Well Blow Me Down....

or blow me away!

We're pretty lucky we don't get much really bad weather in this part of the world. My heart goes out to those down south recovering from the weather that's befallen them this week. We felt the tail end of the storms that caused so much devastation in the States. Anyhow it was blowing 60-70 MPH here yesterday and that's highly unusual for us. The plans I bought for the bow shed said 70 mph was the max for the design. I built it to plans and doubled the size of the stakes that went into the ground. Now I think that was a good idea. When I got home last night the shed was still standing but taking a pretty good beating from the 40+ MPH winds. It moved quite a bit and had blown the bottom of one of the big doors in. I backed the doors up with a 2x8 and tied the shed to my boat and my garden shed. If it takes flight now I'll have to go to Oz to get my lawnmower! ;-)



BZ to Stimson Marine for a great shed design.

Boat building is a lot like

watching paint dry. Well more like watching epoxy cure to be exact. Who said this boat building thing was fun? I spent most of the Easter long weekend (4 days) waiting for epoxy to cure. I even stepped up the process by putting a tent over the splices and warming them with a small heater.

Here's one half of the main cabin roof getting flipped. I used my electric winch which worked perfectly. Essential when working alone I'd say.



I apologize for the crappiness of the photo.

The second half is underway and will be flipped tonight so I can glass the joints on the backside.

That's about it for now. I know, boring stuff. Sorry.

I wish Mother Nature

would get the seasons figured out! Sheez! Doesn't she know that epoxy just doesn't cure at 0 Deg C? C'mon now!

It's been slow this week. I managed to get a few panels put together and another taken apart and put back together (long story, don't ask).

This is one half of the main cabin roof. The two lighter panels are the cabin extension and the cockpit extension. Overall it's 16' 5" long! It'll have to be done in two halves.



Here I'm gluing up 5 splices at once. I'm learning as I go.



This is the forward cabin roof I did early in the week. Had to cut it in two and add in the piece I forgot! Doh! I hate grinding fiberglass! *scratch scratch* The nasty sh*t gets in places I forgot I had! ;-)

About to commit my first act of

EPOXY! Ohhhhhhh that wonderful sticky stuff that makes such a great mess! ;-)

Panels for cabin side prepped and lined up ready for the sticky stuff. I used the power planer to relieve the joints so the cloth would lay down in instead of standing proud of the surface. Hopefully this will eliminate some sanding. This type of joint has a name but I can't remember what it is.



I was a little nervous getting started but as soon as I got to it the butterflies went away. It was about 70 degs F in the boat shed so I had about 30 mins working time with the epoxy which was plenty. I used the dispenser gadget without the static mixer. I'll save those for larger jobs. It worked extremely well.

All clamped down. We'll find out tomorrow after work how successful I am.



As soon as I was finished the project foreman showed up to inspect my work. Just what I need, kitty hair in my epoxy!

'Round and 'round we go

It was one of those days running around fetchin' stuff, gettin' rid of junk and ponderin'!

First was a trip to the UPS store to pick up 300 lbs of fiberglass!



Luckily the nice fella's who sold it to me were good 'nuff to split it into 4 equal lengths of 12.5 yds each. This stuff is heavy, 33oz sq/yd Vectorply Triaxial fabric. This plus a layer of 10 oz plain weave will cover the bottom of the boat. It cuts my cost virtually in half. If it works ok I'll buy 'nuther 50 yds for the inside.



The next trip was to visit a fellow boat builder who had 4 sheets of 1/4" marine ply to trade. He got a good deal, 4 sheets of 1/2' for the 4 of the 1/4". It was a good deal for me too. I got what I needed to do the mods on the boat. We got to chatting about boat stuff and before I knew it an hour had flown by! I guess that's to be expected when two boat builder guys get together. Anyhow, thanks Burton.

Getting the plywood home and unloaded it was time to load up the trailer with the scraps from the kit parts plus the junk wood that's been kicking around the shed. I've tripped over the stuff a dozen times so it had to go. The mahogany and MDF scraps weren't on the pile 2 mins and a picker was there looking it over! ;-) Told him there'd be more later on if he wants to check with me later.

When I got that done I started pondering. I have to duplicate Frame E so I laid it out on the table to see what it looks like. This is the widest frame at almost 10'



Laid out like that this boat is going to be huge! There won't be a whole lotta room to move around in the shed once it's on the strongback. That worries me a bit but I'll have to live with it.

Next I looked at the cabin side and how I'm going to handle the extension. It would have been nice to get the panels without the windows cut. It would have been easier to splice in the 39" extension. Anyhow, the windows are cut so I'll deal with it later. I get the feeling Mr. Planer, Mr. Grinder and Mr. Belt Sander are going to be my best friends on this project.



That's about it for today's boat building activities folks. I'm knackered, pooped, scroodled and pretty much toast! Carry on......

Today in the boat shed

I cut out the remaining CnC parts.



The last piece.



It's going to take some organizing to find room to work. There's parts stacked up everywhere! *sigh* Maybe I'll get to play with some sticky stuff next weekend.

And so it has begun

12:00 Eastern time April 2, 2011 the first pieces being cut out.



Thanks to my helper Andrew. ;-)

Update: The shed's getting a little crowded. There's parts everywhere and I'm nowhere near the bottom of the plywood stack!







I'm pooped!

Doodle Doodle Do!

A couple of quiet days so I doodled what I'm hoping to achieve building this boat. My apologies to Mr. Yavuz the owner of the boat I PhotoChopped! This boat was built in Turkey in 2005 by a professional builder.

This is what the original looks like...



And here's my PhotoChop version showing the modifications we're planning.



This weekend will be occupied constructing saw horses and preparing the assembly table. Very soon after that I'll start stitching the long panels that form the hull together!