BoatBuild2006

Final Cost Analysis

2006-09-13T22:52:00.000-04:00

The Nutmeg was designed many years ago to be the "$200 boat"... a solid sail/row boat that could be built on a shoe-string budget. The design was first sold with that in mind in 1995. Obviously, with inflation and the incredible increases in lumber costs in recent years, I had no expectation of keeping below that total in my costs. Nonetheless, I have been interested in keeping track of the total costs. One of the reasons I decided to build my own boat was because I really didn't want to spend thousands on a new boat. It was always a goal of mine to build a boat that we could enjoy for years without going broke. So, I have kept reciepts and have taken a few minutes to summarize the total costs of this build.

I could have saved a lot of money if I had been willing to make my own connectors and patch together some hardware from scraps, as many builders do... and I could have really lowered the overall cost if I had been willing to make a sail from a $20 tarp from Lowe's. On the flip side, I could have spent many hundreds of dollars on a new sail that someone else made for us... and missed the joy of knowing we had sewn our own! In the end, we decided to have the entire boat building experience... and sew our own sail from material that will last... having the quality without the cost!

So, here's the final shopping list:

4 sheets of 1/4" plywood 53.92
4 1X3X8's 5.16
1 sheet of 1/2" plywood 17.96
1 18' 2X10 19.45
1 gallon exterior all-weather paint 15.48
1 quart colored exterior paint 6.99
100' Nylon Rope 8.97
400 3/4" screws 13.88
100 1 1/2" screws 7.74
Fiberglass cloth 5.97
Epoxy 40.64
Bolts/Nuts/Washers 12.45
Putty/Filler 3.92
Gudgeons, pintles, cleats, etc. 24.68
12 yards Sailcloth and sailtwine 89.76
Grommets and swivel blocks 13.82

Total, plus or minus of few bucks... $340.79

So, all in all, I think I am way ahead of the game!

1. I had more fun building this boat than any other project I have ever done!
2. We now have a boat we can sail in, or fish in for years to come.
3. I have a better relationship with my nephew and my sons because of the time spent working on this boat.
4. We're only out $340 bucks!

I think it was a great deal!

Last details and the Long Awaited Launch!

2006-09-09T16:44:00.002-04:00

Anticipating a Saturday, September 7th launch there were a number of little things left to do to prepare. First was rigging of the sail. Here you see the "foot" of the sail. We used a simple wrapping technique... starting at one end and simply pushing the line through each grommet, then wrapping it over the foot-spar on the way to the next grommet. Another option is to tie each grommet off seperately with short pieces of rope. For now, this technique seems to work fine.
Now both spars are rigged, and the sail is folded for easier carrying back outside. Here's a closeup of the way we tied off the corners of the sail.
And here's a shot of the entire sail.
Next was the rigging of the rudder assembly and rudder. I purchased gugdeons and pintles to provide for the hinging action of the rudder. There were designs in the boat plans to make your own and save some money. But I decided to go with the materials that I knew would work well the first time... rather than depending on my sometimes not so excellent wood-working skills.

You can see the gudgeons installed on the transom. If you look closely you can see a light pencil mark to ensure these are lined up properly with one another at a 90 degree angle to the ground.
Here's a closeup of the pintles, which I have carefully installed along the edge of the rudder assembly. It was a bit tricky to make sure these were spaced properly. The pintle to the right is a bit longer than the other... which makes it MUCH easier to slide them on the gudgeons!
Here's a closeup of the tiller installed on the top of the rudder aseembly.
And here you can see the tiller and the tiller extension... hinged for easy use from any angle.
And finally, the entire assembly in place. Thankfully, it swings freely. Notice that the rudder is "kicked-up". This is an ingenious part of the design. It is attached to the rudder assembly with a bolt and a couple of washers... and is tightened just enough to allow the rudder to stay in place under the water... but loose enough so that it will kick up if we accidently run into some shallow water.
Well, it's Saturday morning in this shot, and Josh is home... so we've put the boat outside for one last check over before heading for the lake. We have put the mast in place, and hoisted the sail. This allows us to make some last minute adjustments. She looks ready to go!
You may remember that one of the ongoing discussions between Dan and I early on was the "car-toppable-ness" of this boat. Late this week I built a couple of carpeted extensions for our van's roof-rack. As you can see, we have put the boat up and have it tied in place. The sail spars are so long (the longest is 14 feet, 7 inches remember!) that we had to stuff the sail up underneeth... inside the boat. It actually sits up in there very nicely.
Suffice it to say, Josh and I did find the boat quite cartoppable. It'll take some practice to put it up there alone... but that's for another day!
So, we were off to the lake for the much anticipating launching. And, wouldn't you know it. Dead Calm! That's life! High expectations are sometimes met with real disappointment! But we were not easily discouraged! It was a beautiful day... and we decided to wait it out a while. So, we ate some lunch... and as we did the breeze picked up a little.
Here we are rigging the rudder, the leeboard, and the sail.
And now, we're ready to launch. Thanks to my wife Leslie who was there to take pictures!!!
We're in the water! And it floats! And though there was still little wind, the boat seemed to use it quite efficiently. It carried us quickly away from shore! You can see here, I am lowering the leeboard as we sail away.
Everything was going along beautifully... for about 5 minutes, until we got a decent gust of wind, when suddenly stuff began to go a bit wrong.... No pictures here...

