Waiting for glue to dry today, so I worked ahead on building a taper jig for use in cutting the frames later.  I'm going to make two sizes, both taper from 1 to 2 inches, but one will be 19 inches long, the other 22. 

Here's my jig.  Simple piece of scrap shelving and a piece of the same thickness board I will use for the frames.  Laid out the angle so that the right side will ride the edge of the table saw fence and the left is where the cutting will happen.  There's a stop at the front end to support the back of each board being ripped.  I should be able to get two frames from each board by flipping them end for end after the first cut. 

I needed to figure out a way to hold the board in place while cutting.  Too narrow for me to risk my pinkies on it.

I built a little bridge between two cutoff pieces of wedge shaped material I had.  Then put a small dado the width of two other wedges to recess them a bit to give them some more grip.

Jig all set up with a sample board.  Slap the board in, put the wedges in their dados and tap home with a hammer.  Seems to hold quite securely. 

I'm actually kind of proud of this little contraption.  Next up, I plan to build the twin version on the opposite side of the jig to allow for the cutting of the 22 inch frames on the same jig base.  Now that I have it all planned out, should be simple. 

Won't be any time soon I'll need it, but I needed something to do while glue dries. 

next up is putting the other side plank on, then the bottom.

And, I added partial planking to one side.  Had some finish beveling on the chines before I could do it, but we have a panel at least!  These are joined with butt blocks per Gardner's instructions.

And yes, there are pieces missing at the end so far.  Gardner's instructions have them spliced on separately.  Once the glue dries, I'll trim the bottom excess and add the end parts that attach to the stems.  Then on to the other side.

Need to decide if I will trim the stem short so I can put a breasthook over it, or just cut it flush to the sheer and work around it....

More progress finally

Finally got pictures of the new chines up.

Scarfing

Sign of trouble occurred.  Back to Gardner's Plan A butt blocks.  Doh! 

Small progress

No pictures today, but they should be forthcoming.  That is if I can get home in time to snap some shots before darkness. 

Since last update, I've completely stripped and redone the chines.  I had them nearly "finished" in mahogany, but as I tried to wrap things up, I realized they were not laying anywhere near flat in relation to the side bevels and where the planking will eventually lie.  Kinda probably should have figure that out before, no? 

I spent the better part of a month trying to salvage something that just seemed too cool to not work.  In the end, I just decided to start over and use the "Pat" method (no, you probably won't know what that is unless you are Pat).  Recall that part of my original chine issue was that my mahogany was too short, requiring not only thickness-wise lamination, but also lengthwise scarfing to make up the length. 

In my "revised" method, I just bought a 16' clear fir 2x6 and ripped out 6 beveled 1/4 inch strips.  Actually seven counting one mistake.  Took the better part of a Saturday afternoon and may have killed my table saw motor, but it's done.  I was also having MAJOR trouble getting glue to kick off in the damp and cold, so I moved to Gorilla glue, what with their whole "moisture activated thing".  I had a past bad experience with it during a bow-building project, but it appears to have worked well this time.  Gotta say, it set up pretty well.  They look good. Glue lines look really good and even (as a bowmaker, that is something I love to see).  So after a few days of work, actually, one weekend I think, I had full length chines, laminated in 3 layers to a total of 3/4 inch.  No delamination, no glue problems, no splices lengthwise, and Daddy is a whole lot happier now.

This weekend my daughter and I planed the tops for final fitting of the bottom and trimmed the ends up.  I picked up 3 sheets of quarter inch marine ply at Mr. Plywood (yes, that is really the name - why would you go anywhere else?).  I'm now scarfing the side pieces together to get ready to plank up.  Gardner specified butt blocks, but I figured since I have the time and a sharp smoothing plane, and I've done scarfs before, I'd give a shot at scarfs for now.  First sign of trouble, those butts are on deck though.  I've been through enough issues already trying to put full chines in design that Gardner said should have "pieces" (but I still think these are "better", so na na).

