A really good way to spend the morning

Readers of our book will certainly be able to relate. We had a great morning, today, helping to change the Annie Bucks summer configuration to her winter configuration. It starts with a ride to the public wharf, where there is enough space to maneuver. The ride, on a perfectly cloudless day, with temperatures at right about 70F, was gorgeous. The trees are just starting to get color now. Just enough to add highlights to the woods behind the marshes.

The process is much like an old barn-raising and although it involves a lot of heavy lifting and potential injury, I look forward to it every year. Five of us disconnected and lifted the summer canopy  (PP. 77, figure 12 in "Fundamentals...") from its supports and onto a trailer, where it was driven to its winter storage place where we placed it for safe keeping. I dont know how much it weighs, but its certainly in the hundreds of pounds, if not a half-ton, or so. We went to the wharf in the shade, but when we were done removing the canopy, the Annie Bucks cockpit was wide open and full of light. It makes her a whole different boat.

That was the first half, and actually the easier part, of the process. We then had another beautiful boat ride to another local dock where her mast and boom were stored. The mast and boom are required in oystering when dredging or patent tonging (pp. 76  figure 15). The mast is made of iron and its a good thing that most of the guys lifting are watermen - they are extremely strong from the work that they do. Getting a long mast (25?) onto a boat when you have to carry it on a narrow dock (3) can get you knocked into the water very suddenly. Once the mast is aboard the boat, it must be mounted to a support plank, then made upright and then secured with wire rope and turnbuckles. The various lines that hold the mast in place have to be tensioned exactly right, the consequences potentially being life threatening. The booms installation must wait until the mast is ready. Otherwise there would be no place to install it and it would just be in the way. The boom is mainly aluminum, but also hundreds of pounds and long. Still, carrying it is much more pleasant than carrying the mast was.

Im always amazed at how these guys work together, all of them knowing exactly what needs to be done, because they all have the same kinds of boats and after the Annie Buck is squared away, the group will move on to convert the other boats. David has a lot more work to do before he can work with his rig. There are all sorts of lines to inspect/fix/rig. He has to hook up various hydraulic lines and other elements of the system. Hell need to install his culling board. He is gearing up for the work of winter. That means making sure that his engine and everything else important to running the boat is in perfect shape.

Nobody could do this work alone. Its an honor to participate, knowing that my contribution to the effort is minimal, but I always learn things and the rides on the Annie Buck, to me, are worth every bit of it. I look forward to reversing the process in the Spring...

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The 8th Annual CBMM Maritime Model Boat Expo May 19 20 2012

We do several shows every year. Although we are in the "business" of making model boats, not all of our shows are expected to be major selling events for us. Why would any business person say this? The making and selling of custom scratch-built model boats is definitely a niche market and for us every time we display them in public is an element of the marketing process. We like to say "sowing seeds". The fact of the matter is that there are very few shows with clusters of people of whom we can expect to commission a serious model boat then and there. For most people, commissioning a model is something that requires consideration.This is as it should be.  For this reason we do shows over a wide geographical area and our website is very important in helping us to sow those seeds to people the world over.

Some shows have other, different, benefits for us. As you might imagine, working on hundreds of very small pieces constantly can sometimes get draining. There are some shows that we go to in order to become energized. Not everyone realizes, when they see a model, that a large part of making it happen is art. Art is a large part of our lives and even though we are not painters, sculptors, or jewelers, per se, the things that people do in those other arts are the elements of what we do. In addition, just being with people who do what they do, whose philosophies are to do the best that they can, in whatever their discipline, is good for the soul.

I will tell you honestly that for years we had stopped doing what were referred to as "model shows". People thought that we were crazy for this. "Youll sell tons of models." The fact is that model shows are not a great place to sell models, if that is the primary goal.

With age I find that doing shows in order to get energized and to spend time with people with like interests and skills is not a bad business decision, when you compare it to continuing education credits required in other disciplines, or various conventions or meetings - It makes you better at what you do.

We had stopped going to model shows, because, at the time, we felt that they were not a place to make sales. Perhaps, for the reasons stated above, we should have looked at other benefits to be had.