But, the sail assembly came crashing down!!! We quickly realized that it was because someone had done a poor job of tying the knot holding the pulley to the top of the mast. Yes, it was me! Unfortunately, we couldn't fix it on the water... so we had to paddle back to shore without the aid of the wind. Here you see us arriving back for the fix. My loving wife said, "Oh well, at least we'll have a fancy sandbox for our grandchildren!" A lot of encouragement there, huh?
Much to my spouse's surprise, it didn't take us long to get everything back in place... this time with a knot tied by my experienced boy scout son... and we're in business once again! I may be a bit prejudice, but I don't think it's a bad looking little boat. As you can see, the sail has a nice shape with the wind in it! We sailed around for 20 minutes or so... the wind was beginning to pick up quite nicely... and the boat was responding like a dream! When suddenly, in the distance, we heard the sound every sailor dreads. THUNDER! We knew it was supposed to storm today... but it wasn't supposed to hit till late afternoon. I love weathermen!
So, due to some masterful steering by Josh, we were able to sail back into the wind to get back to shore just in time for the rain to hit. Les got a nice shot here of the huge raindrops as we dropped the sail, and headed for cover.
Alas, our maiden voyage was over. It poured!
So that the end of our first sail in our boat. There are definitely a few kinks to be worked out on the boat to make it sail smoother. But overall, it was a blast... and we are thrilled with our boat. Can't wait to take it out again!

Sail, grommets, painting trim...

2006-09-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

I had to be away for some training last week, so the boat was on hold for that time. However, my wife Leslie was fast at work sewing the sail, and by Wednesday she had the entire thing done! Which is really a very incredible fete! She's got some sore fingers to show for it, but it's really a thing of beauty as you'll see in a few moments.

The next step in preparing the sail for rigging is to give it some shape. As you may have noticed if you've ever seen a sailboat in action, a sail typically has some shape to it as the wind fills it. In other words, when viewed from the side, a wind-filled sail is not flat, but has a bow in it. I don't know about you, but I had never given any thought to HOW a sail got this shape, until it was time to try to make it happen! OK, now I'm a little nervous...

It turns out that a sail gets it's shape by cutting two of the edges of the sail in a curve, rather than straight! According to the plans, our sail has 5" of "roach" along BOTH the "foot" of the sail (the bottom), and the "head" of the sail (the leading edge of the sail). This means that we had to somehow draw a curved line from the middle of the edge of the sail to a point 5"down from the corner on each end. It's tricky to do, and unfortunately I took no pics of the process. Suffice it to say that I used a narrow 7 foot long piece of 1/4" plywood, and bent it in a 5" deep curve, to create the edge for marking. Below you'll see how the roach came out.

After cutting the rounded edges of the sail, it was time to install the grommets. If you are like me, and have never installed grommets, you need to know that it takes a special tool to do so! Here you see the two sides of a grommet, and the two pieces of a grommet tool.

Now I've loaded the two sides of the grommet into the two parts of the tool... and here's the hammer I used to pound them into shape.
As you can see, I doubled the sail material for strength, and installed the grommets about 1" from the edges of the sail...
and about 15" apart.
And here you can see the spacing of the grommets... and if you look along the left edge of the sail, I think you can see the rounded edge... or the "roach" of the sail... which, God willing, will take on a smooth bowwhen it catches the breezes and propels our boat!
Next it was time to paint the trim. I haven't shown you here, but since my last post, we put two full coats of white paint on every surface of the boat. We decided to add some interest to the boring white paint by adding a little dark blue trim. You can see here we have chosen to use the blue on the sail arms, the mast, the rudder assembly and the leeboard.
Again, I neglected to take pictures of some steps in the process. The only part of the hull that is getting blue trim are the gunnels, quarterknees and breasthook. I started with the boat bottom-side up... taped off the gunnels... and put two coats on the part I could see. Now I have tipped the boat over, and have taped off the gunnel to create a straight line along the inside edge.
Painting the breasthook... and the front, top of the gunnel.
Here you can see the side of the gunnel, already painting, and the top just starting to get a coat.
Abracadabra! Using the miracle of modern technology... in an instant, two coats have been applied, the tape is off... and the boat is trimmed in blue! This quarterknee came out nice, I think.
A side view... not bad lines, if I say so myself!
A view looking down the length of the boat from the front...And finally, from 45 degrees behind. I think it's ready for hardware... and a launch this week! Take a good look at those clean white surfaces... something tells me it's not gonna stay quite this clean for long once we start climbing in and out! And to think, it all started with this!

