cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
I will take any word on paint from you as gospel! Thanks very much!
A skiff
- Thread starter cracked_ribs
- Start date
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
I've been off the boat for a bit, between spending time on the water in my other boat, time at my cabin, time hiking in the hills around here, and time on getting the garden prepped for this year's growing season. We bought our house here about 18 months ago and it needs a fair bit of work to get the yard under control, and I'm not very interested in that so progress is slow.
But today I finally got back to work on the boat, wet sanding one side. Needs buffing but it's just about there. Until the first time I dock it, of course.
But today I finally got back to work on the boat, wet sanding one side. Needs buffing but it's just about there. Until the first time I dock it, of course.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Big update today!
Let's start with the rear view. If you're one of the people who's gone and had a look at my instagram feed, which is also partly run by my wife because neither one of us is individually interested enough to sustain it on our own, you will already have gathered that I'm of the opinion that if it doesn't look good from behind, I'm not interested. Boats are no exception to this rule, so let's get to work.
I think it was Wednesday that the courier showed up with my order of boards. I figured I'd get onto that right away, but circumstances intervened as I unexpectedly had to take my wife to the hospital because she had a heart arrhythmia that generated a crazy fluttering heart rate that didn't pump enough blood to her brain and she went into shock and I had to physically carry her into the emergency room. We happened to be walking about a block from the local trauma centre so I had her in one hand and the stroller in the other and it was quite a scene. But not too long after arriving, her heart re-set and she was perfectly normal again.
And then taking my kid to the hospital two days later because he managed to tip over his stroller into a brick retaining wall, splitting his forehead right open and dumping blood everywhere which probably wasn't all that easy on my wife's heart either. I have a lot of training that's good for emergency medicine so if you need someone to slam a tourniquet on your thigh and dump quickclot in your holes while everything around you explodes, I'm totally your guy. But if you need to figure out whether a kid has a small depressed skull fracture, I have no idea. I checked his pupils (nothing concerning there) and stopped the bleeding but a hit to the head is a hit to the head, so I took him in. But no TBI, so they cleaned him up, glued his forehead shut, and gave him back.
At any rate I didn't get much done for a few days there. But once everyone was home and fine, I went back to it.
This looks about right:
So I mixed up around 15 oz of fairly wet peanut butter, put two thirds of it on the transom and the remaining third on one side of the boards, and on they went.
Some flooring off-cuts that were left in the basement by the previous owner of the house made a useful clamping array:
I put a few C-clamps on the keel and ran strings from the tops of the boards to the clamps, with a waco hitch to snug them down good and hard.
I figured that was about enough for one day, so we made plans to head to the beach to enjoy the spectacular weather we're currently having. I was working on the transom so I told my wife to come get me when she was about ready to leave. She dropped in on the boat and was suitably impressed by the one section I test-buffed.
And then it was off to the beach for the rest of the day.
Let's start with the rear view. If you're one of the people who's gone and had a look at my instagram feed, which is also partly run by my wife because neither one of us is individually interested enough to sustain it on our own, you will already have gathered that I'm of the opinion that if it doesn't look good from behind, I'm not interested. Boats are no exception to this rule, so let's get to work.
I think it was Wednesday that the courier showed up with my order of boards. I figured I'd get onto that right away, but circumstances intervened as I unexpectedly had to take my wife to the hospital because she had a heart arrhythmia that generated a crazy fluttering heart rate that didn't pump enough blood to her brain and she went into shock and I had to physically carry her into the emergency room. We happened to be walking about a block from the local trauma centre so I had her in one hand and the stroller in the other and it was quite a scene. But not too long after arriving, her heart re-set and she was perfectly normal again.
And then taking my kid to the hospital two days later because he managed to tip over his stroller into a brick retaining wall, splitting his forehead right open and dumping blood everywhere which probably wasn't all that easy on my wife's heart either. I have a lot of training that's good for emergency medicine so if you need someone to slam a tourniquet on your thigh and dump quickclot in your holes while everything around you explodes, I'm totally your guy. But if you need to figure out whether a kid has a small depressed skull fracture, I have no idea. I checked his pupils (nothing concerning there) and stopped the bleeding but a hit to the head is a hit to the head, so I took him in. But no TBI, so they cleaned him up, glued his forehead shut, and gave him back.
At any rate I didn't get much done for a few days there. But once everyone was home and fine, I went back to it.
This looks about right:
So I mixed up around 15 oz of fairly wet peanut butter, put two thirds of it on the transom and the remaining third on one side of the boards, and on they went.
Some flooring off-cuts that were left in the basement by the previous owner of the house made a useful clamping array:
I put a few C-clamps on the keel and ran strings from the tops of the boards to the clamps, with a waco hitch to snug them down good and hard.
I figured that was about enough for one day, so we made plans to head to the beach to enjoy the spectacular weather we're currently having. I was working on the transom so I told my wife to come get me when she was about ready to leave. She dropped in on the boat and was suitably impressed by the one section I test-buffed.
And then it was off to the beach for the rest of the day.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
But wait, there's more! We got up this morning and headed down for coffee at our favourite local place, took the kid to the amazing local park that overlooks the beach, and got home around 11 am. I grabbed about fifty feet of rope from the basement and got to work.
