I Think It's Time

I could do more, but I think it's time to get to the hull. My, oh, my! That means serious business. Scarfing, cutting planks, getting strongback square & level, setting up molds plumb.  There's a whole lot to it and it's a bit scary. 

Tonight I tried to put together a scarfing jig. I've been thinking I was going to try to do them with the router. Here's what I've come up with so far.

Here's the jig with a trial piece routed. I tried one earlier and it made the edge a bit rough so I thought I'd try and leave a little wood that I could maybe sand off later or may plane off and leave a good edge. Didn't have much success with a trial. 

Trials were hard because I'm using small pieces of wood and they want to move around. There's a lot of forces at work when you're routing. 

After a couple hours of trial and error, I decided to try just planing with the power planer. I took a left over piece of 9mm meranti and it came out pretty decent. It even had a nice edge on it if you can see it in the second picture. The cut out in the middle of that board is where I tested the router on the jig. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I may try it one way; and, if it doesn't come out right, try it the other way. I can experiment a little bit because one of the plank sheets has some left over at the end. We'll see.

Finishing the Tiller

Tonight I finished up the tiller. After taking the clamps off, I sanded down the worst of the squeeze out, ran it thru the band saw twice to get the sides even, ran the router with a 1/2 radius bit over the four corners, and then did some sanding. I think it turned out decent. I cranked out the extensions as well. I’ll think about a hiking stick later.

Here is a "side" shot of the sliver I took off the sides with the band saw. Just enough to even out the sides.

I also put the fourth coat of Helmsman on the boom, so it's done except for drilling some holes for the rigging. That will come later. This is not the best picture. The boom kind of blends in with everything on the work bench, even though it's suspended over it, but it does look nice.

Next step might be scarfing some plywood for planking. Exciting but scary at the same time!

Tiller Time

I took a few minutes before dinner to quickly sand the boom with my palm sander and some 150 grit paper. Then I slapped a second coat of Helmsman on it. Two more coats should do it.

After supper I wanted to tackle the next project, but what was it going to be? There's not a lot of stuff that I'm going to do before I start on the hull. I decided that the tiller was a good project. 

The plans call for ash, but I don't have any and am not going to go looking. I still have some small pieces of Douglas Fir, so I dug into the pile and came up with some suitable lumber. The tiller is only about 45" long with an additional foot and a half or so of "cheeks", so it's not going to take a lot. I found some that I could resaw to use for laminations. I cut them into 45" x 1&1/4" x 1/8" strips. It took nine strips.

Here is the tiller dry-fitted.

And glued up.

It will take some trimming, sanding and shaping, but a laminated tiller should look nice. I should have thrown some pine in there to give it some contrast. Oh, well....

First Look at Boom

The last couple of short work sessions I've been finishing off the boom: sanding, routing, filling and sanding some more. I had a couple small gaps and there were two small voids in the plywood. Not supposed to be there but there it was.

This morning I put the first coat of Helmsman on it. It took four coats on the other spars. Of course, this has plywood in it, so we'll see how much the ply takes. 

I like what I see. Not perfect but nice.

I've got it hanging so I can do all four sides at the same time.

Here is a closeup of what my 1/8" dowels look like. That middle one will be drilled out to make a hole for the sail lashing.

Here is a closeup of my "insert". Remember, it was going to have one scarf in it anyway. 

Three more coats and it should be done.

 

A Little Housekeeping

Every now and then you have to do some housekeeping. Since my boom is still setting up, I decided to take a few minutes to straighten up the "workshop". I swept up the big stuff that would clog the shop vac, vacuumed the strongback and floor, straightened up my stack of leftover wood strips, put tools in their proper place and even fixed one of my clamps that had broken. It just needed a bolt. Thought it was a steel casing. Turned out to be plastic. Easy-peasy. 

Here ya go:

I may have to move those blocks and shelf on the floor, there on the left, before I actually start on the hull. Gonna need that floor space.

Oh, and here's a shot of the accumulation of all my work to date (counting the strongback). Oh, and behind that plastic are all of my spars and oars. Just passed the 160 hour mark.

The "Lid" Is On

This morning  I took a few minutes to check on last night's work and decided to go ahead and put the "lid" on. I did a little sanding to get rid of the squeeze out and level out the blocks and staves and went to it. 

I figured the butt blocks would hold the plywood side in the correct position in the middle but I didn't want it to slide at the ends so I once again used the dowel trick.

I gooped everything up and put the lid on. I decided to put plastic under the boom as well as over it to make sure nothing stuck to what it wasn't supposed to. I used a 1x4 to put on top and clamp. I thought that would put even pressure on the plywood.

Here ya go:

And a sneak peak under the plastic:

Once that sets up, I'll sand off the squeeze out, and put the router to it. I'll put a 1/4" radius curve on all four corners of the boom. Then I can put some Helmsman on it!

Got the Bends

I was trying to figure out how to make the curve in the second stave on the main boom. Turns out it was a lot of thought for little trouble. I added a small block at the beginning of the curve on each end and the stave bent right around it along the curve cut out in the plywood. A simple C clamp held it in place perfectly. Great! 

I decided that I ought to go ahead and do the whole interior of the boom while I was at it. I cut out the end blocks, which I made a little longer than drawn per advice from other builders, and a couple extras along with a couple spacers to bend that stave around. I also coated the whole interior with epoxy. I used my 1/8" dowel trick to hold the two end blocks in place. Since they are not "square", I was afraid they would slide when the pressure from the clamping was applied. I will likely drill holes there anyway when I go about rigging the boat, so it won't be noticeable at all. 

Here are 3 pics: each end plus the entire set up. Note clamps are set up in two directions - a few holding the stave down and a few holding it against the blocks. 

Tomorrow I hope to glue the "lid" on it, i.e. the other side. Just got to be sure I know where the blocks are once it's closed up.