The Last Epoxy, Sail Making and The Painting Begins!

2006-08-24T22:46:00.001-04:00

With my son Josh home, much has gotten done this week. In fact, the progress seems miraculous these days! Maybe we'll get in the water by Labor Day... just a month late. The only bad thing I can think of related to Josh being home is the fact that there is someone other than me to man the camera! That means you are forced to see me in some of these shots! Sorry about that!

Here I am applying the last of the epoxy resin. There wasn't a lot left... and we decided to use it all up to strengthen some weak spots, and provide one more coat in some areas where water might potentially find it's way in. Here I am applying some eopxy.
The last step before painting the hull!
Our sail material came in this past week... and we finally had time to lay out our sail. The plans we bought came with a drawing of the sail dimensions. As you can see here, we used some string and some 10 lb. barbells to lay out the dimensions on our driveway.
Then we began to unroll the sailcloth across the string line. We could clearly see the string through the fabric. Here Josh is laying a long straight edge along the string-line, and marking with a pencil, so we know where the outside edge of our sail will be.
After marking, Josh cuts the fabric... allowing a couple of inches for seem... and error. We've learned to always allow for potential human error! This boat building can be might humbling!
Finally, we had the sailcloth cut into the rough shape of our Lateen sail rig.
The unfortunate thing is, NOW this beast needs to be sewn together... which proved to be no simple task! The material is a synthetic sailcloth... some kind of polymer. It is very strong, and yet extremely light. The problem is, it is HARD to push and pull a needle through it! The "sailtwine" recommended by the maker for sewing it is like thick dental floss... with a load of wax on it. The thickness of the floss adds to the difficulty of sewing! After some experimentation we found a workable technique. We use a small piece of leather on our thumb to push the needle part of the way through... and then, if you look closely in this picture, you can see me using plyers to grip the needle and pull it the rest of the way through.
It's a long, tedious project, but it can be done. And I am thrilled to tell you that my wife Leslie has gotten very involved in this process. She spent many hours over the last 24 hours sewing. And miraculously, the sail is already 3/4 of the way complete! Just one more long stretch to go! Sadly, Leslie refuses to let me photograph her helping us. So you are forced to look at one more pic of me! All I can say is, it's hard on the knees and back. Because of this, Leslie, Josh and I have been taking 30 minute shifts... any more hobbles me!
And lastly, today, between office work and an evening meeting, Josh and I put the first coat of paint on the boat! We are starting off with a coat of an acrylic, latex, water-base primer/sealer. Here you see Josh starting off with a little of the trim on the inside of the boat.
Under the Maststep is the hardest spot to reach!
Here I am rolling on the last of the inside coat. Looks nice doesn't it?
Now we've flipped over our vessel, and Josh has got the roller this time. Goodbye ugly color inconsistencies!
It goes on quick and easy! In fact, we go through a full gallon of primer/sealer to do the hull... inside, and outside.
Top and bottom...
And, we have put a coat of sealer on the rest of the pieces of the boat as well... the sail spars, the mast, the rudder assembly and the leeboard.
This finished our day. Tomorrow, barring rain, we'll put the first top coat on the boat, and maybe even finish up the sail!

Quarterknees, Breasthooks, Filling and Sanding...

2006-08-20T21:26:00.000-04:00

It's been two weeks plus since our last post. We were away on vacation for 8 days. Since we returned, we have been working hard... just have been bad about updating the blog! Tonight we make up for it!

I am happy to say that my son Josh is home for a couple of weeks before college begins again (he was in Seattle all summer)... and that he has been able to join me in finishing this boat! Dan has now left for Optometry School... but will be home on weekends, hopefully to be present at the time of our maiden voyage! You will see Josh in many of these pictures taken over the last few days as we have made major progress on this boat.

