My big day

Today was quite the day. Im over my cold, as in, I dont feel like super-crap anymore, but my head and chest are still congested to hell and back. However, since Im slowly on the up and up, off to the basement for a little R+R.

Last night I realized that I had beveled the bottom of BH1 in the wrong direction. Today I fixed this by re-beveling it flat, and just leaving it as such until later. If I have to bevel it in the correct direction, so be it. Its only 2mm so its not too tricky.

Second, I found this:

Delamination in the ply on my Starboard bow, inboard. Approximately 4"x6" or so. Nothing on the "mated" side, the Port stern, so Im assuming it is only this piece that has the problem. I sounded it out with a pencil, and Ive got a good idea of its shape. I poured straight epoxy into the hole, then squashed it with bricks.

Third, I discovered this:


Thats my finger pointing at where the bow SHOULD be. OOPS. Im slowly coming along with the dreaded stem, and I went to match the stem to the bow and it came up a couple of cm short. Either my stem was wrong or my bow was wrong. I busted out the lofting map for the sides and for some damn reason, I measured 55mm from the end of the ply to the point of the bow rather than 55mm from the last 300mm mark. Damn, bro, good catch! So I re-marked the bow and cut them anew on both sides. The stem fits perfectly now, with room to spare for the bow knee.

Then, I got gutsy and ripped two of my cedar planks and and scarfed them for the chinelogs:

This is my scarf. Some of you are really going to hate this, but I eyeballed it on the table saw, and then planed them to match. Not perfect, but close enough for this amateur! I used a 1:6 ratio, so that would be 1 1/2" : 9".

THEN, I cut out the buttstraps and glued my scarfed chinelogs and my side together!


Here we are now in the garage. The buttstrap gluing kinda blew, I was by myself and I rushed it. I was sure I put on enough glue, but very little actually oozed out from underneath the straps. Im actually a little concerned I may not have put enough, but maybe I put just the right amount, I tend to go overboard with the glue. So well have to see about this.

Finally, I glued on a little piece of ply for backing on the transom for el rudder. Thats Spanish. That in itself was a mini-adventure, because the ply I chose for it initially starting sliding around after I glued it up on the old epoxy from the frame and the seat cleat. WOOPS. So I pulled it off quick, tore apart the garbage for an old jigsaw blade, and holding the jigsaw an inch above the ply ripped a small piece of one end so it could sit better between the frame and the cleat. Of course I got wood dust all over the backing, and I scraped it off, threw on some thickened epoxy, and called it good. I thought this would have been a simple operation, so I didnt wear gloves and holey moley my hands got sticky.

On a blog-related note, I am deleting the timing scoreboard from the blog. Its beginning to get inaccurate and more difficult to keep up with. Today I did a million things and Im not keen on attempting to figure out what was what. So maybe from now on just a tally total.

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A note on tools

A few things on tools that I have found out the past few days.

A japanese pull saw is awesome. I doubted it at first, hemming and hawing for months before getting a small one-sides saw. A FANTASTIC PURCHASE. Versatile, sharp, easy to use, and precise. Practice first, because youll saw through something important quickly and without realizing it (trust me).

My random orbital sander was a $9.95 DEATH DISASTER I purchased at cheap-tool-emporium Harbor Freight. Its so frustrating to use I want to throw it at the cement wall. I will have to go buy a better one that actually secures the sandpaper.

Most importantly, I was perusing my jigsaw blades and saw something called a "scrolling blade." It was small and skinny. "Hmmmm, I betcha this is for going around corners a little tighter than the normal blades!" Hmmmm, I reckon I was correct... and this was after I cut the hole through the transom, BH2 and BH3. Boo me, for not knowing my tools. Again, amateur style is my building style.

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Gluing BH 4 and some things I found out about gluing

Alright, Im a little frustrated at myself right now, because things are coming along nice, but not coming along like I want them too. Everything will be OK in the end, but it wont be as nice and neat as I would like to see, and thats aggravating. A lot of the mess stems from excess epoxy squeezing out and making the seams look all lumpy and dumb. A faster clean-up job before anything even begins to think about setting up would have saved me from having stupid looking frames.

First, Ive been having some problems at work that are pretty significant, and I wasnt as focused on gluing as I wanted to be or could have and that led to sloppy gluing work.

Second, I just dont have wood gluing experience. My epoxy/fiberglass experience is solely focused on my Laser, hull #194, from the early 70s. This boat has hit submerged objects, sandbars, docks, buoys, other boats, etc. at speed. Laser speed. Fast. Rig humming with 2/3 of the boat out of the water fast. Once, it fell off my car... while I was driving. Needless to say, Id just slop some epoxy on and keep going. Now that Im gluing together my wood boat, I cant be as messy, or at least, Id rather I wasnt as messy.

