Rudder design 4 daggerboard glassing

After many trips to the hardware store getting stainless steel carriage bolts and machine screws that were often the wrong size, I finally got my rudder box together in some sort of usable fashion.  As my intrepid readers may remember in three other previous posts (search in the month of March), I have been trying to figure something out in order to get my tiller to be detachable.  I went with the final option, illustrated in this post. 

The rudder box is glued up but not glued together.

As you can see, I am wearing my camo Converse sneakers.  Very cool.  The original tiller design calls for the tiller to be permanently attached to the top of the box, where my shortened tiller stock is now-- so originally that would be much longer, but permanent.  This way, I can remove the tiller and leave the rudder in the water, freeing up open space in the boat during quiet times.  I used a carriage bolt with a butterfly nut tensioned by a split washer.  Dont drop it, and carry a spare! 

The spacer is as of now temporary, but I could do one of three things.  I could lengthen the spacer to make it full-tiller length, giving the tiller laminate strength; I could shorten the spacer; I could make two evenly spaced spacers, I could leave it the way it is.  This is yet to be determined.  Heres a closeup for the interested:

Im having some serious problems with my hardware for the rudder, unfortunately.  I wanted a pintle and gudgeon style assembly, but my 1.5" gudgeons are not fitting around my rudder box, even though its 1.5" wide.  Something aint right.  Also, Id have to expand my tiller access hole in the transom to accommodate the up and down motion to get the rudder in and and out.  So Im scraping the pintle/gudgeon idea and Im going to go with the gudgeon/gudgeon idea, as the original plans stipulate.  Which means I have to find some sort of long pin to thread between all of them.  Boo to that. 

Also today Ive been working on my blades.  My rudder got sanded down to the matte finish, and I carefully taped off vertical areas that would run, and applied one last thin coat of epoxy onto one side of the rudder.  Tomorrow, the other side.  I used a plastic spreader, and it went very well, very smooth, and Im very happy with my luscious result:

Youll notice on the left hand side that the leading edge still isnt coated, this was taped off earlier.

Then, off to glassing my daggerboard!  Much like the same for the rudder, except I cut a bigger piece.  I had a lot of runs in my rudder, and I figured this time I would lay the board flat, spread epoxy with a squeegee, and then turn it over, do the other side, and then hang it up. 

So I went ahead and did one side horizontally:

 I thought I was being pretty smart. 

So then I turned it over and did the other side.  Something caught my attention and I looked underneath my board and...

... well I didnt take any pictures because needless to say the whole first side has very neatly peeled away from the board, thanks to Mr. Theory-of-Gravity.  Gravity is only a theory by the way, they should teach both sides in schools so kids know this, because there is lots of evidence that gravity does not exist, but "they" dont want to show you it.  I digress.  Today, gravity was obviously working quite well.  I finished the job at hand, and then hung it up, and re-spread the cloth down.  Fortunately not much damage done, but for my smartness, well, not so smart now.  Here it is all hung up to dry:

Its late, Im still periodically coating the board to get the weave filled, and Im tired.  I timed this one bad.

Thanks for reading!

Shaping the daggerboard rudder design dilemma

Today and yesterday I spend predominantly tackling my nemesis, the daggerboard and its subsequent shaping.  For some reason I have held a slight amount of apprehensiveness towards working the rudder and the daggerboard, I dont know why, but I get the sneaky suspicion that they dont like me, and I dont like them, and were going to fight.  Meanwhile, my Goat Island Skiff languishes in the garage waiting for a rudder, waiting for gudgeons, waiting for the rear seat to be glued down, etc etc etc, as I suspiciously eye the squared off blanks that will be my blades.  See the previous post to view the blanks.

A disclaimer:  You will notice SUN in these pics.  The garage doors are OPEN for the first time months!  It hit 50 F. deg. here at the homestead, the first time in months and months.  I worked without a hat or jacket!  It was nice indeed.  

First, using the template included in the plans I kind of traced the shape of the foil onto the blank.  I roughed it, because I would use the template later to match the shape correctly.  Then, the first pass on the plane down the trailing edge side... and away we went.  Remember that the trailing and leading edges are cherry, a hardwood.  I sharpened my planes before this project and also during when I would swap sides.  It made my life much, much easier.