The first step shown here is Josh doing some heavy sanding to level out the back corners of the top of the boat, for proper fitting of the Quarterknees. The quarterknees are triangular pieces if 1/4" plywood that pull together the back of the boat, create handholds for lifting, and give a surface to place hooks for tying lines. The sanding is heavy because the angle of the top of the transom does NOT match the angle of the gunwales!
Hard to see it here, but we have a nicely prepared surface now.The quarterknee in place without glue and screws...
Applying glue....
And now attached with glue and screws.The "breasthook" meets the same purposes at the front of the boat... over the stem. Here it is in place, with the screw holes puttied.Another step we completed this weekend is the block-set that will hold the leeboard in place. We drilled a hole in the side of the boat, just forward of the 10' mark. Then we glued a 4" X 4" spacer block on the inside of the boat...As well as an oblong chunk of 1 X 2" on the outside of the hull. As you can see, the thickness of this piece matches the thickness of the gunwales and the chines. The 3/8" bolt will hold the entire thing in place... including the leeboard.
Another need we took care of was sealing the seams between the boat bottom, the hull sides and the frames. We used some water-repellent gap filler that can be painted over. You can see the seams filled nicely here.
One of the more tedious needs to "fill" is the puttying of some 300+ screw heads over the outside and inside of the boat. Here you see me mixing some putty. I spared you the pictures of filling the 300+ holes!
And then, it began! One of the most time consuming parts of this whole job... SANDING! Josh and I spent many hours sanding over the last few days. Here Josh is sanding the bottom of the boat. You can see many of the screw hole filled putty spots now sanded out smooth.
Sanding putty....
Sanding the sail spars...
Sanding the rudder...
Sanding the leeboard...
Sanding the top edge of the hull and gunwales...
Sanding the inside of the hulls... and perhaps we went a little overboard with the sanding...
Sanding our Bassett Hound Cody...
Don't worry. No animals were injured in the filming of this blog!

Thankfully, we expect to have just 1-2 hours of sanding left... before it will be time to paint! We'll show you that later this week! Until then, have fun!

Gunwales, Mast, Mast steps...

2006-08-04T20:31:00.000-04:00

I know, it's been a long time since our last post! Actually, it was about 9 days between free moments to work on the boat at all. Now it's taken me a few days to find the time to put up some pics. The installation of the gunwales was next. Here you can see us using an electric sander to make quick work of the sanding of the 18' length of wood. The more sanding we can do now before installation, the less we'll have to do later!
The gunwales are installed by putting them in place with some clamps... driving some screws (6-8) dry to create guide holes (because with the glue on they tend to slide all over), then pulling the screws back out for the application of glue. After that, it's just a matter of putting in a ton of screws, interspersed with a bunch of clamps. Then you just wait overnight for the assembly to harden nicely. Clamps and screws... clamps and screws.The next step is to cut out the mast blank, the yard and the boom. These are all cut from the remains of the 18' X 2" X 12". I reset the jig we used earlier to cut the 3/4" pieces (for the gunwales and the chines) so that it cuts a 1 1/2" wide piece. This setting will create two lengths of wood, for the yard and the boom. The yard and the boom are the framework for the sail... and are 11'7" and 14'7" in length respectively. Once these are cut, we miraculously have what amounts to a 2 X 4 left! Here is what was left of the 18' piece of lumber after the cuts were made:And, here are the three pieces of lumber, after we had done some work on them. You may notice that the mast (the piece on the right) is shorter than the others... and is tapered. The mast is 10 feet long, and we tapered it from 4" wide at the base to 1 1/2" at the top. We also took a router with a round-over bit in it, and rounded the edges of all three pieces.
So you can see the taper in more detail, here's a close up of the butt end of the pieces...And here's a closeup of the tapered end. We'll take the sander to these, and then they'll be ready for painting... and finally some sailing hardware!The next project we tackled was the installation of the mast step and the mast partner. These are the pieces of plywood that will hold the mast in place. Here you can see that we have installed a support piece to go under the mast step... with glue and screws from the outside of the boat. They are placed about 3 1/2" from the top edge of the boat.Here's a shot of the supports on both sides.Next, we had to cut holes in the mast step and partner, for the mast to slide in. To do this we found the center of the wood, then drew the outline of the mast cross-section in the correct location. Next, we drilled 3/8" holes in each corner, in order to get a hole saw started. Then we simply cut out the holes! Here you can see what the finished product looked like.Here, we have installed the mast partner with glue and screws... and that pretty much finished up the 400 3/4" screws we purchased for the boat. Imagine that! The next step in the process is to accurately locate the mast step in the bottom of the boat. In order to do that you slide the mast into the partner. To do this, I had to pull the boat out of the garage, and into the open air! Here's the mast in position! It actually looks like a sailboat now!

In order to correctly locate the mast step, you have to check the mast to make sure it is perpendicular to the ground. Here we use a level to check it along the side and the front... and make small adjuctments until it's in the perfect position.When it is, we carefully mark around the mast step with a pencil. This is then glued in place by driving screws through the bottom of the boat. We'll do that tomorrow.

The boat gets a bottom!

2006-07-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

Dan and I have been slowly working at the boat this week, as we get an hour here and there. Much has gotten done, I just haven't been faithful at updating the blog! Finally, you can see what we've gotten done...