First things first, let's remove yesterday's crazy complicated transom clamping stuff.
Little tiny bits of epoxy oozed out at the seams but it's so minor. The surface is very uniform. It'll get sanded, saturated in epoxy, and varnished to hell and back. The rear view will indeed be memorable.
Then I started setting up to suspend the boat from the rafters. I initially began to tie a bunch of waco hitches - I have no idea if this is a common name but that's what we called then when I was a kid - which are basically simple rope pulleys.
They work really well, but then when I was taking this picture I realized that hanging on the wall are a bunch of sheaves that came off a commercial salmon troller. Why am I screwing around with improvised pulleys? I hung three sheaves, tensioned up the rope cradle, and started disassembling the framing under the boat.
I spent a little bit of time cranking up the ropes one at a time, but it was pretty easy. Around an hour of work, and over she went. Wife stopped by just in time to see the flip.
"I'll get a picture of you with it," she said. "Smile, like you're celebrating."
"One barbarian celebration, coming up."
With the rolling cradle out of the way, it was easy to bolt a couple of spare trailer bunks to it, so I popped those on, rolled it back into the garage, and lowered the boat down onto the bunks.
Most of the rest of the afternoon was just sitting in the boat making motor sounds.
Kid extremely wary of the newly inverted boat...
But I am ready to start the next phase.
First things first, let's remove yesterday's crazy complicated transom clamping stuff.
Little tiny bits of epoxy oozed out at the seams but it's so minor. The surface is very uniform. It'll get sanded, saturated in epoxy, and varnished to hell and back. The rear view will indeed be memorable.
Then I started setting up to suspend the boat from the rafters. I initially began to tie a bunch of waco hitches - I have no idea if this is a common name but that's what we called then when I was a kid - which are basically simple rope pulleys.
They work really well, but then when I was taking this picture I realized that hanging on the wall are a bunch of sheaves that came off a commercial salmon troller. Why am I screwing around with improvised pulleys? I hung three sheaves, tensioned up the rope cradle, and started disassembling the framing under the boat.
I spent a little bit of time cranking up the ropes one at a time, but it was pretty easy. Around an hour of work, and over she went. Wife stopped by just in time to see the flip.
"I'll get a picture of you with it," she said. "Smile, like you're celebrating."
"One barbarian celebration, coming up."
With the rolling cradle out of the way, it was easy to bolt a couple of spare trailer bunks to it, so I popped those on, rolled it back into the garage, and lowered the boat down onto the bunks.
Most of the rest of the afternoon was just sitting in the boat making motor sounds.
Kid extremely wary of the newly inverted boat...
But I am ready to start the next phase.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
It really does.
A friend of mine offered to capture some seagulls and release them into my garage while spraying me with a hose so I can pretend it's already done, but sadly covid has limited his ability to travel, so I guess that's out for now.
Sanded the transom today... very happy with how it turned out.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Was a little to beat to even type this up last night but a step forward over the weekend for sure.
My birthday was earlier in the week and I don't usually give it much thought but for whatever reason my wife went really nuts on it this year. Part of that might just have been the spectacular weather we were having, but then she ordered a bunch of stuff well before the sunny streak started, so I don't know. Anyway boatbuilding went on hold for a couple of days and I played hooky from work to just hang out with the family at the beach.
I monkeyed around with finishing up the transom - the bottom couple of inches will have antifouling on them anyway so I didn't put a ton of effort into getting them perfectly aligned like the rest of it. It also would have meant using up the spare plank, so I just used an offcut from the main part and pieced it together.
Then I just wanted to tune the shape a bit for trueness. It wasn’t far off but you know how floppy they are at this stage and I didn’t want to start glassing anything inside until I was happy with the alignment of the whole thing.
Corner to corner was within about an eighth of an inch, so I’ll take that.
I’ve never really gotten to work wet on wet on this boat because it’s always been too cold, which means I’ve had to heat everything inch by inch to get it to wet out, which means putting on a single piece of tape could take two or three hours. Friday, I prepped up the tape in the hopes that I’d be able to start laying it on wet fillets on Saturday…naturally Saturday got cold again, and I had to go back to heating the tape to get the epoxy to flow. Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
This reveals my overkill lamination schedule. I don’t know why I decided to go so heavy on tape, I could probably have cut it in half and been fine. But my last boat we actually had to break ice with the hull so what the hell. Two layers on the chines, three on the keel, two on the transom.
Herewe are, all set to start filleting. This is about 10 AM Saturday.
And this is about 6pm the same day.
That was a long freaking sprint. It wouldn’t have been too bad, except the garage was cold again and I didn’t have firewood set to go because it was summer around here until Friday evening. So just non-stop heat gun work to keep the glue flowing. I didn’t stop long enough to take pictures of anything, really. But you can all imagine it with one piece of tape on the keel, or two, I’m sure.
Anyway all fillets and tape in a day. I was pretty tired but overall happy with the outcome.
Sunday morning I reviewed the work, took some ibuprofen, and got back on the horse. I had to roll out my back with one of those hard foam rollers to get going; I’m not used to working at floor height in a weird awkward crouch on a slope and I definitely paid for Saturday’s take-no-prisoners approach.