This weekend we will be at The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum for their Annual Maritime Model Expo in St. Michaels, Maryland. We went last year and realized what we were missing when we got there and saw some of our old friends such as Jean Preckel, Jim Wortman, members of the Museums Model Guild, members of The Washington Ship Modeling Society (I know that I dont have the name exactly right), as well as meeting several new ones. There was a model of a skipjack that the builder had been working on for 27 years! The guys from Washington are working with ever new techniques and are delving farther into the reaches of maritime history to find more interesting subjects to model. Other model makers had beautiful and unique display ideas. There is also a "lake" set up for R/C and pond yachts and these guys are having fun!.

So, just as some shows energize us in the realms of the arts, this is a show that energizes us, because it has so many people with the common interest of making model boats. Of course you have the various factions R/C vs Static, scratch-built vs kits. It doesnt matter. They are in for the love of it. There are experts in all types of model boat making and youll find novices and the masters masters. I recommend that you come to this show. Well certainly be there...

More infomation here: http://cbmm.org/modelexpo/index.htm

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D Day The Steel arrives Eventually !

30th October 2007

Finally the day came to get the steel unloaded, We hired a front loader to lift the boat from the truck.

David (9) Adam (2) and Dara (5) waiting patiently for a truck to arrive.

As usual we waited all day and had to fight to get it delivered that night so at 10:45 Pm a very annoyed driver came to town.. well he thought HE was annoyed till he met me!..

Patryk and Milo assisted the loading of the forks while I drove the machine. It took just over 2 hours to unload all 600+ pieces totalling more than 13 tons of metal. We had to floodlight the drive and light up the trailer. Only 1 piece of steel slightly bent, nothing a good hammer wont sort out.

Most of the lifts involved lifting 4 metre wide sheets of steel piled on top of each other over 4 metres high to clear the trees each side of the drive way. At least we wont have as much difficulty getting the boat out as it will be lifted out by a 130 ton crane. but thats another story.









The end result in daylight... now where to start!

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Back In The Saddle Knee Update

I spoke to my other neighbor today.  She said she heard the explosion as well, in fact she said she felt it as well.

Its been a little de-motivating to be honest, but on the upside its pretty much agreed that I was very lucky not to have been injured.  I agree.

I decided to console myself with setting out the instrument and control panel and the steering pump.  This is the rough draft.

I have also drawn up and sent of for pressing the lids that will cover the lockers on the stern.  Hopefully I will get them next week.  I have a canopy maker coming over on Monday to start templating for the stern pram hood.

Finally the knee.  Ive had a long term injury to my knee from a torn cruciate ligament.  For 20 + years it has been a dull ache, which from time to time flares up especially after skiing.

Well apart form having a sizable dent in my knee cap and a very large bruise my knee actually feels better.  So hopefully when the bruising and swelling goes down it might be mended.  Fingers crossed.

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Raising the Keel

In early January, my dad and brother descended on the boat shop like Stormtroopers and raised the keel in no time using bottle jacks and one big truck jack. The keel was up to about 60 degrees when we decided to push her the rest of the way up. One big push and a rebel yell later, we had a keel! 

I wouldnt advise doing it this way, of course. The proper way would have been hooking her to some come-alongs to pull her the rest of the way up.

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In the Groove

I filled the gaps on my sample board with white pigmented and thickened epoxy to see how it will look and to practice the application. After using blue tape to tape off the boards, I mixed a 5 pump batch of epoxy. A 1/2 tsp. of white pigment was mixed in and then a few spoonfuls of white silica to thicken. Then the batch was loaded into a blank caulking tube, the nozzle cut and I pumped the goo into the gaps.

The mixture was a little soupy and I ended up squeegeeing the excess off. After cure there were a couple of low spots that might be from a void underneath and the goo slumped into the void. Dunno, but overall it looks good. It definately was good to practice and have an idea what Im going to do for real on the boat when the time comes for that step.

The pictures are of the sample board sitting on the bow of the boat.

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River Lark Timelapse

I did some timelapse recording while cruising about during our month aboard.  I used a GoPro camera in timelapse mode taking 1 x 5mega pixel shot every 2 seconds.  In this video the final edit there are 7515 shots. These are then reduced in size to 1024 x 768 which takes so long to do I set the PC to do this task overnight.  Also for the assembly software to compile the images they have to be consecutively numbered.  The software used to reduce the size and re-number is Infranview.

The next stage is to compile the stills into a movie.  For this I use VirtualDub  The result is this:-

 First cut

Theres still a bit more to do to this so check back for sound and titles.