It takes nearly two full sheets of 1/4" plywood to cover the bottom of the boat. The process begins by laying the wood end to end on the bottom of the upturned frames and sides. Then, you have to mark the plywood with a pencil along the chines. This line gives you your sawing line. Here you see Don beginning to draw the line...
And here's a closeup... we made sure to make a nice dark line.After both sheets were carefully marked, we set the sircular saw at a 15 degree angle (to match the angle of the sweep of the sides of the boat), and carefully made the cuts. Here you see Dan finishing up the back half of the bottom of our vessel. We cheated a little outside the line, just to give ourselves little wiggle room. You can always take off a little extra material once the boat is together. You can never add some if you accidentally cut off too much!And here, you can see the two pieces laid on the boat. Seems to fit pretty well!
Next, we had to repeat the procedure used earlier in the build, when we spliced together the two 20" widths of plywood to make the two 16 foot sides. To do this, we used the same sandwich of plastic, fiberglass cloth, epoxy, and plywood. We layed weights up on it to encourage a good straight joint... and then let it dry overnight.
Extra weights along the one side, where the wood seemed determined to be warped and difficult. Do any of you know people who are stubborn like this wood? I didn't think so! I don't either!Here's Dan taking care of a little detail after the assembly dried over night... he's using a razorblade tool to cut off the fiberglass that was overhanging the edges of the joint.
Next we spread plenty of glue all along the chines and the bottom edges of the frames... and layed the 16 foot completed bottom on top of the frame... and began to attach it with screws. In case you were wondering, the glue we are using is Tightbond III. This glue comes highly recommended as a superior wood glue that has a unique quality... it is totally waterproof! So, in theory, we are creating joints that will not leak!If you look real close at the photo below, you might see a fdaint blue line upon which Dan is drivign a screw. We used a carpenter's chalk line to mark the spot where the three frames meet the bottom of the boat. The trick worked! We didn't miss with any of the screws!
I am sorry now that I didn't take more pictures of this attaching process. It took a LOT of screws and a lot of glue to attach the bottom to the chines and frames. When we were finally done, we were like little kids, and couldn't wait to flip the boat over. When we did, this is what we saw! Finally, a boat!!! If you look carefully at the transom, you'll see another project we undertook this week... to begin filling in all our screw holes with some wood filler. This is the first step in what will be a considerably time-consuming finishing process... puttying, sanding, brushing on wood sealer, and painting! Our plan is to recruit Leslie (my wife) and Heather (Dan's fiance) to help with this process!And of course, we couldn't rest till we took turns sitting in it! All I need are my oars! I guess we better get to work building those!

Adding on...

2006-07-12T22:42:00.000-04:00

Over the last couple of days Dan and I have found a few hours here and there to continue adding pieces onto our boat. Because we did so much of our cutting out before, the build seems to be progressing quickly now! We start with attaching the stem to the front of the boat. As you can see, this small piece of wood pulls the two sides together very nicely!Here's an interior close up...
And a view from the top looking down.
Next was the installatiom of the transom. We had a little trouble putting the sides on this... because of a combination of a couple of factors: The side pieces are a bit warped... and, I believe I cut the bevel on the sides of the transom a little under the proper angle. After some "encouragement" via muscles, glue, and screws it finally came together.
Here you can see the back half of the boat...
And here's a side view...
Next it was time to install the chines. If you remember, the chines run the entire length of the boat, and serve at least two purposes: 1) They tie the entire boat together along the bottom of the hulls, adding strength and a smooth line in the process; and, 2) They provide a surface on which to screw and glue the bottom of the boat! Here we used some clamps to hold the first chine in place while we drill pilot holes.
Dan drilling pilot holes.
And here's a shot of the boat with the chines installed on both sides of the boat. We were thrilled to see that these narrow 3/4" square pieces of wood pulled the boat together amazingly well. They took out alot of the twisting caused by the warped plywood. You can see the string we tied from tip of the stem to the center of the transom to test the squareness of the boat. It's looking much better now!

Together she goes!

2006-07-09T21:47:00.000-04:00

It's been a difficult week for everyone involved with this boat build. Dan's grandfather died in Manhattan... so he was in NYC for most of the week for the services, and for much needed time with his family. I have been busy trying to support many people who have been terribly effected by the flood. It's unbelievable what people are facing now. The boat has definitely taken a back seat.

When I have been able to steal an hour, I was able to epoxy together all the frames and build the "stem" and the "transom." The stem is the piece of wood that ties together the two sides of the boat at the very front. The transom is the back board of the boat... where the rudder or a motor mount would be placed. I also was able to cut some very specific bevels on the bottom and sides of the transom and each of the frames.

On Sunday afternoon, Dan and I finally found a couple of hours together, and we set to work putting the boat together... finally!

