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.