 

As time progressed, I slowly worked inward, taking off the wood and feeling the idea of the shape rather than mechanically proceeding.  Its kind of difficult to explain, but I knew the shape I was going for and went for it, with checks to the rough outline to keep me true.

 

As the planing progress, I would check my jig for appropriate foil shape.  Here, I have achieved the desired shape, OOF!

 

Now, I will be the first to tell you that the entire blade doesnt necessarily have this nice of a fit the entire time.  It is, however, close enough for this amateur! We all build to our own goals.  The foil shape I got is very even, nice, and for all purposes close enough without whacking out a giant mistake and having to start over... something I definitely do not want to do since the cedar in these blanks cost me a pretty penny indeed.

The blades were notched on the trailing edge per the plans.  On retrospect,  I could have probably left them how they were because it just made for a more complicated shaping project.  I wanted to keep the shape of the foil through the transition to the end of the blade, and therefor got this kind of neat compound curve (see below).  It worked, but it almost didnt, and for a few moments I thought I had taken off too much and really screwed myself.  Also, this is a good spot to let the reader know about the trailing edge width.  Its supposed to be squared off, but I didnt know how wide.  A quick journey over to my compatriot in CA gave me the answer.  He had finished his blade to 3/8", mine was 1/4".  Apparently, its supposed to go to about 1-2mm, or a 1/16".  HA HA HA  Sorry, I got mine down to 1/8" and Im very very pleased with that.  Again, I dont want to risk breaking through the back of the board, Im looking for durability, and the alignment of the centerboard trunk with the hull will make more difference than the 1/8" Im off.  Im not saying you cant go to 1/16", I just didnt want to.

The leading edge was next.  I took off a 45 deg. edge first, and then added subsequent degrees from there, until I got a nice rounded leading edge.  It worked out very well, and with a sharp plane, the work was precise and enjoyable.

 

I still have to sand everything down, cut off the top, and get things nice and smooth, but the blank is now shaped and I have a daggerboard worthy of some sort of aero-hydro-dynamic performance.  Its not perfect, but Im happy with it.

 

Next up is the rudder.  This is important because Im waiting on several other issues until I finish the rudder.  First and foremost is answering the question if Im going to go with Storers design on the rudderbox.  I am not a fan of it.  First:  The rudder is never permanently attached to it, it slides up and down the box with no rear, bungee cords hold it in place  I dont like bungee cords, the degrade in UV and salt, and Im not interested in having to replace parts like this.  Second and most importantly, the box and the tiller are permanently attached, which means I cant remove the tiller without removing the rudder and the box from the transom (now I have to put them somewhere-- think sleeping aboard).  I could design some sort of device that folds the tiller up, but then it gets in the way of a theoretical boom tent or something else, or it comes crashing down in the middle of the night on my head.  No thanks.  Give me a tiller that dismounts from the box, so I can throw it on the floor.  Third, with a permanently attached tiller-to-box, I will either have to enlarge the hole in the transom to use the pintles and gudgeons I want to use, or use Storers suggestion which is two gudgeons on top of each other with a pin running between all them.  I have spent more than enough time struggling with rudders and bizarre attachments that I know, in waves, with current, with wind, its going to be a total pain in the ass trying to thread a needle through a million holes (of course the rudder wouldnt be attached which might make it easier).

Anyway, call me a curmudgeon, but Im not a fan of the back-less, bungee cord, permanent tiller design.  I may have to come up with something else.

Old tools but good ones

Tools.

I’m not really a tool freak, not a collector in the sense of lovingly restoring old woodworking hand tools and putting them on display in glass fronted shelving but I do enjoy getting my hands on old tools and bringing them back to life. When I’ve a particular little job that needs a special tool, and I can go to my shelf and pick up a tool that was designed to do that special thing, I get great satisfaction from using it.

So I watch out for the unusual as well as the standard ones that I use every day.

Junkshops, garage sales, on line auctions and occasionally a friends eagle eye all bring in treasures.

