Inner Stem

Tonight (Saturday) I glued up the inner stem. I had a bunch of strips left over from trimming the Douglas Fir that I had used for my 2 masts. It turns out I had just enough to do the inner stem. Actually, one broke as I dry fitted it, so I had to cut another from a larger piece of left over DF. Hopefully the stem will turn out alright. It was a messy job and I mixed too much epoxy. I'm usually pretty good at estimating, but over-shot this one. 

I used the strongback with the OSB on it as the backdrop for the glueup. I laid all of the strips out side by side on another section of the strongback. Then I coated both sides of each strip with straight epoxy, coated one of each pair with thickened epoxy, put the pairs together, coated 1/2 of the pairs and put them all together in one bunch. I forgot that I wasn't supposed to coat the outside pieces. My clamps will be a bit messy though it was only straight epoxy, not the thickened stuff. 

Once they were in a bunch, I placed them near my form and slowly pulled the middle in with two strong clamps (the orange ones with the screw down ends), alternating back and forth as each one was screwed down as far as it would go. Near the end, the inside strip broke. It was pulled in so far and looked decent, so I put another clamp on the break and left it. I think it will be ok.

Here is a pic of the stem's line drawn with a batten. The second pic shows the nails offset the mark enough to allow for the thickness of the batten. The third pic shows the strips clamped down to the blocks which were set back 1 and 3/4" (which is to be the thickness of the stem) from the line. 

Here are the blocks set up for clamping.

And then the strips glued and clamped.

Update Monday night:

I removed the clamps and sanded off the squeezed out epoxy. I realized that the stem was a little short of the 1 and 3/4" that the plans called for. I actually had left out one strip because I thought it was going to be too thick, so I went back and added that last strip. Even with it, I believe I'll be maybe a 16th too thin. I'm not worrying about 16ths on this build. 

Here is the stem after taking the clamps off. You can see the squeeze out.

Here is the stem with that last strip added.

One thing I noticed: I believe the stem sprung back from the clamped shape just a little. I don't think it will make a big difference, maybe 1/2" less curve at the roundest part of the stem. The top and bottom will be on the mark. 

Here are three pics; one at each end and one in the middle of the stem showing the "fit". The first one show the top with maybe a 16th shallow.

The second shows the middle with about a 1/2" gap. 

The third shows the garboard end with a close fit. 

I think I'm going to go ahead with this as is. Clint seems to think it will not make a big difference.

Not Satisfied

For some reason mold #1 did not look right. So I redid it. Not much difference but I do like the second one better.

I still have to cut out a notch at the point. I'm guessing the stem will go into the notch. 
 

Frames and Transom

Three hours so far today and the frames and transom are done! How exciting!! 

Here are the frames (not in order as the boat is the biggest midship):

Here is the transom:

This is the only permanent piece of the hull so far. I had one glitch with it. When I glued it up, I guess the clamps pulled it out of "plane". You can see it when I place a straight edge on it. I thought my table would keep it straight. 

Oh, well. Not going to do it again. That board was $39! As a result of the error, the underside of the transom joint had a small gap in it - no squeeze out. I've filled it in with epoxy and it's setting up as I type. I think it will all be fine. 

Here is a shot of the batten I used to draw the curve across the top of the transom:

That worked out pretty good. 

Now it's on to the midship frame - another permanent part of the boat. Not sure whether I want to do it with solid wood or plywood. I did not order enough good plywood to do it. I may make a couple parts of the boat (stern posts and main boom sides) out of luan - oh, no! a mortal sin. I believe this would give me enough plywood to make the frame. Got to study it out a bit.

 

The Next Step: Frames

Now that the oars and spars are done, it's time to move on to the next step: the frames. This is big. The frames will give the boat its shape. 

I spent 4 hours today and got three of the frames cut out and one more drawn. There is one more to go plus the transom and middle frame which are permanent parts of the boat. I've yet to buy the lumber for them. I opted to go with dimensional lumber versus plywood thinking I'll save a few dollars. Another sheet of ply would have cost me a C note. I'm thinking I can get the lumber for less than half that or near half.

