Bulkhead 3

Things have been progressing more slowly than I want, but this is due to several extenuating life factors. First, my work takes me on the road for days at a time, and then Im home for a few days where I need to cram in my errands, my personal life, exercise, sleep, etc. To boot, the weather has been fantastic, and I cant justify being in the basement. SOOooooo, during my last time home, I was only able to frame BH3, which is very straight forward because there are no curves. Im back on the road again, and will be for a while.

Once the winter rolls around with its bad weather, this boat is ON.

Gluing BH2 3

This morning I glued up BH2 and BH3, this time precoating the pieces with straight up epoxy and then mixing a thicker glue with the silica which makes me cough like the dickens, hopefully that stuff isnt setting up in my lungs. Things definitely went a little smoother this morning. One person over at the Storer forum suggested drilling small holes and dropping in some nails in the holes to hold the pieces laterally. I did exactly that this morning, and it works quite well, I am pleased with the result. Unfortunately, haste makes waste and I put one piece on upside down, so I turned it around and applied more glue after ripping it up, and a put another piece down 180 deg. of what I wanted, but it works in that position anyway but not as aesthetically pleasing, so I left it in place. The side arms on BH3 also extend all the way up beyond the ply, and I precoated the whole arm even though that was unnecessary. Oops. One more BH to go, and then I can tackle that transom.

Beveling bulkheads

I also recently started beveling my BHs and transom since they are all glued up. Despite my initial fear of beveling, it is quite easy, even for a beginner. I mark the edges of the BH first and draw a line for the bevel, and then on the face that is to be beveled I draw a line connecting the two edge bevels. That way, I have a nice visual of what needs to be planed off. Heres an example:

Heres a side of BH1 all beveled up:


BH 1 and the Transom are easy to bevel because all the frame pieces are on the same side. I am running into problems on BH 2 and 4 because I need to make bevels but cant get my plane to the end of the BH because a frame on the opposing side blocks it. This is frustrating. I glued everything up as I was supposed to, minus the side frames that are added after the boat is glued together (this is me saying to the skeptic: I read the directions and followed them to the T). In retrospect, I feel like I needed to piecemeal construction of the BH and bevel a piece at a time. Heres an example of the problem on BH4:


Above is BH 4, looking along the bottom edge that is to be beveled. The bevel drops from left to right, so the high side is on the left. The side frame in the distance will block the plane from finishing the last section, unless I can get a bevel on the side frame. Then plane should pass over it no problemo. Heres another example but on a side frame now:


So this is looking down the side of this particular BH. I have marked the bevel I need on the side (2mm) with the continuation on that bottom frame. From this perspective imagine the plane is coming down the side of the BH towards you, the viewer. As you can see, it will be blocked by the side frame unless I can bevel that too. I dont know how to easily bevel this so I can bevel the rest.

UPDATE: Someone over at the Storer forum mentioned a few options, of one them being a rasp. I took care of this problem in 5 minutes... my brains just not working today. Theres a reason Im not at work!

Creeping evidence

Heres the starboard side arm where it joins (or is supposed to join) the top frame on BH1. SOB decided to go for a walk after I thought it was going to set in place. How to avoid this?


And this is my new paperweight/epoxy trophy that I just cracked out a yogurt container. At least I got my container back! There are 2 ziploc bags and probably 20 bucks worth of epoxy in there.

Bulkhead 2

Yesterday and today I worked on BH2. This went smoothly, with no problems. I spent some time shaping the side frames down to match the curved bulkhead. I was pleased with the result, though my plane is not working as well as I would like. Ive got a sharpening problem I have to deal with-- as in I have to learn how to sharpen my blade iron better.

During the construction of BH2 I realized that I screwed up on BH1, cutting a 19x19 mm piece for the bottom frame instead of the 45mmx19mm piece that the plans call for. I have not decided yet if I want to keep the original piece or put together a new one. The question is pending on the Storer forum. Im OK on wood, but I dont have a lot of extra, and cedar is pricey.

On the road for the next 8 days.

Second Gluing

I just went back and glued on the side arms to BH1. This time it went much better than the first time. First, I used 1 pump of resin to 1/2 pump of hardener. Again, I tried to put it in a ziploc bag, but the whole thing turned into a mess, and I said screw it. So another pump and a half pump into a yogurt container, and I mixed in enough silica to make it thick like peanut butter, and then I spread it over the plywood with a stick. I took the remaining to coat in the inside of the arms. This time, it was much easier to work with. Im relatively pleased this time around, but Im still getting "creep." As in, my side arms are slowing sliding around to where they want to go, not where I set them and want them. Im not screwing my frames into the BH ply, but maybe I should? Theres not real method to the creep, the top and bottom frames crept inward, but my side arms creep outwards. I hover over the entire assembly and readjust as necessary to keep things were I want them. I dont know how else to do it.


What a mess. Again, "mY Fisrt Baot."

Im definitely saving the transom for last.

Transom glued up!

Ok. Ive been off the radar for a few weeks for several reasons. Namely: Job related problems now solved, my marriage, my inadvertent cutting-off-the-tip-of-my-finger winterizing my garden which led to a giant bandage and stitches, and my work that takes me on the road. Im suposed to be on the road today, but Im not because I have a massive head cold and I think my eyeballs are going to pop out of my head. So no work for me.

