Hoping everyone has a great 2012...plus work on transom and coamings

This will be the last post about Building BELLE for the year, I hope you're enjoyed reading about my progress (or lack thereof) since last March.  I had hoped to have a test-sail in the fall or early winter but will have to settle for an early-Spring launch.  Perhaps a frigid late-January test of the hull, just for "fun"!  We'll see.  In any case, you'll hear about it here, and thank you for your interest in this project.

After considering various options,  I'm using red oak for the coamings.   (White oak or really any other hardwood would be fine too, but I like the look of the red oak.)  I found nice clear boards pretty easily in the size I needed:  14' long by 7" wide.  I planed the boards to 1/2" thick, and here I'm test-bending the first board onto the boat.  I made a pattern using scrap 1/8" luan ply for the coamings and carefully recorded various bevels.  I'm concerned about the board cracking while I do this dry-fit, so I'm NOT bending all the way to the centerline forward.  If I'm feeling lucky, I'll do that next time I work on the boat--2012!--but to be safe I'll probably give the board about 20-30 min in a steam box.  That or possibly just pour boiling water over towels wrapped around the board to get somewhat of the same effect.  Only the first five feet or so need this treatment since the rest of the board easily follows the bend of the side decks.   I'll let you all know how it goes next year!

At the other end of the boat, I'm made a bit of progress.  The rudder hardware is now installed (a couple of copper rivets secure the bottom of the rudder rod to the end of the skeg) and I've drilled for the drains.   These are lined with 7/8" copper pipe just for fun (it would be fine to just epoxy-coat the plywood end grain and leave it at that).  Plus I've painted the ends of the planks on the transom for a traditional look.

So that's it for 2011, as far as BELLE goes.  I hope you all have a great 2012.  I'm pushing to get BELLE's hull done by the end of January, so stay tuned!

More paint plus progress on the rudder

It's funny how progress seems to be slow slow slow...until you start putting paint on things and the project seems to speed up!  I was going to start on the coamings this week, but I'm expecting to take a look at some nice white oak this Monday so I decided to put it off and keep painting and working on the rudder/tiller/centerboard/etc.

First coat of finish paint on the interior and deck.  It looks awfully green right now!   Once the floorboards, seats, and coamings are in place, actually not much paint will really be visible.  Still, a nice grey/green IMHO.  Notice that the centerboard top is not in place yet.  I'm hoping to have an offcut from making the coamings for that.  That way they'll match nicely.

Another view.  The deck paint is a semi-gloss white with just a smidgeon (OK, an ounce) of the grey-green mixed in.

Here's the aft well...only needs the drain holes now.  See previous post for why there are holes in the bottom cleats...

The rudder hardware is a mix of Dyer gudgeons and upper hanger and a shop-made lower hanger.  I'm about to clean up the lower hanger (which has just been fabricated) and fit it to the end of the skeg.   

I used a router (with a pattern) to inset the upper hanger into the transom.   Here I'm doing a test fit.  I'll have another photo of the final rudder and hardware in place later.  You can see the grain of the Western Red Cedar in this photo.  A couple of more coats of varnish and a couple of summers in the sun and this should "deepen" further into a nice glow.  At least that's what happened on the W.R.C. seats of my previous daysailer.

A quick test-fit of the roughed-out rudder.  I've got it covered in Dynel below the W.L.(actually 1" above the W.L.)  and I"ll be epoxy-coating it above the W.L.  Still to come are the cheeks and tiller.  (The white circle near the bottom is a hole that I'll fill with lead and epoxy to keep the rudder from floating too much.)  Note that I've gone with a simple one-piece rudder rather than the more usual kick-up rudder...I'll discuss this more later.

OK that's it for now, so long!

Finally getting to the coamings...

Christmas draws ever nearer, and I'm trying to get as much done as possible before a week-long break...

At this point, I'm getting to finish work when I can while completing the fabrication of the remaining parts of the hull.  Here's the third coat of varnish on the transom with the yellow pine outboard pad in place.

Had to make the centerboard sometime, so here goes.  It is 3/4" plywood with 'glassed edges.  Later I'll add a small slug of lead to weigh it down a bit and coat the whole thing with epoxy.