So naturally I loaded up with coffee and went back to it. I rolled out the fabric and started mixing 18oz batches around 9am. It was still cold. I had to hit every inch of it with the gun to keep it flowing. It
wasn’t fun. My lats started seizing up around 1pm and I had to support myself with my elbows on my knees for a while and just work close to my body, although I got my wife to bring out muscle relaxants and a couple of shots of rye and that loosened them up. It was cold in there but I was working so hard I was sweating, so I had strip down to just my pants to stay cold enough not to drip sweat in the mix. Which, incredibly, I think I managed to do. I don’t think I got a single drop of sweat in anything. These pics are at 6pm.
So there you have it. Fillets, tape, fabric, wet on wet, two days. Unpleasant but I’m happy with the outcome.
My birthday was earlier in the week and I don't usually give it much thought but for whatever reason my wife went really nuts on it this year. Part of that might just have been the spectacular weather we were having, but then she ordered a bunch of stuff well before the sunny streak started, so I don't know. Anyway boatbuilding went on hold for a couple of days and I played hooky from work to just hang out with the family at the beach.
I monkeyed around with finishing up the transom - the bottom couple of inches will have antifouling on them anyway so I didn't put a ton of effort into getting them perfectly aligned like the rest of it. It also would have meant using up the spare plank, so I just used an offcut from the main part and pieced it together.
Then I just wanted to tune the shape a bit for trueness. It wasn’t far off but you know how floppy they are at this stage and I didn’t want to start glassing anything inside until I was happy with the alignment of the whole thing.
Corner to corner was within about an eighth of an inch, so I’ll take that.
I’ve never really gotten to work wet on wet on this boat because it’s always been too cold, which means I’ve had to heat everything inch by inch to get it to wet out, which means putting on a single piece of tape could take two or three hours. Friday, I prepped up the tape in the hopes that I’d be able to start laying it on wet fillets on Saturday…naturally Saturday got cold again, and I had to go back to heating the tape to get the epoxy to flow. Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
This reveals my overkill lamination schedule. I don’t know why I decided to go so heavy on tape, I could probably have cut it in half and been fine. But my last boat we actually had to break ice with the hull so what the hell. Two layers on the chines, three on the keel, two on the transom.
Herewe are, all set to start filleting. This is about 10 AM Saturday.
And this is about 6pm the same day.
That was a long freaking sprint. It wouldn’t have been too bad, except the garage was cold again and I didn’t have firewood set to go because it was summer around here until Friday evening. So just non-stop heat gun work to keep the glue flowing. I didn’t stop long enough to take pictures of anything, really. But you can all imagine it with one piece of tape on the keel, or two, I’m sure.
Anyway all fillets and tape in a day. I was pretty tired but overall happy with the outcome.
Sunday morning I reviewed the work, took some ibuprofen, and got back on the horse. I had to roll out my back with one of those hard foam rollers to get going; I’m not used to working at floor height in a weird awkward crouch on a slope and I definitely paid for Saturday’s take-no-prisoners approach.
So naturally I loaded up with coffee and went back to it. I rolled out the fabric and started mixing 18oz batches around 9am. It was still cold. I had to hit every inch of it with the gun to keep it flowing. It
wasn’t fun. My lats started seizing up around 1pm and I had to support myself with my elbows on my knees for a while and just work close to my body, although I got my wife to bring out muscle relaxants and a couple of shots of rye and that loosened them up. It was cold in there but I was working so hard I was sweating, so I had strip down to just my pants to stay cold enough not to drip sweat in the mix. Which, incredibly, I think I managed to do. I don’t think I got a single drop of sweat in anything. These pics are at 6pm.
So there you have it. Fillets, tape, fabric, wet on wet, two days. Unpleasant but I’m happy with the outcome.
myles
Well-Known Member
You are an animal. Great work. Keep it up!Was a little to beat to even type this up last night but a step forward over the weekend for sure.
My birthday was earlier in the week and I don't usually give it much thought but for whatever reason my wife went really nuts on it this year. Part of that might just have been the spectacular weather we were having, but then she ordered a bunch of stuff well before the sunny streak started, so I don't know. Anyway boatbuilding went on hold for a couple of days and I played hooky from work to just hang out with the family at the beach.
I monkeyed around with finishing up the transom - the bottom couple of inches will have antifouling on them anyway so I didn't put a ton of effort into getting them perfectly aligned like the rest of it. It also would have meant using up the spare plank, so I just used an offcut from the main part and pieced it together.
Then I just wanted to tune the shape a bit for trueness. It wasn’t far off but you know how floppy they are at this stage and I didn’t want to start glassing anything inside until I was happy with the alignment of the whole thing.
Corner to corner was within about an eighth of an inch, so I’ll take that.
I’ve never really gotten to work wet on wet on this boat because it’s always been too cold, which means I’ve had to heat everything inch by inch to get it to wet out, which means putting on a single piece of tape could take two or three hours. Friday, I prepped up the tape in the hopes that I’d be able to start laying it on wet fillets on Saturday…naturally Saturday got cold again, and I had to go back to heating the tape to get the epoxy to flow. Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
This reveals my overkill lamination schedule. I don’t know why I decided to go so heavy on tape, I could probably have cut it in half and been fine. But my last boat we actually had to break ice with the hull so what the hell. Two layers on the chines, three on the keel, two on the transom.