Hope to get some photos of the chines up soon, followed shortly by the sides, or at least part of them.  I asked for some input on adhesives, and the consensus on glue for attaching the ply to the frames on the Coot forum was to use PL Premium, since I'm using fasteners and avoiding epoxy.  That should provide all the sticky I need, plus some gap filling/sealing function, so I'll probably use that.  Stuff is cheap too, I think I paid 5$ at Mr. P's for a tube of it that should do both sides easily.  Gorreeya glue is twice that for a little bottle. 

Chines

Chines are underway, although I'm starting to wish I'd followed Gardners specified "chine pieces". 

I ripped some strips out of my mahogany planking.  Originally, they were about 2 inches high, but they wouldn't flex at all vertically, so I had to trim them up to about 1.5 inches.  They are about 3/8 thick and bevelled on the bottom.  The "bottom" will eventually be the "top" so this bevel will allow the chines to shed water so it doesn't pool in the joint.  I left the top part square since it will be planed flat anyway.  This picture gives an end view of the bevel and the stacked laminations for the chines.

Here's the whole set in place.  I ran out of clamps and ended up having to use screws to hold some of the chines together while the glue sets.  They're just in approximate location right now.  I wanted to get them glued and solid before I tried to move them around too much. 

Speaking of glue, anyone have problems with Titebond III?  I've been using it and it either takes a really long time to set, or just doesn't hold well.  I've had a couple pieces I've had to reglue. 

Next up is planing and fitting the chines to their final locations. 



Stems are in

Got my first cold Friday, just in time for the weekend.  I'm sure it will be gone just in time for work on Monday....  Still managed to get the stems tacked in place.  I say tacked because I'm not dead sure they aren't going to need to be moved a tad.  Gardner calls for stems that are 3 by 2 9/16.  His drawing shows the taper on the front edge that is where the planking lands.  Unfortunately, the way he describes the taper is with an angle measurement.  Would have been easier for me if it just said "measure x this way and y that wahy and draw a lilne" like most of the rest of his instructions do.  Nevertheless, I think I have the bevel cut correctly.  We'll see.  Another issue with the stems is that he doesn't really say exactly where they land.  Hard to describe, but suffice to say his description is a bit amorphous on this.  But I think I have it worked out.  More later.

I have a ton of mahogany pieces for builiding this boat, but none measure up to 3 x 3 for stems, so I had to glue mine together to make up the thickness.  Since this wood is recycled, it needed to be planed flat to glue up well.  Since I don't have a surface planer, it was time to break out the old smoothing plane.  Love that thing.  Couple passes crosswise followed by a couple lengthwise were all it took to remove the slight cupping on most of the boards.  One set didn't turn out right, then I messed up the bevel to boot, so I ended up making three stems to get two.  Live and learn.  Other than that,. the only issue was a hidden chunk of a nail that dinged my plane blade.  Darn it! 

In order to put the stems in, I also needed the keelson in place.  So I ripped down one of my 15' long 1x3.5 mahogany boards.  Lots of fun trying to rip a 15' board in a 16' garage!!  But it worked.  And more importantly, the keelson fits inside the notches in my molds perfectly.  When you work the way I do, that doesn't actually happen all that often, so it was quite satisfying. 

Another aspect that was pretty gratifying is that after I got the keelson in place, I measured out the offset for where the keel should end and how high above baseline it should be.  Surprisingly (to me) it was dead on.  Not that I'm surprised Gardner's measurements are accurate, but I am surprised that I managed to reproduce them faithfully enough to land dead on without modifications needed.  Pretty cool.

In this shot, you can just see a batten clamped in about where the sheer line will be.  This is my first concrete look at what the actual outline will look like!  Also, via the batten, I was able to confirm that my stem placements are likely about right, and my bevel is about right too.  May take a little tweaking here and there to get it perfect though.

I have to put the chines in next, then I will be able to start putting the planking on.  Because of my uncertainty in my work, I picked up a couple sheets of luan at HD the other day.  For 20$, I will be able to do a "draft planking" of the sides and make sure everything is kosher before I start cutting up 160$ worth of marine plywood.  Probably unnecessary, but pretty cheap insurance anyway.  I'm not worried about Gardner's measurements, but I am still worried about mine (despite the in-progress confirmation that, so far, I'm still on line).