Time to make the pattern for the coamings.  As you can see, first I made a temporary jig to hold the bow end of the coamings in place while I made the pattern.  This gives me a chance to eyeball the look of the coamings without cutting any expensive timber.   To make the patter itself,  to start with I scarfed some scrap 1/4" luan plywood together to make a piece about 8"x14'.  With a bit of marking and shaving, I was able to get a pretty good fit to the deck. It's a bit hard to see, but I deliberately made the pattern a couple of inches short at the aft end and then hot-glued a piece of ply to record the exact angle of the transom.  This saves a bit of fitting and shaving.   Once I was happy with the pattern,  I  flopped it over onto the other side of the boat to take a look.   I was glad to note how close it fit to the other side.  Of course, in theory the pattern should fit exactly but sometimes in boat building "stuff happens" and one side of the boat isn't quite the same as the other.  But in this case I can use the same pattern for both sides, hurrah.

I put in the aft well with screws and goo.  Once the goo cures for a few days I'll clean it up with a razor knife.  The unpainted cleats hold the Seagull outboard in place horizontally in the well for when it is not in use on the transom.  They also provide a bit of fore-and-aft stiffness to the bottom of the well (which is 1/4" ply).   The bronze thingamajig is the "quick release" transom mount for the Seagull.

I haven't shown an overall view of the hull in a while, so here it is.  Still a ways to go but starting to look pretty good I'd say!

I'll try to have a final end-of-year post, maybe with some reflections on the project so far, so until then I'll just say à bientôt...

Completed floorboards and seats plus trying a trolling motor on the transom

Well I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, I took a week off from boat building--horrors!--to attend to family matters.  This update shows the completed floorboards/seats before sanding/finishing, plus the pad that I've made for clamping the outboard to the transom.  At this point, I think I'm going to put the spars aside for a bit to concentrate on finishing the hull, centerboard, and rudder/tiller.

Here's the roughed-out floorboards and seats in place, glad that's done.  I'll have a photo soon of the floorboards cut up into the various pieces:  there will be a centerline liftout aft of the centerboard trunk and liftouts on either side of the trunk as well.

Here's a test fit of the outboard pad with my old Seagull.  It is a bit smaller than I'd like, but I had a scrap of nice southern longleaf yellow pine that I've been hanging onto just for this piece.  Yellow pine is a hard pine (not soft like white pine) and an excellent boat building wood;  I wish I had more of it. Plus it has a wonderful resiny smell.   A shop with nothing but cedars and yellow pine would smell great!

While I was at it, I borrowed a trolling motor to try that out on the transom.  It is way longer than I need, if I ever buy one I would shorten it by at least 6". 

Good to see the trolling motor easily fits in the well, even a full-length one.  The idea is to convert to electric drive at some point instead of buying a new(er) gas outboard to replace the vernerable Seagull.  A 12V battery under the foredeck, with wires leading through the bilge all the way aft to this well, should do the trick.  A small solar panel on the foredeck would help to keep the battery charged up.  

That's it for now.  I just put the first coat of varnish on the seats, they look pretty good.  I'll have pictures of that--and other work--next time.  I'll be starting on the coamings soon, too, so should be interesting. I'm hoping to get a lot done on BELLE before the Xmas break!  So long.

Seats and floorboards

I'm taking a break from spar making to put together the seats and floorboards.  The seats will be varnished, like the spars, so I figure I'll get those done.  Then I'll be able to get all (or at least most) of the varnish done while completing the rest of the boat.  With luck, the multiple coats of varnish won't hold me up in the end.

The slatted seats are attached to Douglas fir cleats spaced about every 18".  Here I've got them cut a bit overlong (they'll be cut down later) and back-screwed to the 1/4" ply top of the underseat watertight lockers.  I've also milled out the slats for the top, and I've placed one along the edge of the cleats just to take a look.  Note that the seats overhang the lockers by about 3".  I'm going with Cypress, 9/16" thick, for the slats, except the edge will be 5/8" Western Red Cedar.  This is a very soft wood, and I might regret this later...but it'll match the W.R.C. transom, which I really like the look of.  (Incidentally the cypress is renewable "ranched" cypress, NOT old growth.)  If it gets banged up, it can easily be replaced later with a tougher wood like, say, Douglas fir (that's one advantage of slatted seats).  I thought about oiling the seats, but the cypress looks so nice varnished I said "what the heck" and decided to varnish them.

Here's the completed seat on the port side, you can see how the W.R.C. edge piece contrasts with the paler cypress.  All that's left now is putting in some bungs, rounding the inside edge, and sanding/varnishing.   The cleats have been cut back to about 1/2" from the edge, which hides them nicely while still supporting the edge.  Along the hull there's a small shelf which hould be good for small items like docking lines, etc.  I used scrap pieces of 1/4" ply as spacers between the slats.

