Boat Therapy

Making some final pieces that need to be on the boat before painting.

In the basement workshop, I ripped the 1× remaining to its final 2-1/2″ width for the keel. I took it out to the garage/driveway workshop and weighted it on the bottom of the boat. I fussed a bit too much trying to get it as perfectly centered as possible, trying to tape a story stick on the transom and measure and calculate and whatnot. I finally gave up all that silliness and just basically eyeballed it, measuring with a tape measure down to the nearest quarter inch or so. I drew the outline of the keel on the bottom of the boat with red Sharpie, then marked on the keel itself with blue and black Sharpie the part name and some way points along the length.

Then it was time to cut the skeg. Remember that I had opted to use 3/4″ plywood for the skeg instead of Beede’s sandwich of 1/4″ ply pieces from the first plywood sheet, and then I had overruled myself and decided to use a length of 1× hardwood (which I later determined was maple) instead, reasoning that, if hitting any sort of gravel or sandy bottom or beach, I’d rather have a solid piece attached down underneath than plywood.

But then I had the dilemma as to how to cut the 1× to shape, basically a wedge, 3 feet long, going from 3/4″ tall to 3-1/2″ tall. I couldn’t figure how to clamp that to anything to be able to cut that long diagonal cut. I finally figured that I could clamp a sacrificial length of 2×4 to the Stanley folding work bench and then clamp the maple length to the sacrificial 2×4, leaving room for the 4-1/2″ circular saw to just barely scoot by the clamps. Worked out rather swell, actually.

I had to cut the wedge again, on the bottom, so to speak, to match the rocker curve of the boat. I held the skeg in place and used a triangular fat pencil, spiling along to transfer the curve from boat to skeg. Then I cut that side on the sacrificial 2×4 as well.

Bam. Skeg cut and done. I used the off-cut from the spiling to trace the skeg onto the keel so I can cut the slot that it needs before they get attached.

But before I can attach the keel and skeg, I need to install the mast step, since the mast step gets glued down to the bottom of the inside of the boat, and thus needs clamping screws going from outside to inside, before the keel gets attach to the outside and covers up the area where those mast step clamping screws need to go. And before I can install the mast step, I need to make it.

I had designed a 1-1/2″ sandwich of plywood pieces, but I today I decided I didn’t like the 1/4″ ply pieces that I’d cut. And I decided that I’d use 1x pieces instead of 3/4″ plywood pieces. I cut the 1x pieces a smidge wide, thinking that would give me a little more wiggle room for the center hole for the mast, but then that threw off the entire symmetry of that layer. And then trying to glue the rectangle together went completely off the rails, with the wood glue making every piece far too slippery to position. I ended up throwing the disastrous lower assembly into the trash.

The upper assembly went a little better, where I unscrewed and slathered with glue and re-screwed one rectangle side at a time to avoid repeating the disaster I’d had with the lower assembly. Then I replaced the lower assembly with a simple piece of 1× oak that I had. And, anyway, I like the idea of a solid piece of wood attached to the floor of the boat instead of a couple layers of plywood.

I had hoped to flip the boat upright and measure and mark where the mast step will be, but I ran out of time. We went to walk the dogs, then had a quick dinner, then I dashed off to see Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters, at Hill Country Live, with Gordon and Cathy.

Having now made what can be described as a boat, I need to make it seaworthy. There’s wood filler and caulk and epoxy and paint to be applied. I need to get the boat ready for that.

The main thing is to glass the chines. That’s what I call it anyway, although with my chines being internal, I’m not really glassing them proper. I’m glassing the outside joint made by the bottom and the side.

And right now that joint is way too sharp to hold the tape, or at least that’s what I gather from reading my Michalak. So the big job this weekend was taking the rasp to the bottom to make that joint rounder.

And what a slog that was, going all the way around the boat. I wasn’t keeping exact time or anything, but I’m guessing it was about two hours. It was hard work, but it was satisfying as well.

While I was at it, I finally cut off the excess of the gunwales both at the transom and the stem. I rounded them a little bit as well, with the rasp, as best as I could with the boat upside down. I’ll make them more symmetrical when next the boat is right side up.