Marking the frames is a bit painstaking. There are a lot of dimensions!! I tried to make sure I "measured twice" so I would only have to "cut once"! Good thing I did. I made some mistakes. I could tell though from the looks of the lines. 

I used the "T" square that I bought mainly for this task. I also used the Porter/Cable 3.5" saw for the first time. It's sweet. And I like the laser. Too bad I left the switch on and ran the batteries down. I'll have to get some. It really helps. 

Here are a couple pics from today's work. 

Feels good to move on. I'll certainly be eager to get those frames up on the strongback.

One More Coat

I decided to put one more coat on the spars and oars. Glad I did. They look really sharp now and that last sanding/coating really made a difference. Cost a little over an hour. Well worth it. 

Here are the oars.

They turned out pretty nice. The looms are not perfectly round. The blades are very much to my liking. As long as they are strong enough, I think I'll be satisfied. I'll be eager to row with them, very curious about the amount of effort it is going to take to work with 9'2" oars. In my head the amount of leverage I'll get with just 27" inboard is not very much. We'll see.

Here are the spars:

They look nice even though they are not perfect either.

Here are a few of the "warts":

In the case of the knots, I was working with substandard lumber trying to save on the costs. None of them go all the way through as they are laminated to clear pieces. The ones of the oars for example are only about 1/8" thick. 

On the mast, somehow I did not line up the one stave. It was 1/4" off. I was in a hurry trying to work before the epoxy "kicked". I just had to fill it in with epoxy later. 

There are more, but you get the idea.

All in all, I think I'm reasonably satisfied. If everything turns out to be strong enough without too much weight, I'll be good. 

 

2 Milestones!

I reached two milestones today.

1) I just passed the 100 hour mark. This is supposed to be a 500 hour boat. I kind of doubt that; we'll see.

2) I finished my oars and spars. Put the 3rd coat of urethane on this morning. That should do it. 

Now it's on to phase 2 (whatever that is). I'm thinking I'm going to cut out my frames and get those 2 sheets of plywood out of my way. Then I'll move on to the rudder, daggerboard, trunk and main boom. I'm going to do the things that I can while I have a "long work table" which, of course, is my strongback. Once I set up the frames can't do that anymore. 

2 Coats Done

Four hours today and I have 2 coats on the oars and spars. I did one coat this morning, went out to dinner, came back, sanded and put a second coat on. I'm figuring 3 coats (and maaaaybe 4 - directions on the can say 3). I'm leaving the oar handles natural. It seems that's the wisdom on the forum. They say it's easier on the hands when rowing, otherwise you'll get blisters more quickly. 

 

I Can Smell the Varnish

(Urethane actually) I spent 2 and 1/2 hours last night and 1/2 hour this morning getting the spars and oars ready for painting. Oh, and I'll be using Helmsman Spar Urethane. It worked great on my previous boats and I see no reason to change. 

I cleaned up the workshop, sanded my final repair on the yard, and ran over everything with my hand sander with 150 grit paper. 

I'm so aware of the level of quality of my work (I'd give myself a C, if I were grading). Final sanding and inspection makes it all very apparent, but it will have to do. I must move on. Besides, I just don't know how I can do much better with what I have w/o starting over and I can't do that. I'm sure that once everything is finished, I'll be content. And that's a good thing.

I "suspended" every piece so that I could rotate them and coat them completely. I will have to fill the small nail holes in the ends of each piece but that will be easy.

A few pics.

Back to Work

After a week of no work on the boat, I'm back at it. Tiffany came for her annual summertime visit on her way to Florida. With her here with the 3 kiddos, it was fitting that I take a break and visit. 

But tonight I got in an hour and a half. I'm still working on the oars. I spent my time tonight working on the handles, some shaping and sanding, although I did spend a few minutes planing a couple "hard" spots on the looms.

I weighed the oars again. They both are coming in at 4.4 lbs. Not sure how this compares to professionally built oars, but it seems reasonable to me. 

I need to do a final sanding on the oars and then I think I'll be ready for some Helmsman! My goal is to get the oars and spars done this week. We'll see.