Meanwhile, the starboard seat is coming together and I've started on the floorboards.  These too are slatted, this time of Port Orford cedar.  This is a West Coast cedar, it seems to be a bit heavier then the East Coast varieties but it seems to be a bit tougher too.  A few knots, but that's fine--heck, they're floorboards, they will get beat on.   I've never worked with this type of cedar, but I know they use it for decking out West.  It will be left completely unfinished, so the sun should bleach it to that nice grey color you see on old houses with cedar shingles.  I used scrap pieces of 3/8" ply between the floorboards to set the spacing.

This photo shows the slatted floorboards in place.  Next, I'll remove the whole thing all as a unit and make various cuts to make the lift-out hatches.  There will be hatches either side of the centerboard trunk and a centerline hatch aft.  That grey "fish" in the middle is a lead weight that proved handy as a "third hand" to bend the boards down to the underlying floors.  I used blue tape to make various notes to myself:  Cut Here!  Don't Cut Here!  Plane to line!

In the last photo, you can see that there are fewer cleats for the seats than in the first photo.  That's because three cleats are permantlly attached to the seat slats:  one at each end and one down the middle.  This is so the whole seat can be removed as a unit for varnishing or what-have-you.  I'll try to get a photo of that next time.  About 10 screws then hold the seat to the cleats that are permanently attached to the 1/4" ply.  Hope that's clear.

That's it for now.  I'll be taking Thanksgiving week off from work, hurrah, but I do hope to have a few more photos in about 10 days or so.  Happy Turkey Day!

Making the birdsmouth mast and more

One of the fun things about boatbuilding is next:  spars!  For this boat, I'm making a solid-wood boom and gaff plus a hollow mast (to save on weight aloft).  I decided to go with the "bird's mouth" technique for the hollow mast.  All the spars are made with nice clear Douglas fir.  Why not Sitka Spruce, you ask?  Well, have you seen the price of Sitka Spruce lately?  Also, Doug fir looks very nice varnished--nicer than many types of spruce, in my opinion--and the weight difference won't be significant for this boat I don't think.  Gaffers like BELLE have relatively short masts, so that helps too.  If you want to know more about wood spars, here's a few links:

• There's a good discussion of how to dimension small-boat spars in William Garden's The Making of Tom Cat.  He uses the small catboat Tom Cat as an example, giving numbers for both Doug fir and spruce and hollow vs. solid spars.
• I used the Birds' Mouth Spar Size Calculator to figure out the dimensions of the staves...many thanks to Clint Chase for posting this!
• Skene's Elements of Yacht Design also has good information about wood spars.

First I ripped out eight identical strakes on the table saw with the trademark "birdsmouth" on one side.  Since the spar tapers at the top, and a bit towards the butt too, each piece needs to taper as well.   I marked one piece with a batten, rough cut it on a band saw, and planed down to the line.  I then used this master to mark a second piece and cut and planed that one down too.  I then used these two identical "master pieces" (so to speak!) to plane down the remaining six pieces to size.  In this photo, the master pieces are on the outside, separated by spacer blocks from three strakes that I'm planing down to size. As you can see, the plane (a #5) rides on the "masters" and cuts down the inner three strakes.  A couple of passes with a power plane got things started. ( There are various ways of cutting out these strakes...using routers etc...for a small spar like this I'd say this worked quite well.)

I'm going to use pipe clamps to glue up the spar, here's a test run.  I'll double the amount of clamps shown in this photo for the actual glue up.

Voila...the glued-up spar.  This is actually Phase One.  A strip of packing tape along two strakes allows me to split the spar open to add blocking...see next photo. To the left of the mast are the "blanks" for the boom--glued from two pieces--and gaff.  I'll eight-side, then 16-side, these the old-fashioned way.  The hollow mast starts out eight-sided, so it only needs to be 16-sided on it's way to becoming round in section.  Then a bit more planing and a bunch of sanding to produce the final tapered, round spars.

With the spar opened up, I'll now shape blocking at the butt, deckline, and top to add stiffness to these areas.  In theory you could do it all in one step...but it seemed easier to do it in two discrete steps.  Once the spar is glued back together, I'll then shape it to 16 sides with planes and then sand it round. 