I have now been told  3.5 mph over 3.5 hours = 12.25 miles travelled which is about right . To cover that distance in 2 minutes youd have to be doing 367.5mph (12.25 x 60/2)

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Blast from the past!

"Where did you find that???" Nancy was doing some re-arranging and came across some old "stuff"...

I had almost forgotten the era of the "WinkieMobile". Its not such a bad name when you know that it was in honor of my old shop supervisor, Winston, an aging, but wonderful, Springer Spaniel, who was around for the building of all fourteen of them.

I know that I have many better shots of them somewhere, but these are available now and bring back some memories of the little car that we used to make, that we thought was a bit special. Unfortunately, it had over 300 parts to each one and we were unable to get back anywhere near what we put into them. Still, they hold a special place in my memory.

There was an evolution that came from the basic idea of it. A little car that was made of fine woods, with all sorts of features that kids might like. The hood opened and inside was a brightly colored engine with removeable spark plugs, air filter and the engine block came out too. Beneath that was the sophisticated steering system, operated using spindles and nylon rope to absorb shock. The trunk opened and contained a wrench made from maple, as well as a threaded jackstand so that the tires could be changed, or exchanged, with the spare which was held to the trunk lid by a maple "bolt" large enough to easily be turned by small hands. The wrench could also be used to extend the length of the car by unscrewing some maple nuts under the frame and sliding the the rear portion  of the car either forward or back.

That evolution started with visiting a friends toy store and finding out that there was much more involved than looks. The next step was to have it kid-tested and they virtually destroyed the first designs in minutes. We still have those cars. Finally, the, much more solid, WM3 design was adopted and everyone loved it, but...

What was special about the cars was that they were made from very fine hardwoods. They were all painted with a lacquer-like feel to their painted surfaces, but all finishes were done with water-based paints.With all of the parts involved, we had to create a lot of special templates and jigs. It took from four to eight months to build one.

Although "Fire Engine Red" was the most popular color, we also made them in White, Dark Blue, Yellow, and Teal. The seats were usually "book-matched" as in the white one above. The lighter wood is Tiger Oak and the darker wood is Black Walnut. We made their seats from Birds-Eye Maple, Black Walnut Burl, Koa and some other very interesting woods. The steering wheels were made from Purpleheart, Mahogany, Maple, and others. The bumpers of the white car above were made from Purpleheart. The bumpers went through an interesting evolution of shapes, the first being made as assemblies to form springs from Ash, changing to solid shapes that had "fiddle heads" carved into their ends. That was some interesting carving.

The last WinkieMobile? was a custom order. You can see the "fiddleheads" on the ends of the bumpers. The seats were book-matched Black Walnut Burl with Ash trim. It had a gold-lettered license plate. The hinges of the trunk lid were made from Koa.

Every now and then someone remembers that we used to make "those little cars". They were probably doomed from the start. We charged about $500, which didnt come close to covering costs. We were faced with people saying: "Why would my kid want that? They have a battey powered jeep and I didnt pay that much." We even had offers to have them made overseas for us. Our answer then was no and it would be the same now. To make them properly, you have to love them and nobody else would do that.

Its a moot point now. Hurricane Isabel flooded our shop in 2003 and we lost many of the necessary templates and jigs required to make "those little cars".  We had pretty much moved over to making only boat models by that time anyway, because they were in high demand.

Still, I have some good memories of "those little cars". Perhaps Ill find some of those other photos, so you can see the engines, the steering mechanisms and the chassis...

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Bending the Shears

The first step to the shears was getting the length down to about 18" longer than what I measured to be required. Since the fit of the shear to the breasthook is a set angle, I cut some scrap material on my mitre saw until I got it right and then cut an angle on the front of each piece to mate with the breasthook. The four shear pieces (two layers each) were then soaked in the stairwell soaking tube for a couple of days.

I worked on the one side of the boat where I had the most room between the boat and the wall. To support the shear while bending into place, I clamped long boards to the form or the frames over to the wall, just below the level where the shears would meet the frames. This provided a resting place for the shear while bending into place. I then wrapped a bath towel around the shear along the area of the stem and another in the area between the front and middle frame. I then poured hot tap water over the towels (buckets underneath).