We started with the frame at mark #10... just a little behind the half way point of the boat. Here you see Dan drilling a tap hole for the first screws.One by one, we screwed and glued each frame to each side of the boat. It really worked well as a team effort. I spread the glue and held the frame in place against the sides. Dan drove the screws through the plywood into the sides of the frames. Here's #10 frame installed. As you can see, we used the grill and a small table to prop up the boards as we were beginning the process.
Next, we installed frame #6... a bit in front of the middle of the boat. And then she looked like this:Then we installed the frame at #14... just two feet away from the transom. And here are a few shots to show you what we ended up with.
As you can see, it's really beginning to look like a boat now!

It looks like it'll be Tuesday before we can do much more. Until then...

Boat sides cut out finally!

2006-07-03T22:58:00.000-04:00

Dan and I finally got some time to work together today... and decided to tackle laying out and cutting the sides of our boat. We started by marking two spots on each of the station lines I marked yesterday. Then we had to "connect the dots." To do this we used one of the 16' chines... because of it's length and bendability. This is where the boat really begins to take on some shape... and we don't want straight lines. Instead, we want long sweeping lines. Here's Dan bending the chine so that a bunch of the marks all line up. This prep work took nearly an hour! Next we pinch the two 16 foot x 20" pieces together with numerous clamps. We'll cut through both at the same time. This way the two sides of the boat will be identical. We clamp along the side that is away from where we'll make the first cut.
Here's Dan about half way through the first long cut. Notice also the spacers we've placed between the board and the concrete floor of my garage. It's amazing how quickly concrete will dull an expensive blade!
Now the two long cuts are done, so all there is left is to cut out the straight cuts that mark the front of the boat (that will meet each other at the stem) and the back (where the transom will be connected.) We set up a guide 1 and 3/16ths of an inch away from the drawn line... the exact distance from the blade and the guide on our circular saw. It makes a perfectly straight cut.
And then we're done! After spending an hour drawing the lines, the actually cutting took about 10 minutes! Here are the two mirrored sides of our boat. Can you imagine the boat a little better now?
We will do a little sanding to these pieces before we wrap them around and screw/glue them to the outsides of our three frames and the transom. Tomorrow we will finish those frames (they need to be epoxied and assembled), and we'll build the transom. Then, we'll finally be ready to go three-dimensional! It's getting really exciting now!

Station Grid and Chines

2006-07-02T22:11:00.000-04:00

I had an hour or so this afternoon, and decided to get a little done on the boat. I took the weights off the epoxied butt joints from yesterday, and was pleased to find that they seem to be strong. The second one I did looks a little cleaner and smoother than the first... but hopefully they will both be strong!

The next step is to draw "station grid lines" on both sides of the 16' planks. These are drawn every 12"... and are necesary because they mark the exact locations for the placement of the frames, oarlocks, mast partner, etc. If you look closely at this picture, you might see that I have labeled this line "6"... the location of the first frame. There will be other frames placed at Grid #10 and Grid #14. Here you can see many of the station grid lines... and can also see the almost invisible butt joint. After a little sanding and a good paint job, it really should be virtually invisible! You may wonder why we had to make grid lines every 12 inches when there are only three lines needed for the frames. Simple! We will lay out the shape for the sides of our boat by making marks on each of these lines. Hopefully, Dan and I will get to that tomorrow night!
The other thing I got to today was manufacturing our chines. A chine is another piece of wood that runs the entire length of the boat. Just like the gunwale runs along the top edge of the boat, the chine runs along the lower edge. Unlike the gunwales, the chines call for two full length cuts... the second being a tricky little 15 degree angled cut.

I started by ripping a 3/4" x 1 1/2" board from what's left of the 18 foot 2 x 10... exactly like we did for the gunwales. Then, I set the angle of the blade on my table-saw to 15 degrees, and my rip fence in the right spot that I could split the board directly in half lengthwise.
With my wife's help, I pushed the wood all the way through...
Creating two slivers of wood that are 16 feet long, and roughly 3/4 of an inch square... with a 15 degree bevel along one edge. These pieces will be glued and screwed along the bottom edge of sides of the boat... and will give us a perfect surface for gluing and screwing the bottom of the boat to the sides of the boat! Here's a good end-view of the chines.
Until tomorrow then...