Hopefully I can get the chine cutouts done today and at least have the strips that I will laminate the chine together from cut out.  Then I'll be able to work in the evenings to get it all in place.

Frames go in!

Gardner calls for a "baseline" of 28" above the building jig (boat is built upside down).  The middle mold goes 2" below the baseline, the two outer molds 2.5".  So, although I have painstakingly leveled and plumbed the jig itself, I figured why take any chances.  This string is set to be 28" above the jig.  It also happens to be level front to back.  So theoretically, as long as I measure correctly down from this line, everything will be lined up correctly.  Of course, this is all just a double check since I worked for hours leveling the frame too.  But what the heck.

With the string in place, I could then measure off it to set the height of the bottom of each mold.  These little blocks of wood correspond to the amount of offset from baseline to the bottom of the mold.  You can't see it, but they are also lined up on the center of each mold.  So putting them in was just a matter of lining the center line up, leveling with a spirit level across the top, and making sure the block just kissed the string line.  Pretty slick if I do say so myself.

Couple shots of the frames going in.

And one from end on.

 And finally, because I'm paranoid, I cross-braced the bejesus out of the whole thing.  Hey, with this little working space, I'm bound to trip over stuff.  Might as well nail it down good.



Moved the jig up onto some small sawhorses and levelled it up today.  Should put the working height at the keel at about 40 inches or so.  Next up is putting the molds on the frame!!  

Pick a boat, pick a spot, start building

tada.  Riverfront bateau is the winner.  I've wanted to build it for years, so what the heck.  If I don't do it now, I'll just keep wanting to build it next time, and the time after that. 

So I've picked a design.

Now, where do I build it?  I have a garage, and my wife graciously offered to let me work in her parking spot during the project.  But....if I do that, I'm going to want to get done quickly so she can have it back.  I don't want to rush this, I want to take my time and pick away at it.  That's the whole point.  So I've decided to build out under my boat shed.  Problem is, there's already a big ol' glass boat under it.  So today I moved it backwards a bit, and as far over as possible, and I think I have the room cleared.  Gonna be a bit snug at times though.  That's the start of the building jig on the right.  My "double dory" cataraft (little white things) on the left, and the Seafair in the back. 

I have also cut out what Gardner calls the 'molds' for this boat.  I had thought I might just perty them up and leave them as a permanent part of the boat, despite the fact that Gardner specified a different strategy.  Upon further review and advice from others who have more time in grade than I, I think I'll stick to his plan instead.  Maybe a few mods later, but not this one.  Most of the fun for me is tinkering with stuff, I'm not much of a plan-follower.  But I'll find some other tweaks to make.  The bottom one goes in the middle, and the other two are twins that go towards either end.  This boat is dead symetrical fore and aft.

Rather than just double them up as is often done, I figured I might as well make cleaner half-laps.  Of course, now that I've decided these will be temporary and not stay in the fnal boat, there really wasn't any point.  Oh well, kept me busy for a couple hours.  I'll probably hit them with the belt sander to clean them up, just in case I do end up keeping them in....(don't tell John K.)

19' Heavy Bateau, John Gardner "The Dory Book"

18' Riverfront Recapture Bateau, John Gardner "Classic Small Craft You Can Build"

My header

What's up with metal boats?  I live in the land of the aluminum boat.  Oregon is ground zero for the aluminum boat industry, and they can be great boats.  But come on, they're METAL.  Fiberglass is bad enough, and I own one, but mine has wood IN it.  Therefore, it has a soul.  Albeit a small one. 

I like to flick my metal-boat-owning friends crap about their soulless boats.  Just for fun.

Git busy livin....

Background.  I'm a weird guy.  I'm into oddball stuff, always have been.  Not oddball like biting heads off chickens or getting neck tattoos.  More like "shoulda been born 200 years ago" oddball.  I like to make stuff.  Beer, bows, boats, you name it.  If it can be made, especially if it can be made from wood, I'm likely either interested or have already tried it. 