About two weeks ago, I glued up the transom. Storer recommends not using screws in the transom, I think this is for aesthetic reasons. I did use screws as opposed to the nails I had been using for the BHs, primarily because I could get a slightly tighter fit. I did not use nails on the transom head-board because I wanted to maintain the visual integrity of that piece, and I was able to secure it in spot with clamps through the tiller-hole. Everything came together really nice and I am pleased with the result. I was careful to wipe away the excess, and I was sure I had gotten everything, but I didnt. I came back and found hardened drips that materialized sometime during the night and they dripped onto the stern-stern of the transom. Using a chisel to cut them off, I ended up mucho-biting into the top of the transom and took a chunk out of the ply. OH WELL. I saved the piece and will epoxy it back in.

Otherwise, I think the transom looks good!

Moving along

A bunch of small items were taken care of today despite my continued head cold and heavy congestion. Sneezing and coughing and snotting all over my boat was a great experience, really.

Anway, All the BHs are beveled, I notched the top frame on BH3 where the middle 90mm was supposed to have never been applied (room for centerboard case), and I cut and traced out the timber for the stem. I also cut the holes into the BH 2 and 3:


Theyre still rough, I havent sanded them smooth or even yet. You may notice I went for the trapezoidal shape on BH2, this was at first done because I was a little nervous doing circles with the jigsaw a la transom. After I did it, I thought, damn, that looks bad. But then I realized that without the curves I can stuff more equipment (picnic basket, wine, beer) in that forward space between BH1 and 2. So I liked that, but then I waffled back to cutting a bigger hole to get curves. At this point my wonderful wife wandered in as I sat perplexed, and she gushed at how imaginative I was for mixing and matching shapes for the holes and how great it looked.

The trapezoid stays, gentlemen.

Up next:

• Shape and finish the dreaded stem
  
• Cut timber and scarf chinelogs
• Apply re-enforcement on transom for rudder
• Cut notches on BHs for chinelogs
  
• Coat all BHs with epoxy (I may do this later because Im getting impatient to see the boat)
  
• Glue up the sides
• Touch up with the plane
• Screw it all together for a dry fit in the garage
• Freak out as I try to find a warmer place than the garage to put it for the winter so I can work on it.
  

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.

Bulkhead 4 and First Gluing Disaster

Jeezum Crow.

First, Ive been having problems on the employment front that has been keeping me out of the workshop. Today, Im feeling good, confident, its raining, Ive got nothing else going on, so I roll into the shop and quickly pound out the framing for BH4. Then, I decide to start my first gluing.

Holy Baloney, what a disaster the whole thing turned into. First, I cover most everything with plastic. I set up my pumps, prime them, get my yogurt cups, my ziploc bags to deliver my epoxy to the wood Storer-style, etc etc etc. I got medium speed epoxy, so Im feeling pretty good and I go ahead and throw in a mess of pumps to the appropriate 2:1 ratio for the "Marinepoxy" brand that Im using. I decided to start out as clean as possible with the Duckflat method mentioned on Storers website, ie. mix everything in the ziploc bag. So I pour in the resin and hardener, I "massage" the bag to mix, then I start dumping some silica into it. For this part, I placed the bag over a yogurt cup. Interestingly enough, the level of epoxy in the bag continued to get lower and lower as I mixed in silica. A hole mysteriously appeared at the bottom. If this was a self-inflicted hole or a heat-inflicted hole, I dont know. Whilst I was investigating the bag dropped into the cup. At this point the mix just freaking took off temperature wise. "Whoa Nelly!" Batch One, done. I sat it aside and kept an eye on it so it didnt combust on my workbench.

Discouraged but not out, I mix up batch Two. This time, screw it, Im mixing in a cup, and Ill pour into a ziploc bag. The mixing goes well, I dump in the silica, that goes well. Its thick, but not super thick, definitely not peanut butter thick, but the temperature was starting to rise, and I wanted the epoxy delivered on the wood before it took off like the previous attempt. So into the bag, I cut the corner and that stuff just started pouring out all over the place. Then the bag got super hot, I dropped it, kicked it aside and starting grabbing the top and bottom frames for BH1. I placed them accordingly and clamped them down, but they started swimming all over the epoxy and wouldnt sit still. Epoxy was oozing out of every seam all over the place, I was watching two batches now for tell-tale smoking and potential combustion, and I was worried like the dickens that my frames were going to set akimbo.

Son of a bitch! Everything is somewhat quieted down now, and things are positioned somewhat where I want them, but not as perfect as I imagined. Im not down with the ziploc bag idea with the speed at which the epoxy starts to hyperventilate. Ive got to spread it over a larger area to mix and then either pour into a bag or distribute it over the surfaces with a different method. Im going to try the sidearms tonight just for fun, but after I calm down.

Edit: Some ideas on gluing better.

Mark the centerlines on the top and bottom frames to line up with the centerline on the BH in case everything goes to hell in a handbasket and the sidearms are removed.

Mix smaller batches, as in 2 pumps to 1 pump. Just keep it small and work from there.