Herewe are, all set to start filleting. This is about 10 AM Saturday.
And this is about 6pm the same day.
That was a long freaking sprint. It wouldn’t have been too bad, except the garage was cold again and I didn’t have firewood set to go because it was summer around here until Friday evening. So just non-stop heat gun work to keep the glue flowing. I didn’t stop long enough to take pictures of anything, really. But you can all imagine it with one piece of tape on the keel, or two, I’m sure.
Anyway all fillets and tape in a day. I was pretty tired but overall happy with the outcome.
Sunday morning I reviewed the work, took some ibuprofen, and got back on the horse. I had to roll out my back with one of those hard foam rollers to get going; I’m not used to working at floor height in a weird awkward crouch on a slope and I definitely paid for Saturday’s take-no-prisoners approach.
So naturally I loaded up with coffee and went back to it. I rolled out the fabric and started mixing 18oz batches around 9am. It was still cold. I had to hit every inch of it with the gun to keep it flowing. It
wasn’t fun. My lats started seizing up around 1pm and I had to support myself with my elbows on my knees for a while and just work close to my body, although I got my wife to bring out muscle relaxants and a couple of shots of rye and that loosened them up. It was cold in there but I was working so hard I was sweating, so I had strip down to just my pants to stay cold enough not to drip sweat in the mix. Which, incredibly, I think I managed to do. I don’t think I got a single drop of sweat in anything. These pics are at 6pm.
So there you have it. Fillets, tape, fabric, wet on wet, two days. Unpleasant but I’m happy with the outcome.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
I'm doing my best! Although I have to admit this is not much of an update - after last weekend's insanity, I took a couple of days off, and then had to devote a lot of time to household stuff as my wife did last year's taxes for us. And then the weekend was really nice again, so back to family enjoyment time:
That park is just amazing, Transfer Beach in Ladysmith. There's so much stuff for kids to do, and the whole thing is set right on the ocean so you can go down and walk on the beach...really one of the best parks I've ever seen in my life.
About all I got done on the boat was a quick grind of the interior glass so it'll be ready for framing etc:
And then it was laying out the stringers. I forgot that originally I'd had the idea of putting in a ballast tank so I drew the stringers further outboard than normal. But then I decided against the ballast so the stringers can be relocated to a more conventional spot which will make some other stuff easier...but now the curve I drew on the stringers I cut a few months back is wrong, so I'm just templating them straight off the hull. Oh, I also spent a ton of time making sure the hull was actually true. For some reason I got super paranoid about this - I think it was putting in the stringers and not being happy with the fit, and then I just went on a rampage of tuning the cradle and jacking it up here and there and blocking this and that and anyway, that took about five hours before I was satisfied.
Anyway now it's absolutely definitely true and fair and so I'm patterning the stringers straight off the hull.
Using, of course, a deck of cards, as pioneered by Jeff in Vermont.
The dimensional lumber is just some spacing stuff to keep everything upright and in place while I get the stringers dialed in. I am hoping to get the egg crating pretty far along over the next seven days. Then I guess it'll be cleats, bulkheads and hatches for a solid month, probably two. Somewhere in there I'll template the sole and get it temporarily placed while I make some decisions about a strange piece of hardware I don't think anyone will be expecting to see.
That park is just amazing, Transfer Beach in Ladysmith. There's so much stuff for kids to do, and the whole thing is set right on the ocean so you can go down and walk on the beach...really one of the best parks I've ever seen in my life.
About all I got done on the boat was a quick grind of the interior glass so it'll be ready for framing etc:
And then it was laying out the stringers. I forgot that originally I'd had the idea of putting in a ballast tank so I drew the stringers further outboard than normal. But then I decided against the ballast so the stringers can be relocated to a more conventional spot which will make some other stuff easier...but now the curve I drew on the stringers I cut a few months back is wrong, so I'm just templating them straight off the hull. Oh, I also spent a ton of time making sure the hull was actually true. For some reason I got super paranoid about this - I think it was putting in the stringers and not being happy with the fit, and then I just went on a rampage of tuning the cradle and jacking it up here and there and blocking this and that and anyway, that took about five hours before I was satisfied.
Anyway now it's absolutely definitely true and fair and so I'm patterning the stringers straight off the hull.
Using, of course, a deck of cards, as pioneered by Jeff in Vermont.
The dimensional lumber is just some spacing stuff to keep everything upright and in place while I get the stringers dialed in. I am hoping to get the egg crating pretty far along over the next seven days. Then I guess it'll be cleats, bulkheads and hatches for a solid month, probably two. Somewhere in there I'll template the sole and get it temporarily placed while I make some decisions about a strange piece of hardware I don't think anyone will be expecting to see.
Rain City
Crew Member
Stripper pole! It's a stripper pole isn't it?! But then we'd all expect to see that from you two now, so maybe that's not it. Hmmmn.I'm doing my best! Although I have to admit this is not much of an update - after last weekend's insanity, I took a couple of days off, and then had to devote a lot of time to household stuff as my wife did last year's taxes for us. And then the weekend was really nice again, so back to family enjoyment time:
That park is just amazing, Transfer Beach in Ladysmith. There's so much stuff for kids to do, and the whole thing is set right on the ocean so you can go down and walk on the beach...really one of the best parks I've ever seen in my life.