To start the bend into the breasthook, a 24" Bessy bar clamp was clamped to the shear to provide leverage and the leading end was bent while the remaining length of the shear pushed up against the wall about 3 away from the boat. After shoving it into place and the breasthook clamp board squezzed tight, the rest of the bending took place at the rear end of the boat. A pipe clamp was put on the shear near the transom and used to gradually bring the shear towards the boat. After pouring another pitcher of hot tap water on the towels, the shears were gradually moved into place up against the frames and clamped in place. Towels were removed and the shear left to dry. After a day of drying, the first shear was removed and moved to the other side of the boat where I did not have as much room to work. I repeated the process for the next two shear pieces. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures during this process.

While pulling the third shear piece into place, I heard a loud crack and looked up to see a distinct sharp angle forming inside the towel, just aft of the breasthook. Another crack or two later and several expletives, the break was complete. I backed off on the bending process because this shear was toast. I removed the towels, the clamps, and put the shear aside for later analysis. I grabbed the last shear piece out of the soaking tube and bent it into place without incident. Analysis of the broken shear showed a severe grain run-out in the area. I thought I selected all pieces to put the staightest grain towards the front of the boat, but I got this piece backwards. I decided to make a scarf cut in the broken area and mend this piece back together putting the scarf joint at the back of the boat. After the piece dried, I made a jig for my chop saw and made about a 5" long scarf joint in the shear and epoxied that sucker back together. After curing, joint clean-up, soaking and bending, I was back on track with all four shears bent.

Prior to gluing the first layer of shears to the frames, I made a mid bow area temporary "spreader board" to ensure the contour was similar on both sides. One side measured wider from centerline and the curve did not look as smooth as the other. The way my stem support was made, I had a level surface to center and mount this board. The first layer of shears was glued to the breasthook and frames using clamps to the temporary spreader to force the curve in place on the one side. Then the second layer was epoxied to the first layer and clamped into place. Screws were only used in the breasthook.

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Stacking the Deck

The first step in the deck planking process was laying out the lines on the subdeck plywood so I could figure out what wood I needed to do the job. I drew in a 2" grid pattern on the sub-deck to ensure that the center planking would be symetrical. Using a batten, I drew in the perimeter cover board lines to follow the carlings aft of the dash and stay a "constant distance off the shear line" forward of the dash. I made the first line drawn on the forward deck (that I liked) the "master" and copied it to the other side. There is a slight difference in distance to the shear line from one side to the other, but not enough to worry about.

Then a trip to Armstong millworks to buy some African Mohoghany for the deck planking and then learn how to re-saw. The guys at Armstrong suggested that starting with 4/4 stock planed to as thick as possible (about .90") would be the best approach.

I started with laying out the boards along one side of the boat to determine joint locations to get a 12 long 10" wide board to cover the width and length. Due to the limitations of my shop, the board was cut into the pieces and angles necessary to go around the boat on one side, then each piece re-sawn to create the piece for the opposite side. With a riser kit previously installed on my bandsaw, a new 1/2" wide skip tooth blade, new Olsen "cool blocks" and a 6" tall fence, I started bandsawing the wood for the outer perimeter planking. The piece at the back of the boat was 9 3/4" wide and the re-saw went very, very, slowly, but it worked. Then a few trips through the thickness planer (new blades installed) yielded planks about .34" thick. Using countersunk screws, the first piece was located, beginning at the aft end of the boat and working forward, a joint line established, chop cut on the mitre saw, reinstalled and the next piece cut to fit up against the previous piece.

After the joints were established, the inside line location was transferred from the sub-deck to the underside of the cover boards. In the cockpit and motor opening area, tracing on the underside was straightforward. In other areas the grid pattern was used to re-create the line by tracing the inside edge of the boards onto the grid pattern and measuring to the line intersection at each grid line. Tedious, but it worked. Line was cut on the bandsaw about 1/32" proud and then sanded to the line with a small 1" stationary belt sander. Outer lines were traced, cut, and sanded in a similar manner.

The kingplank down the middle of the boat took a bit of trial and error to find a width that looked "right". I started at 6 1/2" wide, about an inch wider than the perimeter boards in the fore deck area and it seemed too dominant. At 5 1/2" it still seemed too wide, so eventually my aesthetic director concurred with a 4" wide being the "right" width.