Next step is to fill the seams of the butt blocks with wood filler, in preparation for covering those same seams with fiberglass tape embedded in epoxy, glassing the seams same as the chines will get glassed. I bought Minwax High Performance Wood Filler to use for these critical seams, as opposed to the cheaper DAP Plastic Wood filler that I’d used way back in like Week 2 or so for filling the knot holes on the C side of the BC plywood.

If nothing else, if I never do another minute of work on it, this thing is now a boat. I fully plan on doing many more minutes of work on it, to make it a seaworthy boat, one that won’t leak, not too much anyway. But it is now recognizably a boat.

I had some time early Saturday morning, when Dawn is usually out rowing but today was volunteering at some rowing event for a couple hours extra. I had been eagerly anticipating the big reveal of the gluing and butt blocks of the bottom bow triangles.

And, voila, they don’t look too bad. They don’t look nearly as good as I was aiming for, what with the longitudinal block having slipped a smidge to port and the transverse seam on the starboard side a little wider than I might have hoped, but, still it’ll do.

I took a picture of the final result on the garage floor, but my camera screwed up, so, sorry, not showing it here.

I had to pull the boat out of the garage to get to the glued up bottom on the garage floor, so I did my first test fitting on the full bottom on the boat now set up in the driveway. It was very satisfying to see the boat coming together.

It was even more exciting crawling underneath the assembly and seeing the boat’s cockpit for the first time. I took a lot of pictures from underneath and later looked at them upside down.

I have variously marked parts and lines with pencil and black sharpie (and even light green highlighter), and more recently I had marked the extents of the chines on the bottom with blue sharpie. I used red sharpie for the final chine and frame lines to differentiate these now mightily important lines.

I finally packed up for the morning, rolling the boat and the bottom back into the garage, and I made plans for the actual glue up for later in the day, after lunch and grocery shopping.

Later, in the afternoon, I brought the bottom outside for a final trim clear of the red chine lines, and then it was ready to be glued and screwed on.

I had pondered quite a bit as to how I would manhandle the bottom onto the upside down hull assembly after I’d spread glue all around the chines. All of the times before I’ve plopped the bottom onto the assembly, from one side or the other, and then slid it into place. But I wouldn’t be able to do that once the chines had all been slathered with the construction adhesive. So I figured out my method using a 2×4 to prop up half of the bottom at a time, first the stern and then the bow, while weighing down the other end with the barbell weights.

The aft end went really well, allowing me to apply a bead of glue along the chines (and the transom) and then spread it all out with craft sticks. I had trouble, though, when I switched the prop to the bow. Not having the transom to brace it, the prop promptly starting listing to the side, sliding the bottom toward that side with it. I was able to save the bottom before it went crashing to the floor, but a not insignificant amount of glue got smeared in the meantime.

I kept my calm, however, and just worked around the problem. I re-propped the bottom and made my way around the chines around the bow. I still think my method was a good idea, but it did perhaps suffer in the execution.

The tube of adhesive also decided to inconveniently run empty during the application around the bow. I really thought there would be enough in this tube. But I had a spare tube on hand for just this possibility, so I was up and running again in a minute or two.

Then I grabbed the drill driver and the countersink bit and driving adapter and the bag of 3/4″ #6 screws and started making my way around the boat, sinking screws every six or eight inches. I’m not sure how it happened, given how carefully I had laid out the red sharpie lines, but there was one spot near the starboard bow where the bottom had slid inward and did not fully cover the plywood side. It wasn’t that bad, as in the chine wasn’t showing or anything, and I’m going to cover the seam with fiberglass tape and epoxy. But, still, it wasn’t as good as I was aiming for.

And, in any case, the bottom was installed.

I waited a few minutes and then started scraping off any glue squeeze out as well as a few spots where the bottom had slipped and spread errant glue, especially around the frame. Then I was done for the day.

I pulled the boat back out on Sunday afternoon to trim off the excess inch or so of the bottom around the hull. This proved to be challenging.