My usuals the ones that I’ll buy without thinking are the Record and Stanley number 3 or number 4 planes.  Those are tools that I use every time I go into the boatshed, and now, living on the ship with the boatshed here plus my old shop back in Hamilton still being used, I have built up a double set of tools.

I’ve now 10 of those, the reason being that when working and one wears its sharp edge off or I hit something that puts a nick in the blade, that plane goes in the shelf above and I pick up another that’s sharp and set.

To be sure, when they’re all in need of a sharpen it’s a big job, but on a wet morning when there is no one around its quite a satisfying thing to set up an assembly line with the dry grinder, the wet grinder, the two different grade waterstones and the lap, and run through them all.

I digress.

Just recently my friend Paul Mullins came across a couple of unusual tools when a neighbours shed was being cleaned out.  There was a Stanley number 67 Spokeshave, this one is designed to cut right up against an edge and could be used to tidy up a curved rebate, left or right handed. 

The number 67 spokeshave, note how the handles can be repositioned to allow it to work against a rebate, that can be done either side.  Interesting tool.

The other is a router.  No, not one of those noisy finger biting things a “real” one.  Used to be known as a “Grannys tooth”. Its a Stanley number 71 1/2,  one of a series of different sized routers that Stanley made.

It’s a hand tool, essentially a flat plate with a pair of handles and a cutter that extends below the plate, push it and it cuts away below the surface, the cutter can be set for depth so its able to gradually work away increasing the depth of the cut.

Excellent for relief carvings.

Stanley number 71 1/2 router with 1/2 in and 3/8in cutters.  I do use one of these now and again, have also the very small one which I use when carving tabletops and such.

 Note that these, like almost all Stanley tools found in New Zealand or Australia are English Stanley so there are some differences from those made in the USA.

I was thinking that I should be looking for a brass wire brush to start tidying these two treasures up, they’ve been soaking in Inox for a while now, and are ready or a cleanup before I regrind the cutting edges and flat the backs of the irons, when my very elderly uncle, a joiner by trade, gave me a Stanley number 55 combination moulding plane that he’d had since very early in his career.

Its got all the standard irons, no parts missing, it’s a real treat!

Heres the link to a page of pics.

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=stanley+number+55+combination+plane&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCgQsARqFQoTCOSjz6yy78gCFcxVPgodnjwAQw&biw=1024&bih=776

These planes can be used to make mouldings. Look around your house at picture frames, the surrounds of windows and doors, skirting boards ceiling coves, cupboards and chests and you’ll see a huge variety of different shapes.  This plane can make all of those.  Not in one pass you understand, but by planing away part of the profile then changing the blade and the positioning of it, it then does another part of the shape.

 In its original box, this ones done quite a lot of work but all of the original parts including "the book" are there and in good order. 

 There are a lot of parts to one of these, the handle is out to the left and each of the parts to the right is a separate fence and depth gauge system, some of which have knife holders as well as scribers. 

I should have counted them, there are probably 40 different knives in the set, rounded, radius edge, beading, rebate, oogee, you name it.  Amazing tool.  Yes Ive used one, but its not something that Id use every day. This is a collectors item, will be greased up and stored, but maybe, just maybe, Ill need it to produce a moulding to match something existing someday.

Theyre slow, but if one is matching up a section no longer available off the shelf, or too big for a router bit (the electric finger biting kind not the one above) it’s a practical and useful tool.

That plus it’s a really impressive thing to show off with.

I need more shelves. 

Again.

Rudder stock design rudder 2 daggerboard shaping

WELL

Informative day today as I peddled my rudder stock idea over at Mr. Storers forum.

There was enough persuasion action going to keep me going with the plans in term of a backless rudder stock with a daggerboard rudder.  However, I really want to be able to ditch the tiller and leave the rudder installed on the transom.

I came up with this idea:

In this plan, the rudder stock stays exactly as the plans stipulate, except I add on 15mm at the top.  This provides an area to attach a cleat (blue).  Then theres another below it (blue) and the tiller-- which is two pieced-- cradles the rudder stock.  Bolts run through the cleats into the spacer, and the tiller which slides between the cleats is held in place with a pin.