The grid pattern helped with cyphering out the width of the longitudinal planks. Eventually settling on 1 7/8" width, and a 3/16" gap. In order to fully utilize the boards I had purchased and not have to go buy more wood, I needed to squeeze four planks from a board width of just under 7 3/4" inch. (Maybe the king plank should have been a bit wider!) This created an opportunity to buy a new tool for the shop - a micro-kerf table saw blade which only cuts a 1/16" wide kerf. After creating a new table saw zero-clearance insert with a splitter, I was all set to cut the planks. The new blade cut like butter and I got all the pieces needed to cover the deck.

The plan at the moment is to stain the perimeter and king planks a darker color to provide greater contrast. Then finish all the planks to seal all the grain and complete the deck using a white pigmented epoxy to fill the gaps.

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Let the dreaming begin!

This guy just came in the mail.

1,000 routes from the South Seas to the Arctic!

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Love Him or Not Book Review

 

Capt. Larry Simns has probably had some effect on your life if you are in any part of the seafood industry, if you like to fish, if you are concerned with water quality, if you love to eat seafood, if you live or work near the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed, are a politician in the Maryland State House, or for a variety of other reasons. If you dont know his name, or the only thing that you do know about him is his name, then you should read this book.

In the newly released The Best of Times on The Chesapeake Bay, An Account of a Rock Hall Waterman, Capt. Larry Simns (the n is silent), and co-author Robert L. Rich, Jr. tell the story of how he grew up in the small harbor town of Rock Hall on Marylands Eastern Shore. He began his education in seafood harvesting at six years old, he went through brutal but valuable apprenticeship with seasoned and unforgiving Captains in his teens and he grew to become a respected Captain and seafood business owner in young adulthood. He recounts how he reluctantly found his voice as he began his rise within local groups of watermen to become a legendary advocate for them and the Chesapeake Bay in response to critical declines in seafood populations in the early 1970s. In his 40 years as President of the Maryland Watermens Association, he was not only recognized for his work by professionals with interests in the fisheries from Maine to Alaska and the Gulf Coast, he also worked with Senators, Governors and U.S. Presidents.

If you spend any time with a waterman,it would be difficult not to notice that theirs are very tough jobs. Many of our neighbors start their day at 3:00am. They work when its 20 degrees outside. They work when its 100 degrees outside. The brutal apprenticeship that Capt. Larry went through was important for learning to live in an environment that might be idyllic one moment and potentially deadly the next. There are some very exciting moments in the book. In fact, Capt. Larry went through more than one situation where he almost didnt survive.

 

He clearly explains how various finfish, oysters and crabs were harvested, having experience with pretty much every method used. He explains how "The Bay" changed after Hurricane Agnes. A resulting drop in seafood harvests coincided. Other factors including pollution from other sources led him to the chain of events that made him the powerful advocate he is. He discusses how he worked with others from various disciplines including biologists, environmentalists, and others to create policies that were not always popular. An amazing journey for a waterman from Rock Hall, Maryland.

 

Theres a whole lot more here and I highly recommend this book. Most of the chapters are brief, but full of information. It provides an education about the Chesapeake Bay, Eastern Shore life, the history of its watermen, issues surrounding its protection and much more. One gets the sense that, knowing he wont be around forever, he would like for this book to help pass critical information to those for whom stewardship of the Chesapeake and the life within it will pass. We should pay attention.

 

For more information go to: 

http://www.thebestoftimesonthechesapeakebay.com/

Book Details

The Best of Times on The Chesapeake Bay, An Account of a Rock Hall Waterman

Lived by Captain Lawrence William Simns
Written by Robert L. Rich, Jr.
Illustrated by Ann Crane Harlan.

ISBN: 9780764342776Soft Cover 288 Pages 42 illustrations

 

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The Lightship Chesapeake

Its always nice when someone posts photos of your work on the web, especially when they have expertise about the boat in question. This is a model of a lightship that we did back in the mid - 90s. The research involved taught me a lot about  the history and work of lightships in the United States over the last few centuries. These ships were used, not only in coastal waters, but within the Great Lakes. Almost every lightship station had a succession of different vessels as technologies improved. Lightships were different from each other and varied in size. Prior to being the "Chesapeake", this lightship was the "Fenwick". If I recall correctly, it came off of the ways in Charleston, S.C. in 1928. Its sister ship, LV117, on station as the "Nantucket", sunk when the "Olympic", sister ship to the "Titanic" hit her on a foggy day in 1934, killing several crew. It was dangerous and, as I understand it, very boring work. All of the lightships have been replaced now by "Super Buoys". http://www.lightshipmodeler.iwarp.com/custom3.html

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The Nice Thing About Having A Boat Is

There is always something to do.  Always a problem to be solved, or a combining of my interests.