I tried to saw off most of the excess, in preparation for making the edges mostly flush with a flush-trim router bit. But damned if I could saw away much. I first tried with the ryoba, since the spine of the dozuki would interfere with any cut after like 2 inches. But as fine as the Japanese saws are on lumber, they do not like cutting plywood. So I switched to a Spear & Jackson 22″ saw, but that just made a hash of the port side beneath the overhang. Ugh.

So then I tried the 4-1/2″ compact circular saw, setting the bevel to around 20˚ or so, and that only sort of worked. But I needed to be able to see above and below the plywood cut at the same time, and, of course, I can’t physically do that.

So then I opted for the flush trimming with the router for the whole thing. I guess if I think about it, the plywood is only 1/4″ thick that I’m cutting with the router bit, and the bit itself is 1/2″ in diameter. So that’s a total volume of 1/8 of a square inch that I’m cutting. Is that math right? Hmm, I’m not sure, but anyway, it doesn’t matter if there’s another 2 inches or 20 inches hanging off the end that I’m not cutting. It only matters what I’m cutting, right?

No, I suppose I would have rather been cutting like a quarter inch overhang rather than plowing the router bit through the middle of anything, even 1/4″ plywood. But, that really wasn’t one of my options, turns out.

It went fine, slowly but surely, for the rest of the boat, about 3/4 of the boat by the time I started with the router proper. Generated a heck of a lot of sawdust, for sure. But it went fine. Then I went to work with the rasp and a sanding block. I didn’t quite finish, but almost there.

Getting close to the end of the day, I rolled the boat over to the neighbor’s back yard and rolled it over right side up and took a ton of pictures. Because it’s now a boat. And it’s starting to look really good.

I guess it’s something to do with the size of the lens of my camera on my phone, but some shots of the boat in the backyard make it look long like a canoe while other shots make it look fat like a rowboat.

Terrific three-day weekend for Memorial Day, which was also my birthday, and wow did I get a lot done.

Having deemed the chines flat enough for the bottom, it was time to actually cut the second plywood sheet that will be the bottom. Here I finally got a chance to use the new 4-1/2″ circular saw that I’d bought, along with a plywood cutting blade. I’d made such a hash of the first sheet of plywood with the 7-1/4″ saw with a standard blade, but I didn’t want to make such long cuts with the jigsaw. So new saw it was to be.

But the plywood cutting blade was terrible! It cut awfully slowly, and it burned the wood as it went. I switched back to the 24-tooth blade that came with the saw and that worked much better. I had worried that I’d get a lot of tearing out with the regular blade, is why I bought the plywood blade, but the regular blade was fine.

And it was a lot easier to saw to the layout lines with the 4-1/2″ saw versus the 7-1/4″, although that may also have had to do with working on the ground, with the plywood sheet on some 2×4s instead of on saw horses like with the first sheet that I’d cut way back when.

Or maybe having worked most weekends on the boat for the last 6 months has made me improve somewhat, so that I’m a bit better at sawing. But, whatever the cause, I was very happy with all the cuts.

Next step was to make room on the garage floor for gluing the bow points onto the remains of the second sheet to for the hull bottom. That involved moving the boat out of the garage and into the driveway. I grabbed the little furniture dolly that I keep my surface planer on, what with the planer being so very heavy. The dolly turned out to be a not-too-shabby way to maneuver the boat one-handed.

And with the boat in the driveway, I was able to set up the bottom for gluing on the garage floor. I didn’t use any staples this time with the butt blocks, remembering how terribly the staples have been in other pieces. I just used weights. Lots of weight.

I also took some time to straighten the frame in the middle of the boat that the bottom is going to get glued and screwed to in addition to the chines. I hadn’t really appreciated before how much the frame had bowed due to the compression force of the sides between the stem and the transom. I figured that I could bend the bottom over the bowed frame enough to attach the bottom, but I also figured that the 2-1/2″ wide keel that I’m going to glue and screw to the bottom would very much not bend enough to fit evenly.