About all I got done on the boat was a quick grind of the interior glass so it'll be ready for framing etc:
And then it was laying out the stringers. I forgot that originally I'd had the idea of putting in a ballast tank so I drew the stringers further outboard than normal. But then I decided against the ballast so the stringers can be relocated to a more conventional spot which will make some other stuff easier...but now the curve I drew on the stringers I cut a few months back is wrong, so I'm just templating them straight off the hull. Oh, I also spent a ton of time making sure the hull was actually true. For some reason I got super paranoid about this - I think it was putting in the stringers and not being happy with the fit, and then I just went on a rampage of tuning the cradle and jacking it up here and there and blocking this and that and anyway, that took about five hours before I was satisfied.
Anyway now it's absolutely definitely true and fair and so I'm patterning the stringers straight off the hull.
Using, of course, a deck of cards, as pioneered by Jeff in Vermont.
The dimensional lumber is just some spacing stuff to keep everything upright and in place while I get the stringers dialed in. I am hoping to get the egg crating pretty far along over the next seven days. Then I guess it'll be cleats, bulkheads and hatches for a solid month, probably two. Somewhere in there I'll template the sole and get it temporarily placed while I make some decisions about a strange piece of hardware I don't think anyone will be expecting to see.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Did I tell the story about the post office a couple of weeks back?
In the summer, my wife wears these tiny shorts from a pole dance wear company, which is fine by me although one time we went into a restaurant and they said "you can't wear your bathing suit in here" and she said "these are just really short shorts" and then I had to decide whether to just let it go, or to buttonhole the manager and in the end it was just awkward and we never ate there again.
Anyway she's a big fan of extremely short shorts - not the ones in the boat flip picture, those are long beaters for gardening, her preferred stuff is quite a bit smaller - and the ones she used to wear all the time, Mika Meekos, went out of production, so she was searching for a replacement. She got a bunch of stuff from this other pole dance supplier and most of it was good but one pair was the wrong size so she had to send them back to England where they were from. I was running errands anyway so I said I would run them by the post office.
Well, since they were international air mail, I had to fill out the little customs form and everything, and then they had to type the information into their system. When it got to the recipient field the woman was looking at my handwriting and kind of squinting and finally she said, "does this say...Pole Junkie?"
"Yes, Pole Junkie."
"Oh, I just...I didn't..."
"It's okay, it's a pole dancing company."
"Oh."
"Don't let the beard fool you, I'm extremely sensual."
"Oh...Oh, I...I didn't..."
"A veritable garden of delights," I said, raising one eyebrow, "for the...adventurous traveller."
"I'll... just go ahead and put this in the bin."
Pretty sure I gave her PTSD.
In the summer, my wife wears these tiny shorts from a pole dance wear company, which is fine by me although one time we went into a restaurant and they said "you can't wear your bathing suit in here" and she said "these are just really short shorts" and then I had to decide whether to just let it go, or to buttonhole the manager and in the end it was just awkward and we never ate there again.
Anyway she's a big fan of extremely short shorts - not the ones in the boat flip picture, those are long beaters for gardening, her preferred stuff is quite a bit smaller - and the ones she used to wear all the time, Mika Meekos, went out of production, so she was searching for a replacement. She got a bunch of stuff from this other pole dance supplier and most of it was good but one pair was the wrong size so she had to send them back to England where they were from. I was running errands anyway so I said I would run them by the post office.
Well, since they were international air mail, I had to fill out the little customs form and everything, and then they had to type the information into their system. When it got to the recipient field the woman was looking at my handwriting and kind of squinting and finally she said, "does this say...Pole Junkie?"
"Yes, Pole Junkie."
"Oh, I just...I didn't..."
"It's okay, it's a pole dancing company."
"Oh."
"Don't let the beard fool you, I'm extremely sensual."
"Oh...Oh, I...I didn't..."
"A veritable garden of delights," I said, raising one eyebrow, "for the...adventurous traveller."
"I'll... just go ahead and put this in the bin."
Pretty sure I gave her PTSD.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Okay, sorry about the lack of updates – let me get everyone caught up to where I’m at.
I laminated the stringers; always impressive how a couple of thin bits of 1/4" ply stiffen right up when stuck together. Here they are in their approximate planned locations.
I also bought a seat...65 or thereabouts litre/quart rotomold from Costco. I have a couple of rotomolds from different companies already but the big fancy one lives at my island place and the other is a little portable one. I can really appreciate a good cooler and have built a couple but they've all been pretty unweildy. This is more portable. It'll be good for the boat. I sat on it and made vroom vroom noises for a bit, but then got back to work.
Transom is starting to shine up a bit...
