Progress! Yeah! Wet on wet stem quick dry fit!

I was home for a few days, and I buckled down and got right to it.

Day one:

First I enlarged the holes in BH2 and 3. I want more room to store my gear: oars, extra spar, etc. etc. I was able to do this neatly and cleanly with my scrolling blade that I discovered in my blade set! Yo dummy! Im much happier now with the results.

Second: I wet-on-wetted the un-wetted sides of the BHs with epoxy to encapsulate the wood. Three layers, which got it quite thick I may add. Maybe a little too thick. I used squeegees and and a brush and the roller a la Storer. I must say I wasnt impressed with the roller method, I feel like I could get a smoother surface without it-- the roller left funny little bumps. I think the thickness is just sloppiness on my part and maybe too much epoxy. Needless to say, everything will be sanded down for paint/varnish whatever I decide. Id love to do some brightwork, but I dont know if I want to do the work. I see lots of sanding in my future with the splotchy epoxy job.

That being said, epoxy got everywhere, and it was a big mess, including the undersides of my BHs, despite carefully applying tape everywhere to hold the mess. I used painting masking tape, packaging tape that would have hung lower than the BH would have prevented epoxy from curling underneath and dripping onto the BH backsides that were already done.

Day two:

Then I cut the notches for the chinelogs into the BHs. This was more difficult than I thought it was going to be. I used my nifty Japanese pull saw, and it was awesome. I paid very close attention to bevels and carefully marked the boundaries of the notches. A few mistakes were made, but nothing that cant be saved or filled with epoxy. Taking my time instead of rushing this part was worth its while.



Afterwards I FINALLY CONQUERED THE DREADED STEM! (second try)

I unfortunately did not photo-document this. This is how I did the stem:

1. Cut out a rectangular blank of the stem from my stock.

2. Draw the stem out on the blank-- triangle on top, the front edge and then on the backside, the back edges graduating from 36mm at top to 22mm at the bottom.

3. Plane down the starboard and port sides from 36mm at the top to 22mm at the bottom. At this point, looking at it either from the stern or bow, I have a trapezoid that is wider at top than at the bottom. Still rectangular.

4. Now, all that is left is to remove the material from the backside to the bow point. Using the backside 36mm-22mm edge, I planed down the material to the front pointed bow. I left the bow a little wider than a knife edge, about the width of the sharpie pen mark. Its a little tricky to get the second side because there is now no longer a flat surface to work.

5. Patience.





THEN THEN THEN

I kind-of dry fitted the hull together!!! (I was impatient, I had to see the boat for morale)

I screwed on the stem to the bow pieces, with screws through ply backing as described in the Storer plans. This is hazardous, because once the screw gets into the backing it spins around like the devil and Id have to push frantically for bite into the side of the boat or else the screw and backing ply goes zooming off the bow and then Id slam the drillbit into the side of the boat leaving a good dent. A good method is to push the screw through the backing first so a little pokes out that it can be stuck into the side by hand to hold it in position. Watch your fingertips!

So the stem went in and then I spent a while screwing around with BHs and and the transom and placing them more or less where they were supposed to go. I took some tie-down straps and cinched the stern together to get a visual idea of what the boat was looking like.



It looks like a Goat Island Skiff! Amateur Style! But a GIS, nonetheless, the curvy midsection and straight knife-like bow are telling.



HOLY SHA-MOLEY!!!

I attempted to screw in BH1 but it was about as difficult as pulling my own wisdom teeth. Sagely, I walked away when one side of BH1 ripped away from the screws holding it into the port side.

In the following picture you can see the gap between the chinelogs and BH2. Imagine BH1, which is just as bad if not worse. Its going to be a true WRASTLING nightmare to get that together, I think. Im going to re-measure my BHs, make sure they are the right size, and do some brainstorming. BH3 looks gappy, but its not bad, a little squeezing and it fits right in.



Some things I noticed: The chine logs butted up against each other in the bow next to the stem. A little bit of chisel work took care of that, giving them more room.

Also, my stem needs to be cleaned up a bit, especially the bottom portion. Maybe this will aid in screwing in BH1. As I said, I was impatient to actually see something, and Im glad I did this today.

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 boat together 1

Today I decided to glue the boat together instead of pre-coating the sides with epoxy for several reasons:

1: I have the time to watch the boat as it cures of tonight and tomorrow
2: The temperatures were in the 50s... in a few weeks who knows how cold theyll go
3: I had the place set up in the garage
4: My gut told me to go for it.

Gluing is a pain in the ass. There, I said it.

It sucks, its messy, its sticky, and when youre by yourself its a teeth-grinding frustration fest. ARGH!

BUT!!! This is how shell come along.

Today I glued the BHs to the sides, making the dry-fit a goodness-for-real fit. I ran into a few problems, namely some gaps around the stem, and BH1 and BH2 were another wrastling match to get them into place as usual, except this time they were all lubed up with glue and were slipping all over the place. In the end, I got them in, though they might be ever so slight askew, if by just a few mms. Initially when I saw them askew I almost lost it, but I cant lose sight of the fact that Im building a boat, its my first boat, and dammit, if the thing floats that will be a good thing.

I started out from the bow to the stern. From what I understand from the plans, you can remove a BH at a time and move aft. To start with the stem, I decided to remove BH1 and BH2 so that there would be less pressure pulling the bow apart when I tacked the stem back together. This, in hindsight was a mistake. The stem fit in nice and neat, but when I went to put in BH1, it pulls the sides apart. By the time I was done with BH2 (goes in a little easier than 1) I had pulled the sides back out to where they are supposed to be, and gaps between the stem and the sides appeared.


I want those gaps filled, Im pondering a few different ideas.

BH3 went in smooth, but there are gaps between the sides and side arms:


Those too, will have to be filled.

BH4 needed some wrestling, and the transom would have been downright impossible for one person if not for my wonderful wife who showed up from work at exactly the right moment!!! So yay wife, and the boat was finished. A quick sightline down the centerline showed BH2 out of kilter. The port side needed to go down a bit, so I unscrewed the port side, and pushed down. Its still not perfect, and Im not sure why (except the fact that its almost impossible to do this single-handed) but I have to accept that and walk away. All in all, a long, tiring, sometime frustrating day, but when it comes down to it, the boat is in one, permanent piece.


You can see signs of BH Wrestling in this pic. Notice the temporary gunwales using old cedar strips that were laying about.