More Little Stuff

Everyone who builds boats knows that the little stuff takes a lot of time. I'm doing the little stuff.

Not specifically related to boat building, but I did hang a cabinet on Sunday afternoon. Kind of ironic now that the build is almost over. It came out of our church kitchen which we recently remodeled. A nice fit and it will come in handy, especially if I continue to do stuff in my "workshop". 

Here's the first bit of interior painting: the underside of the padeyes. It would be very difficult to paint once installed.

I also have glued up my main mast step. I think it has turned out very nicely. Hopefully the mast will be right.

I had some extra epoxy, so I beefed up the fillet on the daggerboard trunk brace. 

I also cut out the daggerboard trim. This will prevent the daggerboard from going all the way through the boat. Can't have that now can we? I cut some left over Douglas fir. I am only able to glue one side on. The other side will have to be screwed on so that I can have access to the holes that will hold the rope handle.

Before gluing the trim on, I sanded down an earlier repair so that I could fill it in with colored epoxy. My repair was straight white. Didn't like that. 

I cut out a daggerboard trunk plug. This will be used when I am rowing to prevent water from coming up into the boat. I laminated four pieces of 6mm ply. It will fill the trunk perfectly.

I tried to round over the corners of the boomkin hole. I believe what I did will help. I'll have to make sure I didn't put in too much epoxy so that the boomkin will not fit. 

I think I'm going to do a little more fiberglass work. I have one piece of 8 oz  cloth that I might as well use. I'll put it in the floor somewhere. Then I need to sand the edges of the glass and fill the weave. I'm close to painting but might not be this week as I had thought. 

Addendum:

Wednesday a.m.

Took a few pics and shaped up my daggerboard trim.

 

500 Hour Milestone

500 HOURS!!!

I finally hit that milestone! It is supposed to be a 500 hour build, but actually I never thought I would do that simply because I'm building from plans and not the kit. But I'm not too far away. In my estimation it was going to take 18 months. Considering there have been about 3 months during which I was almost completely inactive, that estimate is going to be very close. 

Today I worked on the mast step. This morning I laminated four pieces of 9mm ply. This evening I cut them out and glued them into the boat. 

I was going to wait to do the mast step, but I spent a good bit of time figuring the placement of the step. This was after I tried to get the mast stub closer to the center of the mast with the cardboard mold etc. I figured it was still off by maybe 1/16", so I have determined which way the mast will go into the step. The side with the plug will face aft. 

I routed the groove on the underside which is for draining any water that might get into the step. I used a hole saw to cut the hole (go figure - LOL). I had to cut through from both sides. I drilled a pilot hole, but I still missed lining the two sides up by about 1/16". I filed it even. There may be a small bit of play in the step. If it's too much, I'll put some fiberglass around the stub on the mast. I don't think there will be. 

I did cut out the two sides of the step. I'll glue them in first of the week. I may get to start painting this coming week! Yoohoo!!

Here's something of a bit of interest. Some of my calculations. In fact, my whole work bench looks like one big math problem. Who said you wouldn't use fractions in your adult/daily life?

The top photo shows the a hole the size of my mast stub. The circle around it comes from the outside diameter of the mast at the base. I did this to see how close I was to being on center. Again, about 1/16" off. 

The other calculations are mast measurements as well as offset measurements for the mast placement. Plans gave two dimensions: one at the mast partner and one at the step. I had to adjust for some slight variations on my actual build. They are close but not perfect (there I go again). 

Mast Partner and Gate

I glued up my mast partner and gate last night. This morning I got up and trimmed up them both. The mast partner, as drawn, was covering a small portion of my forward deck plate so I had to trim it a bit more. I glued her to the deck.

Even though it is not some exotic hardwood, it will look fine and perform perfectly.

Now comes the mast gate. The plans call for a thickness of 1-3/8". I laminated two 3/4" pieces together which meant that my gate was 1/8" too thick. So I whipped out my plane and went to it. 

I'm not quite sure what happened, but I wound up planing off too much on one edge and not enough on the other edge!?? One possible explanation is that my blade is chipped and was leaving a little ridge on each pass. I guess with several passes the difference got multiplied. Not sure. I was fully aware that I had chipped my blade on the power planer when I was planing the floorboards. I hit a nail that I did not see in the repurposed wood. I thought about changing the blade before doing the gate but got too lazy. Shame on me!

Now what to do? It was a nice piece. Should I scrap it? Laminate another piece on? I planed it to close to square and did some sanding. It was 1/4" too thin after the mess up. I decided to just glue on two 1/4" tabs where the two bolts will go. After all, that's why the thickness was prescribed to be 1-3/8": the 1" partner plus the thickness of the flotation chamber lid. So here ya go:

Of course, those tabs will be on the underside. No one will ever know if we don't tell them! 

While I was at it, I glued a plug into the mast and filled the beetle holes too.

I left the plug proud so that I can sand it down even with the surface. I aligned the grain but as I tapped in the plug, it rotated. I wasn't going to pull it out. After initial inspection, no one will ever see it. 

 

Mast Work

I've been fretting over the mast setup. My concern is that my dimensions may be off enough that my two masts will not set correctly, maybe off plumb and off on rake. 

One issue is the knob that juts out from the bottom of the mast. I did not get a good fit when I made it, so it's actually off center. That would make the mast off. I decided to try and correct it with epoxy. I fashioned a mold from cardboard and poured epoxy into it, trying to get it centered. It was a time consuming effort. 

It turned out fairly well. The diameter is better. Mine was a little small. This is right on the money as to the plans. I'm not sure I got it exactly in the center though. Closer but not perfect.

With that said, I have decided to install the mast steps, both of them, when the boat is outside. I can level the boat, position the steps and get it right.