And last but not least I got unexpected, unexplained mail. That's pretty normal for me; I have a lot of friends in different places and I get a fair number of surprises. Plus at one time my previous address got accidentally circulated when I was working for a magazine and I got a lot of stuff sent to me for a while from companies that were trying to promote their stuff. So I'm not totally shocked when something shows up unheralded, and knowing some of my friends it's entirely likely they won't want to put a return address on the box. For example, one time I got a crate of Mk 262, just showed up one day, no explanation, nobody admitted to being the source. Who knows? Could have been one of the companies trying to promote something, hard to say. FN used to be pretty generous. But they also used to want the credit for their generosity. Anyway I get a letter mailer in the box today, bring it home, and shake it a bit because I'm paranoid and I saw that one episode of CSI Miami where a guy got mailed a sheet of C4 rigged to blow when he opened the mailer. But no, this really sounds like paper. I unzip the thing.
It was this magazine, and a note saying "hope this was a better week - M." It was a friend in Montana, a (wildly more accomplished) guitarist and (somewhat less accomplished) fellow traveler in arcane worlds of armament and conflict, looking to cheer me up after the various hospital runs of the prior frame.
Ironically I had just been joking around with a former business partner about setting up a business in the Seychelles doing sportfishing charters as a cover for anti-piracy work in the gulf of Aden but now I feel conflicted. Just based on what I gathered from the magazine today, pirates seem like a lot of fun. So maybe that business is off the table, at least until I get a couple more issues.
Then we got into Mother’s Day and a stretch of beach weather which put things on the back burner and I slowed down again.
Since the arrival of Pirates magazine, which is pretty surreal and I can't quite tell if it's supposed to be serious or not, I've managed to chip away at a few tasks, and at least my distractions have been very pleasant. Here's the family at one of our local beaches - my kid was extremely serious about this small piece of waterlogged bark. Way off in the back there you can see my wife in this new bikini she's currently obsessed with that looks like an oily marble, if you recall those. Kind of a metallic colour-shift fabric. Anyway life is good but boatbuilding is probably a little slower than usual.
Got the fillets in on the stringers...
Glassed them down...as usual, probably overkill for the loads this low-speed machine is going to see but what the heck, I have plenty of tape. 2x 12oz, staggered. The stringers are 3" tall so I didn't go crazy on the stagger - more than half the tape is on the hull already. Anyway, they're not going anywhere.
I don't think anyone here will find this funny but I do...this is what happens when you go from tac'd out gunfight bro to suburban boatbuilder dad. Your high-speed deadbird faceshooting gear gets repurposed for kneeling on rough fiberglass surfaces.
Oh, then I took a couple of days off to play with this. You know how I was saying I just never know what will show up in the mail? Well, here's another totally unexpected arrival:
Dynaco PAT-5 preamp and Stereo 410 power amp. I had never heard of this, but by some weird coincidence I had a couple of 200w, 8 ohm speakers lying around doing nothing. The 410 requires exactly this, so I wired it all up. Holy cow, what smooth sound! I put a bluetooth receiver on it so my wife could connect her phone and just put on music whenever. It's got crushing, huge sound...I made her take the kid into the back yard so I could test it out and it's lethal. Totally awesome. I know nothing about vintage amps at all but I do have a friend who collects that stuff so I sent him pics and asked a couple of questions. He couldn't believe somebody just gave it to me and was furious. I'm very fortunate in how my friend selection process has panned out, I'll certainly say that.
Here's more humour: this is what happens when you ask your barbie doll wife to grab cheap playing cards from the dollar store if she's in the area so you can do more templating.
"But look, bunnies and hearts!"
"Well, I guess there's no specific disadvantage to that."
Here's something I should have thought of months ago: I'm always making improvised lists of the day's tasks on scraps of cardboard and stuff. Why didn't I do this earlier? I just staplegunned about 50 sheets of paper to the garage wall. Instant no-losing-it tear off pad. I can't believe I didn't do this ages ago.
Here I'm just trying to sort out the forward bulkhead and splashwell. The splashwell I left tall to give it some crown.
There's the splashwell bulkhead laid out. I wasn't thinking when I laid out the V - I measured to the wrong spot and now have to "infill" an inch or so at the bottom, but no big deal. Just late in the day measuring and cutting without a sanity check first. Anyway annoying but not much of an issue.
Derp - that's too much V as should have been obvious.
Yesterday I glassed in all the transverse frames, although for some reason I only took a picture of these three. But everything that’s ahead of the splashwell bulkhead is glassed down now.
Finally as seen in Boating Unfiltered…this was probably the actual highlight of boatbuilding for me this week. My wife brought out drinks to restock the cooler on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a new dress she recently bought that has neck-snapping effect, at least on me and this one driver in the Save-on-Foods parking lot who actually bumped into the car in front of him as he double-took on her, which frankly is pretty good for a mom in her 40s pushing a stroller. But maybe I'll break the link just to avoid recriminations from any more family-minded readers...although if you're in here I don't know what you're thinking as I'm intrinsically NSFW.
https:// imgur.com/ 7Fcfk0S.jpg
I laminated the stringers; always impressive how a couple of thin bits of 1/4" ply stiffen right up when stuck together. Here they are in their approximate planned locations.
I also bought a seat...65 or thereabouts litre/quart rotomold from Costco. I have a couple of rotomolds from different companies already but the big fancy one lives at my island place and the other is a little portable one. I can really appreciate a good cooler and have built a couple but they've all been pretty unweildy. This is more portable. It'll be good for the boat. I sat on it and made vroom vroom noises for a bit, but then got back to work.