BH1 is messy but will be hidden mostly from view. BH2 is somewhat in view and the frames are going to visible, and its kind of messy. BH 3 could have come out perfect, but it looks messy too because I rushed and didnt STOP.THINKFIRST.NOTSOFAST. BH 4 came out really nice and clean, but the frame is mostly hidden within the rear airtight box, so no one will see my clean job! Dammit! Roar!

So heres a tip to you beginners out there: First, read all you can about epoxy. I have yet to find a nice primer/tutorial on wood gluing for boats, and that would have helped. The Storer forum, my thread in particular could help you out. Second, my biggest mistake in neatness is that I waited for the epoxy to firm up to a putty and then tried to hack off the excess. This is a mistake. This evening I glued BH4 together, let it sit for a few minutes to excess epoxy oozed out, and just cleaned it right up. Presto besto pesto yum done. A nice neat job. Why I didnt think about this 3 BHs ago, I know not.

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Wooden Boatbuilding in Castro Chiloe Chile!

Well, the Boot brothers have been doing a lot of walking, together of course, you’ll rarely find them apart from each other.  I went along with them, it keeps them out of trouble you know.

We’ve been exploring part of Chiloe Island just off the coast south of Puerto Montt which is well south of Valparaiso, one of the more southerly of the major ports here in Chile.

We took the ferry over, perhaps a 30 minute ride on a drive on drive off ferry which was an amazingly slick operation. There were at least a dozen of these ferries working when we were crossing, they carry around 30 vehicles each and  operate across a straight where the tidal streams run at ( guessing here, but not exaggerating) up to 8 knots.  This means that they’re going sideways as much as forwards, and the skippers know where all the major eddies are and work them just the same as a white water canoeist does.

On our travels on Chiloe we found a couple of boatyards and stopped with the camera. No problem with walking around in there, the “boatyard” where these pics were taken is the bank between the road and the waters edge, no more than about 20 metres wide, some very simple roofs on poles, and a few truckloads of roughsawn lumber in stacks.

There are repairs going on, and several new builds, I took pics of the biggest, and one of several small boats in frame, and you’d be amazed at how rough, and how basic these are. “Lofting”? All by eye!

Fitting? Axe and adze, and absolutely no more than just enough to get two pieces of wood close enough to get a bolt through. Those bolts? Hardware store mild steel hot galvanised, no fancy stuff here.

This is how the old square riggers were built, no frills, and way cheaper than the current way of building replicas. The fastest and cheapest path to the water, built under a very simple roof on poles with a monster bandsaw and a thickness planer being the only power tools,  axes and sledgehammers being the preferred tools and muscle being the main prime mover.

Have a look!

This little ship in build is about 20 ft long, shes partly planked, the frames are bent in using two temporary ribbands between the keel and the gunwale on each side, shes fastened with galvanised nails bent over on the inside. Some of the material appears to have been salvaged from older boats, and that monster piece of wood in the foreground is a stem removed from a much larger boat which has been demolished and saved for another build.

 About 70 ft by 18, the stem is more than a foot square, shes of much the same shape  and style as the boats weve seen everywhere along this coast.  Raked stem, very full at deck level, fine on the waterline and strong sheerline.

 Another view under the roof. There is a second ship in, shes been stripped out, engine and shaft removed and is being reframed. There are new garboards and some more plank replacements in the forefoot area, those planks being about 1 1/2inches thick, and as with all the others fastened with galvanised mild steel nails.

 Wed stopped to see what was happening in Ancud, the town at the northern end of Chiloe island  and down by the waterfront came across a maritime museum.  Sadly it was closed but this was visible through the fence.  Ive no idea as to what or why but shed be 80 ft, and I suspect typical of a type which would have serviced the coastline in this area. Shes a big heavy lump of a ship, cargo carried in a midship hold and on deck, shes no cruise liner but has a certain elegance.
Shed be built in very much the same manner as the ones in the boatyard and the bow end of her is much the same shape and style as the big motor fishing vessels, just the stern being straightened and squared off to cope with the higher speeds given by the big diesel engine.

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Christmas greetings and a couple of other things

With Christmas still happening in many parts of the world, Id like to wish everyone all the best for the festive season and a happy new year.

Advertising, this blog is running at about 10K page views a month, thats astonishingly good, thanks all who are interested enough to come and read. But its attracting increasing numbers of people posting advertising, anyone wishing to do that should first contact me so I can vet for appropriate content and work out what its worth, or Ill pounce on each post with the delete button.
Too many, or off subject ads are a distraction that we dont have to put up with.

Me? Ill be bathing the dog, he found some interesting things to roll in while we were out for a walk yesterday, then Ill be using my new sawbench to make the boom and yard for SEI. I want to be out sailing her very soon and will report as I get on with that project.

So all the best from summertime in NZ, its a near perfect morning here with the temp at about 20 deg C and rising, perfectly calm and clear weather and its looking like a perfect day.

Trekkies will know this one "Live long and prosper".

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