I arrived at the boat yesterday afternoon armed with necessary tools to sort out the grotty and dismal array of plants and mostly weeds on our mooring.  This is supposed to be done by the Environment agency who we rent from but there doesnt seem to be a schedule of maintenance but strangely there is a schedule of Direct Debits.  Anyway before I got on with the stuff I like I decided it was best to get this done and out of the way as the weather was reasonable and the forecast was poor.

 

About 2 hours saw the job done and all the dead nettles, thistles and sapling Elderberry trees were dispatched.  Hopefully this will allow some grass to grow.

I have been playing with  streaming CCTV for a while now and having bought a new Webcam decided I needed to run some new consealed wires to get the signal back to the laptop in the lounge and then out though the router to the interweb.  Knowing the limt for USB is 5m I saw an adaptor that extends USB over cat5e.  On my last visit to the boat I duly installed a length of cat5e cable in the bedroom ceiling down behind the wardrobes, under the bathroom cabinets and into the lounge drilling necessary holes as I went along all of which are out of general sight. All of this took several hours.

Once this was done I powered up the Webcam only to find for whatever reason that it would only send a 174 x 122 image not the 1280 x 1024 it was bought for.  A bit of digging on the canal forum as there are lots of very cleaver people there with a combined mass of knowledge on all subjects lead me to order a 15m powered USB cable.  Prior to installing the cable I tested it and all was good. 

How pleased was I that when I put the cat5e in the ceiling void I decided to put in an additional trace wire. The result was the new UBB cable was fitted in about 20 minutes.

The intention is to stream live video from the boat as we cruise along, or sometimes if we are just sat mooring.  This can be seen at the Vaughn site.  If you go over there you can become a follower and you will get an email when the camera goes live.  All of this is free and theres currently no adverts on the video feed.

Next up was to run some more cat5e (2 lots) so I can run the bedroom TV on an HDMI extender as this too has a 5m limit and get HD TV in the bedroom rather than just what comes down the coax feed.  While I had the carpet up to hide the cables I sorted out the creaky floor that has been anoying me on my seemingly evermore frequent visits to the loo at night.

This morning it was time to service the generator.  It has reached 2400 hours and the oil was looking decidedly black.  With the oil and filter changed and the diesel filter checked for water (none) and changed it was the turn of the impeller.  This as you can see was definitely in need of changing.

 

The fan belt was checked for wear and adjustment and both were found to be fine.

A while back I moved the Inverter to under the stairs See Here.  And having sorted out the charging so the charger works much harder it then got really hot which caused it to reduce its output so it remaind happy. Result back to square one after a while of running. See you solve one problem and another problem arises!  The only thing to do is to put some extraction fans in to dump the heat.  The easiest way to power these is from the inverters own fan power supply, that way they would only be on as required.  So this meant taking the inverter out again to gain access to the fan wiring.  I took no chances this time.  I photographed the wiring just to remind me not to wire it up wrong.

The fan on the Victron is 24v so I got 2 x 12v 5" fans and wired them in series, drilled 2 x 5" holes in the stair sides just next the the inverter, put in some wiring with an in line connector and hey presto it all worked.

 

I just need to get some nice covers for the outside of the stairs.

 

Its not too much of a problem as its very difficult to see them.  They are not in general sight.

The inverter now runs cold to the touch and is once again outputting maximum charge.

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Building the templates for the frames

I decided to make templates from the plans for most of the parts in the frames. Using the carbon paper, lines were traced onto material to make the templates. The actual frame pieces were then rough cut, stacked together with double backed tape, the templates double-back taped to the pieces and a trimming router bit with guide bearing used to cut multiple pieces at the same time. In the corners where 1/4" plywood gussets were used, 4 indenticle parts were made at the same time.

With African Mohogany purchased from Armstrong Millworks in Highland Michigan and Okoume plywood purchased at Public Lumber in Detroit, the frame build got started. The same layout board was used as an assembly jig. Blocks were screwed down to locate frame members so that epoxy gluing, screwing and or nailing could be done while maintaining alignments.

