are you visualizing?? Can you see it??

Gluing Stem Laminations

2008-04-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

ugh, these are such boring blog titles.

at least the pictures are sexy and fun. like below:

Ripping laminations for the stem

2008-04-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

This video shows us goofing around a lot, trying to get ready to rip our big white oak board into 2" x 1/8" strips. It took us awhile to set up, because the board wasn't two inches high. We solved that problem by making the cuts at an angle thus increasing their measurement to 2"+.

However, when we started ripping with the table saw, we realized that a lateral bow in oak meant that we couldn't line the board up accurately on the table saw. Starting at 0:08 or so, we begin planing the board offscreen.

After we rip the board into something like 20 strips (lams), we have to set up the jig that we will be bending them on. This requires cleaning off the table, marking out the structure of the curve from the plans, and then using a batten to draw a fair curve. As you can see, this takes me a long, long time. Drew has to help.

Then we aligned blocks along the curve, using a unnecessarily labor intensive drilling and screwing procedure that looks like some sort of complicated dance. This is my favorite part in all the movies. Its also a little embarrassing.

After setting up the blocks, we quickly and with almost no fanfare clamp the lams to the jig. Thats what all this work was leading up to.

Attaching some battens

2008-04-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

Time Lapse: Attaching the frames

2008-04-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

Here we are setting up the frames on the jig. You can see that the boat will be build upside down. The video is shot from the stern, so what will be the bow is at the far end of the garage.

Mounting the Frames

2008-04-07T19:06:00.001-07:00

We've now assembled all five of the permanent frames and the two temporary stations molds. The next step is to mount them on the building jig.

In order to mount them we have to attach them to frame posts, and then to spalls which are attached to the jig.

Today we added posts and a spall to one frame, and marked out where the rest of the spalls will go on the frame jig.

Assembling the Frames

2008-04-07T18:58:00.000-07:00

The frames are first screwed together with gussets. We used silicon bronze screws. After assembling the frames, we took them apart, coated the joints with epoxy and reassembled them.

Working on the frames

2008-03-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

The frames and molds function like the ribs of the boat. The five frames are permanent, and will be in the boat when its completed. The two molds, one forward and one aft, are temporary, and are included to help with the planking process.

Each frame consists of three pieces. There is a floor piece that runs parallel to the bottom of the boat, and two side pieces that run up the sides of the boat. The pieces, are attached together with marine grade fir plywood gussets and epoxy.

At this point we've just completed cutting out and planing down the frames and cutting out the gussets. Our epoxy order was delayed, but it should be here on Tuesday and we can start gluing then.

Setting up the shop

2008-03-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

Since Drew has been back we've been working on setting up the shop a little. We moved the jig around a little, and build a bench for us to work on. We also set up more lights. Here is a shot of drew setting up a light.

You can also see a little plastic room we constructed in the garage so our landlords can continue to keep things in the garage safe from sawdust and whatnot.

The jig in the foreground has been reinforced and we decided in the end to glue it to the floor. Its super sturdy now. Since this picture we've added the centerline that the boat will be built around.

The Building Frame

2008-03-08T15:45:00.000-08:00

The building frame is not part of the boat, its like a bench that the boat rests on as we build it. The molds, which are like the ribs of the boat, are attached to this frame. It is important that the frame be level and straight. Especially if you are building it on a cracked concrete floor...

So, the other day I brought over the bearers (the long pieces that run lengthwise). Drew had previously screwed them together and planed and leveled the tops. I cut them to their appropriate length: 18' 1 1/2". It took me a long time to feel comfortable that they were truly parallel and at the right distance from one another. When I felt good about it, I added the two crossbars that you see in this picture.

Today, I added the legs of the frame. Again, I took a long time to make sure that everything was level every which way. In the end, I think I did a good job. Here is the frame with legs.

I know these aren't super exciting pictures, but we have to have patience, okay? Bear with me here. Maybe tomorrow I'll pose nude in the middle of the shot or something.

JD arrives, shit gets done

2008-03-07T22:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, I got up to oly a few days ago. Lets see, its been six I think. The first few days were a rush as Drew and I tried to go over everything we needed to talk about before he left for Paris on the 4th.

We went over the plans, looked through the tools he's been collected, talked about what should be done while he's gone, and went to look at the garage he's found where we can build the dory.

The people whose garage it is are really great, and it seems like things are going to work out there. The only problem was that there garage was full of dirt from a medium sized gardening project they'd been working on. Of course, they were willing to clean it up for us, but given schedules, work, homework, etc, it was going to be a week or more. Of course, since I have nothing but time, I volunteered.

See the garage in its former glory:

After 600 pounds of dirt gets scraped up and taken to the dump:

Next step: Build the "Building Frame"

Progress!

2007-09-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

Removed the rotten sill from the base of the framing and replaced it with a new one.

This of course involved tearing out the rotten wood (it was hardly wood anymore), and then cutting the old corroded bolts. Then I used A___'s roto-hammer to drill new bolt holes in the concrete, and set the new sill.

Tomorrow I'll start reframing the south wall. Hopefully I'll finish that without any trouble.

Let Us Begin

2007-09-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Let us begin with a space to work in. Or rather, let us begin to work on a space for us to work in.

Over the next few months, with a final completion date of January, 2008. Danger Mouse will proceed to work his restorative magic on this husk of a structure.

This shed, located at the southernmost tip of the Puget Sound, is the proposed location for our boat shop.

A boat shop, for one boat in particular. A boat to take us north.