I used a sister piece, the very same one that I had used as the bottom sister piece when I was originally installing the frame, to establish a straight line athwart the beam. Then I used a number of tools to make the existing frame even with the new straight piece. First up was the compact circular saw, plunge cut into the middle of the frame and using the parallel guide to remove some, but not all, of the stock in the middle. Then I used the jigsaw to remove stock closer to the ends. Then I screwed the new piece across and used the RotoZip as a trim router with a flush-cut top-bearing bit. And, finally, I used the rasp at the very ends.

It all worked well. I had been dreading how to fix the bowed frame, but it turned out to be easier than I thought. I did have one slip of the router, though, making a fine bit of gouging in the port chine. Oh well.

I moved the boat back in the garage above the glued up bottom on the floor. Everything should be ready next weekend to actually attach the bottom to the rest of the hull assembly. Then it’ll be a real boat. Not seaworthy yet, certainly. But an actual honest to goodness boat.

After two weeks away, because of inconveniently rainy weekends, I was able to get back to work, to level the chines.

The general angle of the hull flare is around 16° or so, but I cut the chines, as per the plans, at 18°. Thus I needed to cut down the chine angle to as flat as reasonably possible so that I’ll be able to attach the bottom.

I had worried over the way that the hull sides and the chines and the transom all met, at both the port and starboard corners. I vacillated between (1) knocking down the sides to meet the transom and (2) gluing a shim on the bottom of the transom to meet the chines and sides.

I finally opted for knocking down the chines and sides. With the Shinto rasp that I bought, it turned out to be easier than I imagined.

I just started at the starboard side of the transom and worked my way around the boat. I had the rasp for rough work and then a sanding block with 100 grit for a finer gluing surface, using a straight stick across the boat as a reference for the final angle. It took a few hours, more or less, off and on, but it was satisfying work, producing a lot of shavings and sawdust along the way.

Since I had to clean off all the sawdust, I took the opportunity to clean and straighten the garage workshop. That was quite satisfying, too.

And, lastly, I weighed down the bottom plywood sheet on the hull assembly, since it was bowing and bending a bit from being propped up in the garage in the humidity.

Next steps are to finish laying out the cuts on the bottom plywood panel, then cutting it, and gluing the bow points back on in the right configuration.

Re-proofing the Week 26 entry, I realize that I had port and starboard completely reversed!

I think maybe I got so used to the port side being on the left side of the garage and the starboard side on the right that I then started to think of the port and starboard sides of the garage instead of left and right.

But the boat is upside down now! It’s hard to tell, since it doesn’t have a bottom on it yet, but now the boat’s port side is on the starboard side of the garage, as it were. I didn’t have to re-label the chines when I decided to reverse them.

I’m not sure if I’m going to edit the confused entries or not. I’m certainly not going to re-re-label the chines, or un-label them, or whatever. My blunders will be covered by the bottom when that gets glued on.

Nobody ever needs to know.

The chines are installed! The chines are installed!

Saturday was very busy, with the Hyattsville parade in the morning, then chores in the afternoon, our anniversary dinner at Shagga in the evening, and then back to celebrating Hyattsville with music and fireworks in the park.

But Sunday I was able to devote almost all afternoon to the boat. And, yes, I glued and screwed the chines in place. That long national nightmare is finally over.

For each side, I clamped the chines in place and drew a pencil line underneath to show where the glue line needed to be. Then I applied a bead of PL Premium and spread it as even as I could with a half of a craft stick. Then I wrestled the chine in place and aligned it with the lines and triangles I had drawn on them and the side plywood edges. Then I started with the drilling and screwing, same as I’d done with the wales.

It didn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. Switching between the drill bit and the driver bit, I could have used a third hand. And I got glue all over my hands and the drill and the driver sleeve. But, in the end, I got them installed.

And then I had some time to think and work past these seemingly never-ending chines, time to measure and mark some on the second sheet of plywood, the one that’s going to be the bottom of the boat.

I had time to draw the center lines on both sides, which will hopefully help guide me to screwing the middle of the bottom to the center frame inside the boat. I then was able to pencil in the bow triangles and the one butt block and corner where the gussets would have come from if I hadn’t made the gussets out of the oar blades from sheet #1. Then it was time to walk the dogs and have dinner, before I could draw the leeboard backing plates and the corner where the mast step pieces and the breast hook (which, like the gussets, I made from other material).