Epoxy and "Butt Joints"

2006-07-01T21:43:00.001-04:00

It's been a terrible week in upstate NY! As reported previously, we have seen unprecedented flooding here. The past two days I have spent trying to support family and friends, and visiting churches that have been devastated by putrid river water. Because of these realities, the boat has taken a back seat. Today I finally had some time to be at home, and get back to building our vessel. Unfortunately, my nephew Dan is even busier than me! Between his work as a volunteer fireman (nearly around the clock help for evacuees for four days) and his bus driving of folks from shelter to home, he's had NO time whatsoever. Our goal is to have this boat in the water by August 1st, so that Dan has a little time to enjoy it before he heads to school. So, with the feeling that we are behind schedule, I decided to try to experiment with epoxy resins for the first time without him. Hope Dan can forgive me!My order of epoxy arrived from NJ on Thursday. I had read a great deal about working with this stuff... it's miraculous boat building qualities, but also it's dangerous chemistry ( you don't want to have it come in contact with your skin, nor do you want to inhale it's fumes!). So, I was a little apprehensive getting started, but was thankul for a beautiful dry day, so I could take the work outside! Here you see the four 20" x 8' pieces of plywood Dan and I cut out a couple of weeks ago. According to instructions, I have laid out 6" wide pieces of plastic... under each work area. Then, I have cut out four 2" x 22" pieces of fiberglass cloth... and laid the first two on top of the plastic. These are the beginnings of a kind of sandwich.

I mixed together the resin and the reactant... in a two to one ratio... stirred it vigorously for two minutes... and began to apply it by soaking the fiberglass cloth. Next, I soaked the last 1" of the bottom edge of each board with epoxy, before placing the two pieces butt-end to butt-end on top of the already soaked cloth. Here you see me applying a thick coat of epoxy to the top edges of the two pieces...
careful to get plenty down into any gaps in the joint.
Next, I place the other piece of fiberglass cloth on top, and give it a thorough coating of epoxy.
I complete the sandwich by placing another piece of plastic on top... and weight it down to ensure that the ends are perfectly aligned, as the epoxy dries. It takes many hours for it to harden fully. In theory, when it hardens fully, the joints will be even stronger than the wood itself. That is if I did it all right. We'll see about that!
It will be out of these now 20" x 16 foot long boards that we will cut the the sides of the boat. Once dried, we will lay out the shape of the hull in pencil... and then cut them out... ready to be bent around those frames I was working on earlier in the week! Until next time... be good to each other!

A little work on the boat...

2006-06-28T23:23:00.000-04:00

While waiting under this state of emergency there have been moments when there has been little to do except work on the boat. Thank God for a project! I find this kind of work good for my otherwise worried soul.

Here I spend a little time at the band saw, as I shape the rudder assembly (one of the chunks of 1/2" plywood I cut a few days ago). Notice that the rudder has two parts... one that will be affixed to the transom (the back of the boat) and tiller (the arm that allows the skipper to control the heading of the boat...
and the other that will be hung from the first with a single bolt and nut. This longer, more rounded piece will the the piece that will actually do the work.
This two-piece configuration will allow what is called a "kick-up" rudder... which will pivot up if we ever run it across shallow water.

I also had a little time to fabricate the first of four frames which will create the "ribs" of the boat. The two 16 foot sides of the boat will be bent around these frames to form the shape of the hull. Here I adjust my table saw angle guide to exactly 15 degrees...That way, I can make the precise cuts needed...And together with some 1/4" plywood cut for gussets... Can make the largest of the four frames. I dry fit the pieces now... and will secure them permenantly with 3/4" screws and epoxy when the epoxy arrives from NJ. This first frame is 42" across the bottom, and 54" across the top... and will create the widest part of our boat.

Noah had more warning!

2006-06-28T23:01:00.000-04:00

God told Noah to build his boat with plenty of time to spare before the flood hit! Either God waited too long to tell me, or I just wasn't listening in time! The lives of everyone in our area have been on hold these past 24 hours as a nine county area has been under a state of energency due to copious amounts of rainfall, and historic flooding. Dozens of bridges have been washed away, thousands have been evacuated from their homes, some have even lost their lives. It is alarming to see the power of water... and to sit with people as they wait to find out when they can get back into their homes, and wonder what they will find when they finally get there! Here are a couple of pictures I took midday today as the waters were still rising in downtown Binghamton...
A pegestrian bridge about to be covered by the raging Susquehanna.

The parking lot behind Lourdes Hospital, about one hour before they decided to evacuate all their patients to other area Hospitals. The water was not only covering their parking lots but was 3-4 deep in the lower level of the building at this point.One of our neighbor's homes near the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers with water flowing through it. Not sure how long any home can withstand such force. Please pray for all the families in our area who are staggered by these floods... including our new friends, the two single moms and their three daughters (age 4 thru 14) who are spending the night with us tonight. They fully expect to find all of their belongings destroyed whenever they can return to their apartment. They both live within a block of the confluence of these two rivers... an area entirely under water tonight.