Storer warns that the torsional forces on the tiller could tear it apart, Im hoping that between the three cleats bolted through the spacer, and a bolt higher up on the tiller (not shown) to keep it together, I should be ok.  Time will tell.  I am almost positive this is the model Im going with, unless I get overwhelming evidence otherwise.

In other news, I finished rough shaping the rudder and daggerboard. 

Nice.

Epoxy coating the interior and more turtles

Today I took advantage of some free time and some of the most glorious weather you can imagine in beautiful New England this time of year!

Drum roll please.......

I epoxy coated the interior of my Goat Island Skiff! Yeah!

This is big for two reasons:  One, I wasnt looking forward to it, Two, my back has been in such a state that I havent physically been able to do it.  Being able to reach down in there and coat up the inside was a real good feeling, lemme tell you!  I was stoked.  Again, physical therapy = awesome.

So, coating the interior is much like the exterior.  It came out very neat, too.  I am pleased with the result.  Heres a romantic picture of her in the sunset, just her and me:

 

 She looks good.  So far, Ive done two coats of epoxy.  Im supposed to do three, which I did on the exterior, but I feel like two is good enough especially since its not going to be saturated in water.  Not to mention its going to be covered in two coats of primer and two coats of paint.  I should be ok.  Maybe I will do three layers on the bottom and chinelogs...

That all being said, I want to point out again how she can ride on her side when turning her over:

This is HUGE.  To those who have extensive dinghy experience, you all know exactly what Im talking about:  Turn the boat over, get it on a side, attempt to balance it on the gunwale, fail, catch the boat, wrestle around one of the ends in an attempt to get to the other side, fail, watch boat fall to ground in a random direction, wince at possible damage, etc etc etc.  It sucks.  This baby, she rests on her side.  You can walk away.  Drink a beer.  Pick your nose.  Go on vacation.  She will sit, on her side, patiently.  Awesome.

Finally, I caught a Painted Turtle today.  This is a quite common turtle on the North American continent, and not as big or as long lived as the Blandings Turtle that I found a few days ago.  Whats neat about this one is that Ive been trying to catch one for a year.  Now, that doesnt mean Im out everyday like its my job, but many attempts and sneaky approaches have been tried, to no avail.  Catching this guy, while swimming, is a minor coup for you know who.  Me.  Quite beautiful.  Hissed at me when I picked it out of the water.  I put it back where I found it, and I hope it forgives me.

A little grumpy.  

Float Test

I couldnt take it anymore.  How would my ship, my Goat Island Skiff, my beauty, my instrument of adventure to wonderful and distant and nebulous ends sit on her lines?  Would she list, be bow heavy, stern heavy?  There were some things in the construction of her that didnt match the plans, some bevels, some shapes, some angles, and I was worried that in the water she would sit funny, maybe bow down a bit, instead of the beautiful plumb bow sitting upright!

My pond at my parents-in-law iced out rapidly last week, which motivated me to tape the chines and slap some epoxy on the sides of the hull.  Yesterday, it rained hard.  Today, we woke up at 7, and there was no rain, but wind, and 32*F/O*C.  Snow flurries on the horizon to the west.  My lovely wife ready to rock.  It was time.

Wind was blowing about a Force 5 on the Beaufort scale, around 20kts or so.  With ice-out just a few days ago, the water temperature wasnt much higher than the air temperature.

It was now, or another nail-biting day.  It was time.  A kiss on the breasthook, a quick murmur to her... "Please sit straight on your lines..." and with a heave, and a ho, she was in the water.

Not a maiden voyage, not a christening, nothing but a quick test.  She will get all the formalities and Poseidon will get all his tributes when she is worthy.  Just a float test... but exciting all the same.

...and DAMN if she doesnt look straight!

Shaping up a set of store bought oars

OARS FOR SEI.

Lets get the jokes out of the way, the one about this being a “two oars-power cruiser”  and the one about “keeping things on board oar-derly “. Oh, and the one about the Greek Bireme that docked too close in at speed, “Dis-Oared-‘er”.