Transom is starting to shine up a bit...
And last but not least I got unexpected, unexplained mail. That's pretty normal for me; I have a lot of friends in different places and I get a fair number of surprises. Plus at one time my previous address got accidentally circulated when I was working for a magazine and I got a lot of stuff sent to me for a while from companies that were trying to promote their stuff. So I'm not totally shocked when something shows up unheralded, and knowing some of my friends it's entirely likely they won't want to put a return address on the box. For example, one time I got a crate of Mk 262, just showed up one day, no explanation, nobody admitted to being the source. Who knows? Could have been one of the companies trying to promote something, hard to say. FN used to be pretty generous. But they also used to want the credit for their generosity. Anyway I get a letter mailer in the box today, bring it home, and shake it a bit because I'm paranoid and I saw that one episode of CSI Miami where a guy got mailed a sheet of C4 rigged to blow when he opened the mailer. But no, this really sounds like paper. I unzip the thing.
It was this magazine, and a note saying "hope this was a better week - M." It was a friend in Montana, a (wildly more accomplished) guitarist and (somewhat less accomplished) fellow traveler in arcane worlds of armament and conflict, looking to cheer me up after the various hospital runs of the prior frame.
Ironically I had just been joking around with a former business partner about setting up a business in the Seychelles doing sportfishing charters as a cover for anti-piracy work in the gulf of Aden but now I feel conflicted. Just based on what I gathered from the magazine today, pirates seem like a lot of fun. So maybe that business is off the table, at least until I get a couple more issues.
Then we got into Mother’s Day and a stretch of beach weather which put things on the back burner and I slowed down again.
Since the arrival of Pirates magazine, which is pretty surreal and I can't quite tell if it's supposed to be serious or not, I've managed to chip away at a few tasks, and at least my distractions have been very pleasant. Here's the family at one of our local beaches - my kid was extremely serious about this small piece of waterlogged bark. Way off in the back there you can see my wife in this new bikini she's currently obsessed with that looks like an oily marble, if you recall those. Kind of a metallic colour-shift fabric. Anyway life is good but boatbuilding is probably a little slower than usual.
Got the fillets in on the stringers...
Glassed them down...as usual, probably overkill for the loads this low-speed machine is going to see but what the heck, I have plenty of tape. 2x 12oz, staggered. The stringers are 3" tall so I didn't go crazy on the stagger - more than half the tape is on the hull already. Anyway, they're not going anywhere.
I don't think anyone here will find this funny but I do...this is what happens when you go from tac'd out gunfight bro to suburban boatbuilder dad. Your high-speed deadbird faceshooting gear gets repurposed for kneeling on rough fiberglass surfaces.
Oh, then I took a couple of days off to play with this. You know how I was saying I just never know what will show up in the mail? Well, here's another totally unexpected arrival:
Dynaco PAT-5 preamp and Stereo 410 power amp. I had never heard of this, but by some weird coincidence I had a couple of 200w, 8 ohm speakers lying around doing nothing. The 410 requires exactly this, so I wired it all up. Holy cow, what smooth sound! I put a bluetooth receiver on it so my wife could connect her phone and just put on music whenever. It's got crushing, huge sound...I made her take the kid into the back yard so I could test it out and it's lethal. Totally awesome. I know nothing about vintage amps at all but I do have a friend who collects that stuff so I sent him pics and asked a couple of questions. He couldn't believe somebody just gave it to me and was furious. I'm very fortunate in how my friend selection process has panned out, I'll certainly say that.
Here's more humour: this is what happens when you ask your barbie doll wife to grab cheap playing cards from the dollar store if she's in the area so you can do more templating.
"But look, bunnies and hearts!"
"Well, I guess there's no specific disadvantage to that."
Here's something I should have thought of months ago: I'm always making improvised lists of the day's tasks on scraps of cardboard and stuff. Why didn't I do this earlier? I just staplegunned about 50 sheets of paper to the garage wall. Instant no-losing-it tear off pad. I can't believe I didn't do this ages ago.
Here I'm just trying to sort out the forward bulkhead and splashwell. The splashwell I left tall to give it some crown.
There's the splashwell bulkhead laid out. I wasn't thinking when I laid out the V - I measured to the wrong spot and now have to "infill" an inch or so at the bottom, but no big deal. Just late in the day measuring and cutting without a sanity check first. Anyway annoying but not much of an issue.
Derp - that's too much V as should have been obvious.
Yesterday I glassed in all the transverse frames, although for some reason I only took a picture of these three. But everything that’s ahead of the splashwell bulkhead is glassed down now.
Finally as seen in Boating Unfiltered…this was probably the actual highlight of boatbuilding for me this week. My wife brought out drinks to restock the cooler on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a new dress she recently bought that has neck-snapping effect, at least on me and this one driver in the Save-on-Foods parking lot who actually bumped into the car in front of him as he double-took on her, which frankly is pretty good for a mom in her 40s pushing a stroller. But maybe I'll break the link just to avoid recriminations from any more family-minded readers...although if you're in here I don't know what you're thinking as I'm intrinsically NSFW.
https:// imgur.com/ 7Fcfk0S.jpg
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Well, holidays continue to happen so oo course I'm behind schedule again, or I would be, if I was workinng to any kind of schedule.