Ripping the 18' Long Gunwales

2006-06-26T22:57:00.000-04:00

I found out over the weekend (via e-mail from Mr. Vitromile in Washington) that the epoxy resin we purchased last week is the wrong stuff. I have returned it to the local Home Depot, and have ordered the correct right epoxy from a company in New Jersey. While we await it's arrival, the end-to-end bonding of the 8 foot pieces of plywood to make the sides of our boat will also have to wait.

So, when Dan came by tonight to spend 90 minutes working on the boat, we went to work cutting the "gunwales" for our boat. The 3/4" x 1 1/2" gunwales are the long, slim pieces of wood affixed to the upper sides of the boat, and got their name from the days when cannons were mounted on them. Ours have to be cut from the entire length of our 18 foot 2 x 10! Lumber companies simply don't mill pieces of wood like this! Thankfully, the gentlemen who provided us the drawings for our boat also provided us plans for a nifty little jig to make the job easier. Here's the jig mounted on our circular saw... carefully affixed so that it allows exactly a 3/4" cut.
We take our time with this cut, inching the saw along... and it worked like a charm!

When we were done we had two beautiful gunwales, ready to be glued and screwed to the entire length of the top edge of the sides of our sailboat. For our 16' boat, the gunwales have to be nearly 18' in length because of the bend in the hull. For some perspective on how long 18' really is, here's Dan modeling our first gunwale! As you can see, it was a challenge to get the whole thing in the picture! This gives us the first real sense of the size of our intended vessel!

A slow weekend...

2006-06-25T18:18:00.000-04:00

With Dan's brother graduating from HS, and Leslie and I having a party for family at our new home, we had no time to work together this weekend. I did take an hour to do some preliminary work alone this afternoon though. Dan is most interested in building the boat itself, and using it for rowing and fishing. I am the one interested in using it for sailing. So, I decided to get a jump on some of the "sailing only" parts of our boat.

Here I am cutting out three pieces of 1/2"plywood... pieces that will eventually be the "planer board", the rudder, and the "mast partner". If you've never done any sailing, you may (or may not) be surprised that there is an enormous vocabulary of words used only by sailors and boat builders.

The planer board is a relatively long, wide 1/2" thick board that goes down into the water near the mid-point of the boat to keep the boat from sliding sideways while under the influence of the wind. Without it, you could never sail in any direction other than the direction of the wind. With it you can sail faster at a 90 degree angle across the wind than even directly with the wind... sailing at this angle is called sailing "on a reach" and the accelleration can be VERY exciting! The planer board for this relatively small boat will be a whopping 55" long!

Rudder is a term known by most... the stearing part of our vessel will be nearly 42" long.

The "mast partner" was an unknown term to me until recently. It is the assembly that holds the mast to the boat... and braces it against the torque caused by the wind in the sails. As you can imagine, the placement and the strength of this item is critical. Here are the chunks of plywood which will, God willing, become these important components of our boat.

Building commences!

2006-06-22T23:24:00.000-04:00

Dan and I jumped in making the first cuts! This build requires few tools. Here Dan uses a circular saw to cut the four intial 20" wide, 8 foot long pieces if plywood that will eventually be the sides of our craft. You may wonder how you get a 16' long boat when plywood comes in eight foot sheets. Good question! The answer is, you use epoxy and fiberglass cloth to bond two eight foot sections end to end... and create two 16-foot boards that will be shaped into the sides of the vessel. You'll see that process unfolding in our next posting. Until then, enjoy summer!

2006-06-22T23:14:00.000-04:00

Dan and I finally had the time to go shopping today... and here are the results! Hard to believe, but 95% of the materials of our 16' boat is in this picture! We bought four sheets of 1/4" plywood, one sheet of 1/2" plywood, one 2 x 10 x 18', four 8 foot 1 x 3's, some paint, some glue and some epoxy. The only items missing are the 500+ screws (on order), the sail cloth, the rope for line and the hardward for fittings. It's great to finally get this project started!

Our project begins!

2006-06-10T21:34:00.000-04:00

Life often forces us into times of major transition. What I have discovered is that there are at least two ways of experiencing these transitions: We can be overwhelmed with the stress that comes with these changes... or we can delve in full bore, and use the requisite energy to explore a new world that seems ripe with potential. It feels like a time that might produce some creativity!

My soon-to-be nephew and I are BOTH in a time of major transition right now. My wife and I have just relocated as I begin a new job in Binghamton, NY. Dan, the fiance of my niece, Heather, is about to relocate to Manhattan, NYC to begin Opthamology School. Neither of us really have the time to start a previously unexplored project... like building a boat... a yet, somehow, it seems like the perfect thing to do right now.

So, we have ordered plans for a 16', car-toppable, sail/row boat. The plans are now in hand, and we are going out this week to purchase the materials.

This blog will document our progress. Feel free to write comments, suggestions, or just offer encouragement (or to laugh out loud at us as we pick our way along!).

Until next time... Dave