With that out of the way,  I want to show how I go about turning a pair of off the shelf machine made oars into something that I like to use.  As they come they’re robust, but very heavy and unbalanced, tip heavy so a lot of downward pressure on the handles to lift the blades on the recovery.

So to make them easier to use, more pleasant and just “nice” I cut the oversize blades down a little, shave the blades thinner with a ridge down the middle to keel them sufficiently stiff, and slim the shaft from the “leather” down to the “neck.

Oars should ideally be matched to the boat, this one being a sailing boat will have a little more resistance than a lighter and more slender boat, so needs oars that are slightly more stiff than the ones for the pure rowing boat.

They need to be practical too, which means a thicker blade and a more robust tip so I can use them to pole the boat in the shallows or push off a jetty somewhere.

The species of wood used needs to be taken into account, European Ash (Fraxinus Excelsior) used to be commonly used and is tough, resists damage and makes a reasonably good utility oar .  But its heavier than I like, and the costs more than I like to shell out for a pair of oars that I’m not going to use as the boats primary propulsion.  This is a sailing boat after all.

Spruce, (Picea Sitchencis) by comparison is much lighter and is strong for its weight but crushes very easily so an oar made from this may be easily damaged.

All that’s a bit academic though, as the ones that are available off the shelf here are stated to be “Tasman Pine”.  Good old Pinus Radiata,  actually not bad stuff for this use if chosen carefully.

Its mid range in weight for a softwood, fairly strong for its weight and if kept well coated with varnish reasonably stable.

So that’s what I’m working with today.

For a boat of this anticipated resistance to movement I prefer a slightly narrow blade, 90mm wide at the tip, 80mm wide at the neck end, 6mm thick at the edges of the blade, with a prominent ridge down the middle to stiffen it, the neck will be around 30mm through the vertical axis ( that’s in line with the blade) and full width which in this case is about 40mm at 90 deg to the blade, a fat oval section there to orientate the thickest part of the section to the load.

Tools.  Making that hollow section from the ridge down the middle of the blade out to the edges is what stops a lot of people.  I’m fortunate to have come across  a round mouthed spokeshave and as a tool “enthusiast” ( not what my wife calls me) I bought it just in case I found a use for it.

Its not rounded front to back, this one is radiused from side to side so makes a hollow. Ideal.

But there are other ways.  I”ve used the nose end of a belt sander, offered up at an angle and run along it will carve a hollow, a small angle grinder with 40 grit sandpaper on a flexible backing piece will do an excellent job with practice, a random orbital sander would do the job and in fact that’s what I use to do the finishing, and if you are either very determined or very lucky, you can use a hand plane with a rounded blade and bottom.

By lucky and determined, I mean that while those are rare its not that big a deal to make one. To make mine I used a worn out horse hoof rasp for the blade, lots of grinding required but its good steel, a block of beech for the body, an offcut of Australian Jarra for the wedge and a piece of copper rod to retain the wedge.

There is lots of information on making planes out there on the net, but most of them overcomplicate things, but if that’s the way you want to do it, you’ll find it.

So having bought my “store bought” oars,  which incidentally cost not a great deal more than enough of the more “suitable” material in plank form, I first made a couple of simple “holders” to clamp the shaft in order to work on them.

Next was to mark out the blade and the neck with a ruler and a sharpie marker,  that shape being cut out with a jigsaw and the edges planed smooth and straight.

The next step was to mark the center of the edges with the marker, and use a standard block plane to shave a bevel down the face of each side so the outer edge is at the desired thickness.

This is a guide, don’t go much past that. That’s the thickness you are after.

Next is to taper the shaft from leather to neck.  That’s a straight flat, starting very narrow at the leather and gettting wider and wider as it gets down to the neck.

You may need to remove some material at the neck to get this taper right, use a standard spokeshave here to make the hollow from the taper you are planing to the curve where the blade starts to swell out to its full width. 

Don’t round this area off yet, that comes when the blades are done.

Out comes the tool you have chosen to remove the material from the blade to make it “hollow” from the center ridge to the edge.

Work out from the marked centerline down the ridge out to the edge, I work from the tip in toward the neck as with the taper on the edge the grain is better to shave this way.