That means I need to make the mast partner for the main mast. Plans call for hardwood which I don't have and am not buying. I decided to laminate some plywood and use a piece of wood that I already had. Not sure what species it is. I thought it was mahogany but it doesn't seem to match the other piece that I had which I used for the quarterknees. Here is the mast step glue-up and the gate glue-up.

I will cut them to shape once the epoxy cures. The gate will not be installed until painting when I get to the rigging. 

Beetle Update

I've asked around about the powder post beetle situation. Comments have not been good. Finding a kiln and heating it up to @140-160 degrees for a day would probably kill anything in there, although it may be debatable as to whether or not it would kill eggs. 

Since they are in only one piece of wood, I don't think I'm going to stress too much over it for the time being. I did decide to take a plug out of the mast to see what I could see. I took a small hole saw and did it. I let the guide bit go in right next to one of the beetle holes. I believe I could see the track of the exit hole. I saw no other damage. I cut another plug to fill the hole. I'll epoxy it into place soon. 

Pics show both sides of the hole and both sides of the plug. Looks pretty clean. 

I may call a lumber company and see about getting them to put my mast into their kiln. 

 

YIKES!!!!!

YIKES!!!! What in the world is this????

I pulled my boomkin out the other day. It has a routed hole all the way through it. I held it up to the light (like looking through the barrel of a rifle) and couldn't see anything. I stuck a long thin piece of wood up into it and it was clogged with dirt and stuff. I was able to break it loose fairly easily.

Today I pulled out my main mast. I'm working on the mast partner and step. It is a birdsmouth mast so it is hollow. It does have a weep hole through the base and the partner plug. While I was working on it, I noticed about a half dozen tiny holes in one of the staves. They were all in one of the pieces with none beyond the scarf. I decided to push that stick up into the weep hole. Clogged dirt came out along with a tiny critter!!!!

Here is one of the holes:

                                              

A 1/16" drill bit fits it just about perfectly. The bit will only go as far as the bird's mouth where the two staves are epoxied together. None of the holes seem through to the hollow middle (unless they make a turn which I can't tell). I repurposed this wood from an old bowling alley. I was told it was douglas fir. I'm no expert, so I took the guy's word for it.

Here is some of the junk that I shook out of it after poking the stick up into the hole. For scale that's a 2x4 the stuff is lying on.

                                     

Do you see the little round dark thing? Here are close-ups of top side and bottom side of it:

                                        

                                                

What is it??? Should I be concerned???? If so, what should I do about it? I built the mast a year ago and it has been under my sunporch, suspended from the joists on hangers, out of the weather ever since. The boomkin, mast, other spars and oars were all hanging together. Lattice is the only thing that covers the underside of the porch. I'm wondering if that one piece of wood may have been infested to begin with although I would have used more than one piece from the used joist. They were 2x8's 10-14' long.

(above copied from WBF post)

Addendum:

I have scrolled around and looks like they may be powder post beetles. The small holes certainly fit the description of how they exit wood. From what I can determine, I will need to treat the wood with borate.

A Three Hour Hole

I've kind of dreaded cutting another hole in my boat but it had to be done. So now I have my three hour hole. Say, "what's a three hour hole?" It's a hole that takes three hours to cut - that's what. Such a tiny matter but, boy, did it take a while.

First there was the measuring. I had to scale the measurements for it's location and then figure what the angle of the transom would do to elongate the size of the boomkin. That took some guess work and some "fine tuning" of the hole. 

I used a drill, a jig saw, a key hole saw, a file and sandpaper. As you can see, it is not perfect. For one thing the corners are square and I rounded over my boomkin. Since the transom will be painted inside and out, I may be able to fill those corners in a bit. There was some chipping as well around the hole. But all in all, it is ok. 

Here's the progression of the hole:

And finally the hole with the boomkin through it:

The bracket that holds it in place is not glued down yet. I have a tool box sitting on it. I lined it up with the mizzen location and then marked the location of the bracket. The boomkin will be held in place just by friction and the tension of the mizzen sheet. That will require a small bit of fitting once the bracket is glued down. 

Mizzen Mast

Time to work on that mizzen mast setup. I decided to cut the hole for the mizzen mast. The obvious question: how big? I took my tri-square and added a second tri to it from my other tri-square. I slide the second on opposite the first and used it to get the diameter of my mizzen. It's supposed to 2-1/8". Turns out it is 2-1/4". I looked on my box of hole saws and there was a 2-1/8" one. My mizzen is a little misshapen anyway, so I cut a hole in a piece of scrap ply to see how it would fit over the mast. A bit too big as I had measured. 

I made a little jig, similar to one I made when I cut the mast. This time I used the table saw. The band saw actually messed me up several times early in the build. For some reason the blade wants to wander. Not sure why. Anyway, I trimmed the mast down to 2-1/8" up the mast about 8-1/2". Then I took my grandpa's draw knife and sander and shaped it up a bit til the hole would fit over it. (I can't used the actual hole because the ceiling is too low for the mast).

Of course, that took the finish off, but I've got a lot of painting to do. It'll get redone. 

Here is the hole for the mizzen mast. I think I'll wait on doing the step until I get the boat outside where I can double check the rake and get her plumb (or at least close - LOL). 

I also looked at the boomkin. I marked it on the piece of mahogany and cut out the bracket that will hold it to the aft seat.

I was actually able to use another hole saw for it. Finished it up with the band saw and sander.  Now I have to cut a hole in the transom for the boomkin.

Addendum:

Friday evening I did some more work on the end of the mizzen mast. This time I worked on the very end of it. Like the diameter at the hole, the diameter at the end was too big. I cut another hole in the scrap ply and used it as a template and guide. Using my little block plane and sander I got it down to size.