I just turned 40, hence the tag line.  Not that I haven't been livin' up to now, but what the heck.  For my birthday, the family all ponied up donations for a "winter project", otherwise known around here as a boat.  I can't claim to be a boatbuilder yet, as I haven't done more than dabble so far.  But I'm working on changing that. 

I got into boats late.  When I was about to graduate college, my uncle picked up an old plywood runabout to fix up.  My dad and I spent months helping him re-do it.  That pretty much hooked me.  Subscriptions to Woodenboat followed and have stuck. 

I built my first "boat" in my mid-20s.  Thankfully there are no surviving pictures of said boat.  It was loosely based on the Six Hour Canoe, but made from left over plywood (3/8 on side and 3/4 on the bottom as I recall), and I put a torpedo stern on it of all things.  Weighed a ton and leaked like a sieve.  But it did float.  Last I saw it was on the burn pile behind the barn I used to rent as I was driving the U-Haul away to a new job. 

About the same time, I picked up an old fiberglass skiff that needed a new floor and restored that to run around in.  When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, I tackled what has probably been my biggest and most successful project, the Baby Tender, from Jordan Wooden Boats.  It's a cute little lap strake cradle boat that now resides in the attic, awaiting (VERY patiently) my future grandchildren. 

Got rid of the first glass boat in the mid-2000s and picked up another glass boat, a '59 Glasspar Sefair Sedan that also needed a floor and transom replaced.  I replaced all that and some of the mahogany trim and have been using that for several years now.  It's a good boat, but it is a product of modern chemistry, which will probably not ever sit "just right" with me, but I can live with it.  Somewhere in here I've also re-done a couple of small plywood skiffs.  One a 10 footer that I never actually put in the water, and the other a 10' drift pram that I used quite a bit, but eventually sold.

And most recently, I built a little rowing catamaran of my own design last winter.  Picture one of those inflatable one-man rowing catamarans, but made of plywood.  It turned out pretty good, a few things I'd change, but not bad.  Not my best finish work, but it is a workable little boat.

So, now what?  Well, I've decided that in addition to the cuddy cabin outboard boat, the family and I need a fairly light rowing boat to dink around local lakes and streams with.  This will be a rowing-only boat, as I have yet to learn to sail.  Someday, but first things first.  Plenty of hobbies for now.  I had dreams originally of making a cartopper or a boat that fits in the pickup, which would negate the need for a second trailer to store at the house.  However, it is pretty apparent that cartop boats that can hold 1 large adult, 1 small adult, 1 kid, and 1 small dog, are pretty much a pipe dream.  And what I've found for pickup bed boats are frankly, well, just too darned ugly. 

So I've settled on a narrow beam, lightly built boat that will live on a trailer, at least during transit.  My last project was full of epoxy "stitch and glue" which someday, I will do again, but not this time.  Just too messy.  I want to be able to put a screw through a glued up piece of wood and go to bed, without having to wonder if the epoxy will kick in this weather or whatever else.  It's great stuff, don't get me wrong, but this time I want something more "traditional".  I don't have a ton of money available either, so it needs to be pretty much on the cheap.  I did score a load of miscellaneous mahogany (meranti allegedly) planks for trim and frames, so that cuts down a lot of costs.  Basically any hardwood needs are covered (frames, etc.).  I want to be able to use plywood for the planking, and I'm not up for cutting lapstrakes this time. 

So with those combinations in effect, the designs that are jumping out at me are:
18' bateau by John Gardner - plywood boat, minimal framing, lighlty built, but looks to have good capacity
19' bateau by same, pretty much the same boat but a tad bigger, downside is that I don't have a detailed plan available for this boat like I do the 18'.
Bolger long dory - this is the upsized Gloucester Gull.  I think it might be just big enough, but I saw one with one guy in it, and it looked pretty well loaded up.  Still might work.

That's my short list.  I've looked at lots of other designs and have crossed them off for one reason or other, some I cant' even remember why. 

Next installment: Picking the design and laying out the building jig.