Meanwhile, I made up this centerboard pin from 3/8" bronze rod.  The plywood discs have pieces of 3/8"-inside-diameter bronze tubing to act as guides.  These will be screwed/glued to the side of the centerboard case.  There are removable brass plates (not shown)  on the outside to hold the pin in place...and keep water from getting in the boat.  There will also be a piece of bonze tubing embedded in the centerboard for the pin to run through.

Here's the discs shown in the last photo being glued to the side of the centerboard case.. I also screwed/glued cleats on each side of the case, towards the top.  These cleats line up with the tops of the seats and will allow me -- if all goes well -- to have lift up floorboards.  To make a (relatively) large "sleeping platforn",  the forward floorboards will fill in the space between the side bench seats and the centerboard case, resting on these cleats.  Not clear?  Well I'll be working on that in a bit, more photos to come...

Finally, after much hand-wringing, I finally cut down the transom!   This changes the whole look of the aft end of theboat...and I have to say I'm happy I did it.  Yes, that's a 35-yr-old British Seagull Forty Plus hanging there...my father bought it new years ago...and it actually runs!  There's a temporary piece of plywood clamped to the transom to protect it from scratches.  I have a nice block of yellow pine that I'll use as the final outboard clamping block.  To be honest, I may buy a more, umm, modern outboard at some point.  But the ol' Seagull will be the Official Power on launch day, that's for sure.

Next time:  more work on the spars plus maybe get started on the floorboards and seats.  Until then, good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Dynel on deck

As promised, here are a couple of photos of the decks covered in Dynel (glued on with epoxy):

I'm gluing on the Dynel in four pieces, here I'm cutting out the port-side deck piece.  

All the pieces on the boat...but not trimmed as yet.

Corner before trimming...

Corner after trimming, hey that looks better.  The Dynel cloth--which is soft and bends easily--wraps around the the edge of the 1/4" ply deck.

The completed job.

Forward view.  Note that the rubrails will cover the screw holes along the top of the sheerstrake.  With the toerail to go on soon, I'll finally be able to trim down that stem, which I've left rough-cut for months.  That'll be a good day...

With the deck completed, hurrah, it's on to rubrails.  More on that later.  Plus I'm thinking of adding a little trim piece to the bottom of the sheerstrake.  No structural function, just for looks.  Plus there will be a small toerail on the foredeck.  Once that's done, the exterior hull will be complete, with interior work like seats, floorboards, etc. to go.  Plus gobs of finish work--and spars--of course!  So, until next time, it's goodnight from him.

Finishing off the deck

This week I finished off the deck, so here's a few photos of how it all came together.

This shot shows the various blocking pieces cut and fit.  These are made of scrap 1/4" ply left over from planking/decking, and they add strength to various key parts of the boat.  For example, the foredeck will support a mooring cleat and, of course, there will be a hole through the deck for the mast, so there's a fair amount of blocking in that area.

With the blocking done, I finished rough-cutting the various 1/4" ply deck pieces.  Here are all the pieces drilled for screws (little #6x3/4") and ready for glue up.

This is called a "jump stick".  It lets you "jump" over something to mark on the other side. In this case, I'm marking the inside edge of the plywood deck where it meets the carlin.

The shrouds will be attached using these 1/8"-thick bronze tangs which stick up through the deck.  Two bronze machine screws go through the clamps and, for good measure, the tangs are bent around and under the clamps. This transmits the load coming from the shroud directly to the clamp which is securely glued/screwed to the hull and decking.

Here are the four tangs, ready for installation.  Why not two, you ask, since there's only one pair of shrouds?  Well, for fun I'm going to have two "settings" for the shrouds:  a "single handing" setting using tangs along the sheer about one foot aft of the mast and a "racing" setting where the tangs are about four feet behind the mast.  The shrouds, which will be made of wire with rope tails or possibly a modern low-stretch rope like Spectra, will terminate at a cleat on the coamings (not at a conventional turnbuckle) so I suppose these would technically be called running backstays.  When in the "racing" setting, the shrouds will provide extra support to the top of the mast but also require resetting for each tack.  The "single handing" setting should provide more-than-adequate support and, importantly, won't require resetting when tacking.  In either case, the windward shroud can be slacked off if necessary while running.  Note that this feature is NOT shown on the Sail Plan at my Sketches and Plans page...which I'll update after the boat is done.