I feel like things are moving again, after having been stalled with chines for so long. Next week I’m hoping to cut the parts out of the second sheet and glue the bow triangles to the bottom blank with butt blocks. We’ll see.

Having been hanging with weights for a week, the new chine blanks were ready to cut and fit into place.

Funny thing, though, was a knot in the starboard chine, in a bad place as far as the curve behind the frame toward the stern was concerned. I was worried that it was going to break, despite its own pre-bending.

So I swapped the port and starboard chines.

After that it was a matter of measuring angles and cutting and fitting, which I’d already done once before with an earlier set of chines. So that went pretty smoothly.

They are ready to be installed. I’m really, really ready to get that done.

I feel like there’s a pun here somewhere, between me making my third set of chines and the old saying about the third time’s a charm. But I can’t quite find the joke. Third chine’s a charm? Third time’s a chine? Something like that.

In any case, I went to Home Depot to buy a 1×6 to use for another set of chines, plus extra for the keel. While I was there, I bought three 10′ lengths of 2×4, at least two of which should end up as the mast, yard, and boom. In the meantime, I plan to use them to prop up the second plywood sheet as I cut it into the pieces that will become the bottom of the boat. (I had used the second sheet as a bench for the first sheet, but, obviously, it can’t be its own bench.)

This was all on Saturday, when I had to mow the lawn after I got home, so I just stashed the new wood in the garage for the day.

On Sunday I had time to cut the chine pieces. The table saw was still set at 18˚ from the last set of chines I had cut, so I sawed off the left edge of the 1×6, re-set the blade at 0˚, and sawed off the left edge again. This was similar to how I made the stem, except I didn’t have to turn the piece over or around for the cut. (The two stem pieces were identical, while the two chines are mirror images of each other.)

I went out to the garage to fit the chines in place, but first I took a picture of all the chine pieces. I think I’m being slightly ridiculous with these chines. You think?

Anyway, I went to bend one of the chines into place, but I heard some ominous cracking noises. And I very much did not want to break a chine like I broke an inwale. So, then, instead of cutting them to fit in place today, I decided to bend them gently to fit the curve first.

I got the boat itself off of its sawhorses and stretched the new chine pieces between the sawhorses. I then filled Dawn’s watering can with hot water and poured those over the chines and hung weights in the middle. Because of the shape of the chines, though, they didn’t want to stay upright and bend in the right orientation that I wanted. So I clamped them together at the ends and in the middle, then re-watered and re-weighted them.

I left them that way for a couple of hours, then very gently moved the whole assembly into the garage to dry … overnight? All week?

Probably all week. We’re going out of town on a mini spring break vacation this week. I hope to have time to cut and fit the newly bent pieces into place next Sunday.

Nothing in the way of progress this weekend. We had a busy Saturday, what with a special early dinner and then a trip into the city to see the Washington Ballet. And Sunday we kicked off the spring yard season, where Dawn did lots of weeding and I mowed the lawn 1-1/2 times.

I actually didn’t think the lawnmower would even start, as I hadn’t drained it of the gas at the end of the season last year. I usually end the year by using the mower to mulch the leaves in the yard after I’ve cleaned the leaves out of the gutters. But we expected the roofing company to put on the new roof, so I was leaving the gutters alone until they did that. And they never did until well into the new year.

And so I had expected to have to rebuild the carburetor on Sunday and thus not have any time for the boat. So, turned out, what with the mower starting right up, I would have had time.

But also I’ve decided to not go with the chines I’ve cut already but rather cut new ones. Same goes with the keel. I’m going to spring for $16 to buy a 12′-long 1×6 to make these parts. So I didn’t have that on hand either.

I did have to enlist Dawn to help me move the boat out of the garage in order to get to the lawnmower in the back. So I tried previewing the 1/4″ plywood sheet that’s destined to be the bottom of the boat. I wanted to see if it bent well enough over the curve of the rocker and across the frame. It did.

Awesome.