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Fairing the Frames and Longitudinals

The process of beveling and smoothing all the surfaces that the plywood "skin" mates to is called fairing. It is inherently a bit confusing to the new boat builder as its hard to know where to start, what tools to use, and how much material to remove.

The picture shows the tools I ended up using from top to bottom in the picture: 1) power 3 1/4" hand planer, 2) small belt sander Porter-Cable 2 1/2"X 14", 3) 1" Stanley hand plane, 4) 8" Jack plane, 5) Rasp, 6) Disston Abrader, 7) Long sander (made from 1/4" scrap wood to fit a 3x21 belt from a belt sander).

After filing some notches at the frames to set the angle of the longitudinal pieces, the major wood removal starts to blend the shapes from one spot to the next along the longitudinal pieces. I found the power planer a bit aggressive and hard to see what was happening until after a pass was made. The hand planes turned out to be quite effective at removing material quickly on the curved surfaces. They were a pleasure to use since they are quiet and they allow the surface to be seen as you work which is reassuring . The small Porter-Cable power sander was a great tool as the vacuum pick-up removed the dust effectively and it was fairly easy to see what was being removed. It was great for putting the contour on the frames.

The bottom piece on the right side of this picture is called the shear. It has not been faired yet and is still a square section. The idea is to angle it so the outer surface points towards the member above it (the chine). The trick is that the angle is constantly changing and it turned out that my chine surface was not sufficiently angled to have a prayer of getting a piece of plywood to lay on it and the shear at the same time. So the chine had a couple more laminations of material added to get the bottom angled out enough to "point" towards the shear below it.

In this picture, the bottom piece (shear) is faired so that its surface points toward the chine above. This area of the boat probably took the most time as quite a bit of wood needed to be removed. You can see a lot of plane shavings and dust on the floor.

I think Im done with fairing, but it seems to be a task that could be done to infinity because with every new look it appears that a surface could be sweetened a little more. I think its good enough to move on and Ill fix something if I see the need as I prepare the plywood planking pieces.

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Some Tips and Things Leaned along the way

Raising the bar: So far Ive been happy that I raised the form that the boat frames mount to. The plan says 24" off the floor, but I raised it to 32". With this small boat, I have not found it to be too high. The working level for the sides was good as I could sit on a stool for much of the work and it kept me off my knees. It is easy to get underneath the boat for various checks and bottom installation.

Recycled Ping-Pong Table: This has been a could base for mounting the forms while covering the carpet. Surrounded by 1/4" plywood, it does not move around and is a stable platform. If I had it to do over, I would add a 2x4 reinforcement from side to side directly underneath the form feet. It rocks slightly when pushed from the side as I only have a 2x4 reinforcement down the middle of the tables underneath where the 2x6 mounts down the middle. With the carpet and padding underneath the protective plywood, it flexes a bit underneath my feet and is very comfortable to stand on, unlike cement floors.

Gum Containers: I looked at an empty Eclipse gum container and being a pack rat it looked too good to throw out. So I asked myself, "Self, What could you use this for?" And the self answered, "Screws". They are terrific. The top unscrews for loading, the clear top allows seeing whats inside, it opens as a shaker spout for or the clear top pops open. Way cool. Im chewing alot of gum now trying to get enough containers for all the different screw sizes. Maybe they should advertise that!

Screw Lube: Sometimes screwing goes better with a little lube...get your mind back on track, were talking boats here. After breaking a couple of the silicon-brass screws, I started putting a small amount of "Screw-lube" on the tip and the problem went away.

Dry Wall Screws: I used these screws for the temporary screw blocks and while they may be cheap and drive home easily, but they also sometimes break when removed. I didnt learn my lesson and kept using them, and had another three break off when removing the screw blocks on the second front bottom piece.

Broken Screw Removal: When the cheap drywall screws are broken off at the surface with nothing to put a vice grip on, what do you do? They have to come out or they would rust later. After digging through my shop, I found a roll pin with an I.D. about the screw shaft diameter. I filed a short spiral so it would cut the wood around the screw shaft when rotated counter-clockwise. I chucked it up and started pushing and boring around the screw shaft. It would smoke and act like it wasnt going to work until with a bit more brute force it would grab the screw and out it would come. Drilling clockwise into scrap wood would remove the screw shaft so I could reuse it. I used it more than I would have liked.

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