Deck hardware, seats, etc.

With the sails on order, there's just a few more things to take care of before launch day:

Time to bed down the plywood seat-locker tops.  I'm bedding them--rather than using epoxy--so that I'll be able to remove them later for any necessary repair/maintenance. I'm using goopy Life Caulk for the job.

This photo shows both seat-locker tops in place. 

With a second coat of finish paint applied to the deck, the jewelry--I mean hardware--can be bedded with old-fashioned Dolphinite.  Also time to install the slatted seats and floorboards.  The seats are screwed down to the cleats on the seat-locker tops shown above.  There's really just a handful of screws, so these seats will be easy to remove in the fall before wrapping up the boat for the winter.  (For now I anticipate storing the boat outdoors under a canvas tarp.)  They can then be varnished in my "workshop" (OK dining room) at my leisure.

After four coats of varnish (or was it five?), I flat-sanded the transom and put on one more coat.  The red cedar is really starting to look good.

With the mast temporarily stored in the boat--I just discovered the top end fits nicely in the sculling notch I cut in the top of the transom--I can take a breather to take care of some "real world" business...I start a new job on Monday!

In the above photo, note how the mast only overhangs the transom a few inches.   This is a benefit of going with a gaff rig--or lug rig, for that matter--with its relatively short spars compared to a marconi rig.  


I'm putting together a list of "Year Two" updates/changes for the boat, things I'm willing to put off a bit so I can go sailing this summer.  One thing on the list is the various hatches for the under-seat lockers.  I've got them cut out and rough-sanded, but they still need a bit of fussy work (including making a bunch of thumb cleats) that I think I'll put off at this point.  They'll make a nice winter project next year.   Ditto the canvas dodger and boom tent that I plan to make.  The dodger will snap onto the coamings at the forward end of the cockpit;  the boom tent will be a simple tarp tied down to various cleats on deck to keep rain out of the cockpit.

Well that's it for now.  As mentioned above, I'll be taking a little vacation from BELLE until the sails come in.  With luck, they will be done in mid-March, then there will be some rigging work, and then I'll have her in the water not long thereafter.  Almost exactly a year of part-time work...but who's counting!?!

Outside for some rigging

Just a quick update this time to show BELLE outside for rigging/hardware work!  It was a warm winter day, so I rolled her out of the shop and put in the mast.  No problem for one person.  Then I worked out the final location of fairleads and such using odds and ends of rope.

Here is BELLE rolled out of the shop, ready for rig/hardware setup.  

Mast in place, I'm using pieces of old rope to get final measurements for various pieces of standing/running rigging.  Only two coats of varnish on the spars at this point, I'll get a couple of more on before launch day.

Here I'm locating a deck fairlead.  My plan is to use a modern low-stretch rope (Spectra) for the side shrouds instead of wire.  These will run through blocks to small cleats on the side decks.  The lozenge-chaped piece of oak in the photo will hold one of the staysail camcleats to the coamings (see next photo).

Back in the shop, here's one of the staysail camcleats installed on the coamings.  The coamings need a couple of more coats of varnish, then I'll get another coat of paint on the decks and rubrails.  

The sails are now on order from Bohndell Sails in Rockport Maine (sorry, they don't have a web site or I would link to it), and I ordered a bunch of rope from RW Rope.  The sails should take 4-6 weeks, so I've got a few more weeks to varnish and leather the spars and do various detail work.  With the sails in hand, I'll then be able to do the final setup of the rig...and take her for a sail!  Weather permitting, I'm shooting for the end of March.  In the meantime, there's more paint/varnish, of course...

Details details...

A boatbuilder said to me the other day:  "Why does the last 10% seem to take 50% of the time?"  So true!  Once the hull and major parts are done, it's a mad dash to the finish line.  The last few weeks seem to go on forever, as you get more and more anxious to see her in the water and take her for a sail.

 Lots of details left to do, here goes:

Here's the bronze centerboard pull in place.  I left it a bit long for final in-the-water testing.   I'll be able to notch the bar to allow a couple of intermediate centerboard settings, in addition to the usual all-the-way-up and all-the-way-down.

To test the centerboard pull mechanism, I lifted the boat up using a strap and an overhead chain hoist.   It checks out fine.

Here's a couple more bronze pieces ready for installation.  First, I fabricated a jam cleat for the mainsheet using a standard closed-base bronze cleat and some brass sheet (top piece).  Then, for the mast, I made a tang for the throat-halyard block with some leftover bronze half-oval, a short piece of copper tubing, a washer, and screws (bottom piece).  The throat-halyard block hangs from this tang, which holds it away from the mast.  A detail found on a lot of gaff-rigged boats.

The boom jaws are glued and screwed to the boom, with one copper rivet too.   Since this photo, I've completed the jaws for the gaff too, and sanded everything (locust "burns" easily as you can see) and started on the varnish.  The final touch will be to tack pieces of leather to the jaws (to protect the mast) once a couple of coats of varnish are dry.  I have some rugged dark-brown leather that should work well and look good various places on the boat that are prone to chafing.

I also used locust for all the cleats and reefing blocks (if that's what they're called) for the mast and boom.  All the cleats on the spars will be locust;  the cleats on deck will be bronze.  This picture shows the cleats just after bandsawing them to shape and just a bit of rough sanding.  The very top cleat is the first one ready for varnish.  Simple paper patterns as shown are used to mark the locust for cutting.

Next week I'm going to run the boat outside on the trailer, pop in the mast, and get various dimensions for the rigging.    I've also mailed out a couple of sail plans to local Maine sailmakers.  Once I hear back from them, I'll place the order for the sails.  I considered making the sails from a Sailrite kit, but I eventually decided to buy "ready made" sails.  I just don't think I have time to finish the boat AND make sails before the spring!  Until next time...

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.