OK I'm finally ready to glue in the deck pieces!  I started with the forward triangular piece.  I broke the deck here so that I could reach forward under the deck to clean up any glue mess.  The deck is screwed down about every 18" with addition small ring nails as needed...but, as usual with this type of construction, the glue is doing most of the work. 

Here's the rest of the deck getting glued in place.  I'll put some epoxy putty in the various screw holes and dings and sand it smooth for the Dynel later on.

Well that's it for now.  Next time I'll have some photos of the Dynel going on the deck...plus the start of the spars.   I figure it's about time to start on those since they will need multiple coats of varnish and I don't want that to hold up the launch spars.  Plus it's a fun thing to do, so I don't mind getting started...  

Foredeck and side decks

I think I've cut up my last sheets of plywood for this project!  Two final sheets of 1/4" occume were consumed in making the top of the deck, with nice chunks left over to make things like locker fronts later on.  So here goes:

Here I'm test-fitting the small triangle of deck at the bow.  The edge where it butts to the next piece of deck is backed by an additional layer of 1/4" ply underneath.   I've let this into the deckbeams and inwales using a router bit to cut a 1/8" rabbet.

With the foredeck coming along, I made up the side deck support knees from 3/4" Douglas fir.  I could have made them from scrap 3/8" ply and filleted them in place, but I had some nice clear fir on hand and personally prefer the look of it.  These knees will support the side deck and coaming, and tie them into and provide support for the top two planks.

Here's the carlin being glued/screwed to the knees and bulkhead.  The coamings will be screwed to the inside of this carlin and come to a point on the foredeck about 18" forward of the bulkhead. Note that the carlin slants back about 10 degrees for more comfortable seating.

Here's a close up of the last "bay" between the carlin and the inwale, just forward of the transom.  You can just see the 1/8" rabbet routed along the edges.

A backing of 1/4" ply fits into the rabbet shown in the last photo.  It provides extra support for this corner of the boat and a good place for a stern mooring cleat. Basically it replaces a conventional quarter knee.  A similar backing block will also be made everywhere that the plywood deck pieces butt together. 

With the various deck pieces rough-cut, I  layed them out on the boat...just to take a look!  In my mind's eye I can see the coamings coming to a point forward of the bulkhead.  BELLE is really starting to come together.  Next step:  marking all  the carlins, deck beams, and knees underneath the deck pieces, flipping them over, and drilling for the various fastenings (a mix of #6 screws and nails) which, along with the inevitable glue, will hold the deck in place.  Once I've got every last piece cut and temporarily screwed to the boat, I'll take it all apart, label everything in sight, and start painting the undersides.  At that point, I'll get to start on the spars, hurrah!

Deck beams and such...

Well I managed to finish the paint in the forward section--except a little touch-up here and there--so this week I was able to glue/screw in the deckbeams.  This makes me happy:  maybe not Russian Dance happy but happy-to-be-moving-on-to-the-next-step happy.  I left two out for now, since the first piece of 1/4"-ply deck is a small triangle in the bow.  With the two deck beams removed I'll be able to get in the boat to do glue cleanup for that triangle.  Once I've got all the beams faired and the first piece of decking glued/nailed in place, I'll glue/screw the final two beams and install the rest of the deck.  (I'll reach through the bulkhead for glue cleanup for those deck pieces.) For lightness, I'm going with 1/4" Occume plywood rather than the heavier Meranti.

With the paint just about done under the fore deck, I can move on...

Here's the first few deck beams in place.  Since the decking is only 1/4"-thick plywood, I went with a fairly close 6" spacing for the beams.  Note that I've also put in the top of the watertight bow compartment and the store-bought access hatch.  As I think I've mentioned, I'm bedding and screwing all the tops of the watertight compartments in case I want to take them off later for some unknown reason.

That's a grey-green (French grey?) for the interior of the boat.  It starts with Interlux Sea Green plus other mystery colors.  Despite the shine in the photo, it's actually a fairly dull semi-gloss.    I hope you like it!

Until next time...

Paint and epoxy

A quick update to show the paint/epoxy done yesterday...

That's two coats of epoxy in the bilge and white two-part epoxy primer forward of the main bulkhead and under the seats. More coming soon.

I would have painted more but I ran out of paint, on a weekend no less, oops!  Next will be sanding/painting under the foredeck (so I can start installing the deck) plus putting in deck support knees around the edge of the cockpit area.  Once those are in, I'll prime the rest of the interior.  I'll be using two-part epoxy primer throughout, except the bilge which gets two coats of clear-coat epoxy plus paint.