The random orbit sander can remove all the little ridges that the spokeshave or plane makes, so don’t fuss too much, just try for no lengthwise humps or hollows.

When the blade is hollowed and thinned both sides,  then fair it into the neck, remember that this is the high stress area of the oar, don’t remove too much material here,  where that central spine merges into the wide part of the neck is the critical part.  Don’t thin that down.

Round the flat that you’ve planed onto the shaft into the body of the shaft aiming for a shape at the neck which is more like an oblong with the corners well rounded than a true oval or ellipse, sand off smooth and coat with varnish or paint.

I’ll be painting the outboard end of the blades with white paint, the regular flashing of the white is visible from surprising distance. 

I’ll be fiberglassing the tips by the way,  it reduces the chances of splitting the oar when pushing the boat off rocks or such.  Just a little strip of 50mm tape folded over the tip and epoxied into place.

I’ll go into the leathering and the shaping of the handle when I get around to that stage.

In the meantime, these oars have lost about 15% of their weight, and that almost all of it from out on the blade end which makes them much easier to use.

Mast in boat re epoxy ing and neat turtles

So, Ive been pre-occupied recently with other events, namely, my impending return to work after some serious back-rehab (phys. therapists = good), some life events, and so on and so forth.  So, this is good.  Im broke, my back is better (which means I can actually do some work in the hull as opposed to just staring at the bottom of the boat), and springtime is coming.

One harbinger of spring is the emergence of turtles through their long torpor and into the light once again.  Today I ran into this chap, a Blandings Turtle which is actually considered endangered in New Hampshire.  They dont mate until their late teens, and they can live to around 80.  Anyway, I moved this guy for a photo-op only to later find out theyre endangered in NH, so I feel like an ass, but I treated him gently and placed him back right back where I found him.  Actually, this could be a her, I should find out.  Handsome, regardless:

 

I will report this to the Dept. of Fish and Game, they keep track of this stuff.  I also reported a Bobcat that came trundling through my yard two days ago.  That, was neat, but it was too quick and I have no photo.  Sorry.

ON TO THE YACHT!

With the mast all built, I tapered the base per the plans.  If you remember, I made the mast slightly larger than the plans called for, not much, just 1mm here and there, but it affected the fit in the mast partner and step, and those had to be enlarged.  This was not a big deal, its only a little bit and if you may recall, intrepid reader, I made the stock of the partner and step bigger than called for.  So I feel safe doing this.  Here is my great friend Matt, recently returned from Overseas Adventures Extra-Ordinaire doing his duty, and helping me out at the annoying task of rasping the mast partner larger.  Welcome home:

He did a most fantastic job.  Then I ruined it.

After some rasping and Dremel-ing the heck out of the mast step, we got the mast stepped:

I offer you many vantage points.  The overhead is kind of neat.

The mast is currently being fiberglass-taped right now, two tapes at the base, two at the top, and two amidships, one covering the single knot in the lumber.

Also being worked on is the hull.  I sanded the epoxy coating I gave it the other day, and added a third coat.  This was a technique I stumbled upon doing my BHs.  If I sanded and then added a last coat, it came out super smooth.  Im hoping for the same with the hull, especially since the Im trying to get the fiberglass tape down smooth.  After aggressive sanding, Im thinking the extra coat will fill up to the gap.  Here she is, sanded:

So next up, I have to figure out the rudder hardware problem.  This is worthy of another post.  I cannot, for the life of me, get my rudder hardware figured out, and its beginning to piss me off.  By hardware I mean what attaches the rudder stock to the transom.  Some gudgeons are too small, others are too big, Im going nuts.  Also, I have to figure out what to do with my daggerboard trunk.  It needs to be, literally 1mm wider, and I dont know how to do that.  A lot of glue, maybe? when I glue it together?  These are two items that are holding me up.  Also, I have to epxoy coat the inside of the boat, with nice weather finally on its way, there shouldnt be a hold-up.  I really want the hull ready for paint when and if I get some time off from work to come back home.  If Im home for 24 hours, I want to be able to get mucho stuff done.  So that is what Im staging for right now.