Victoria Day weekend, which my wife has finally stopped calling "May 2-4" after having left Ontario more than twenty years ago,took us over to the cabin. The kid always zonks right out on the boat.
I have been really enjoying this combo, an Ugly Stik tiger lite m/h with a Baitrunner 6000. At one time I would have thought the 6000 was too small but it seems to have plenty of drag and of course now that we all use braid it holds tons of line, so I guess a reel that fits in your hand is kind of nice. I also thought the tiger lite would feel weird to me because it's short - I grew up using 8-9' rods for everything. But I just couldn't find one with the action I wanted, and the setup I like, at the same time. I like spread-bore guides, because I like spinning reels for jigging and casting both. But every rod with the guides I like, is either a pool cue like a Saguaro, or a noodle, like a steelhead rod. I have this weird fishing style that evolved on the BC coast in the 70s where I like to drift and cast and you need kind of a generalist setup with a spinning reel to do it, or at least that's what I need to do it. Anyway the 7' Tiger Lite works pretty well and I can cast it better than I thought I'd be able to so I'll probably get a couple more. Of course I forgot to get fish pics but I hauled up a 12 pound lingcod and that's about exactly what I like to find.
After that it was all just chainsaw maintenance, beach wandering and deadfall clearing.
Okay, back to work.
Motorwell bulkhead:
Cut in a bit of crown on that...
Roughed out the notch and cut the motorwell sides:
There it is all mocked up...
Before I glued it into place, I wanted to hack out a spot for a transducer, so I cut about a 3x6" rectangle out of the bilge core and filled it with cabosil, milled fibres and epoxy, and glassed back overtop.
With that done, I glued in the motorwell bulkhead:
Cleaned up the transom notch:
Gave the motor a quick test hang to make sure everything seemed to work all right - still might put a jackplate on for maximum tune-ability though.
And now I'm knocking the front bench together.
So there you have it, we're all caught up to today.
Victoria Day weekend, which my wife has finally stopped calling "May 2-4" after having left Ontario more than twenty years ago,took us over to the cabin. The kid always zonks right out on the boat.
I have been really enjoying this combo, an Ugly Stik tiger lite m/h with a Baitrunner 6000. At one time I would have thought the 6000 was too small but it seems to have plenty of drag and of course now that we all use braid it holds tons of line, so I guess a reel that fits in your hand is kind of nice. I also thought the tiger lite would feel weird to me because it's short - I grew up using 8-9' rods for everything. But I just couldn't find one with the action I wanted, and the setup I like, at the same time. I like spread-bore guides, because I like spinning reels for jigging and casting both. But every rod with the guides I like, is either a pool cue like a Saguaro, or a noodle, like a steelhead rod. I have this weird fishing style that evolved on the BC coast in the 70s where I like to drift and cast and you need kind of a generalist setup with a spinning reel to do it, or at least that's what I need to do it. Anyway the 7' Tiger Lite works pretty well and I can cast it better than I thought I'd be able to so I'll probably get a couple more. Of course I forgot to get fish pics but I hauled up a 12 pound lingcod and that's about exactly what I like to find.
After that it was all just chainsaw maintenance, beach wandering and deadfall clearing.
Okay, back to work.
Motorwell bulkhead:
Cut in a bit of crown on that...
Roughed out the notch and cut the motorwell sides:
There it is all mocked up...
Before I glued it into place, I wanted to hack out a spot for a transducer, so I cut about a 3x6" rectangle out of the bilge core and filled it with cabosil, milled fibres and epoxy, and glassed back overtop.
With that done, I glued in the motorwell bulkhead:
Cleaned up the transom notch:
Gave the motor a quick test hang to make sure everything seemed to work all right - still might put a jackplate on for maximum tune-ability though.
And now I'm knocking the front bench together.
So there you have it, we're all caught up to today.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
First: back to the beach.
Still snow on those mountains which personally, I like to see. If this was an episode of CSI you could zoom in just up off the end of that first point and see my house. The town is built on a steep hill, which is nice, because I have a great view of the ocean as a result.
Getting that motorwell knocked together, that's all glassed in now...
Clearing out the hull so I can get onto the cleats, nice to see it empty.
Big pile of pine getting chopped up for cleating everything...
Oh, then I took a detour to go buy a trailer from some guy on FB marketplace:
The bunks are kind of rough but I don't care because I have spares.
Getting the cleats all fully leveled out took a couple of hours and I wasn't as careful as a should have been doing the side frames so I have to have taller cleats to level that out. But that's sorted. I'm using 1x2 anywhere I really need the joint to hold a lot of weight, and 1x1 where it's just gluing surface as the sole will pass overtop of the frame or stringer, say.
And finally here's a big pile of cleats for the edges of everything cut to various sizes for various reasons...I sanded them all on a disc sander so the surfaces are nice and fresh, and today I'll probably start coating them with epoxy to seal them up for installation during the week. I hope to have the cleating finished within a week or so. I was worried about it because it can be fiddly and I could see the side frames were too short at the outside edge, but lining everything up was actually pretty simple.
Really can't wait to get the sole cut in, that'll make it feel half done.
Still snow on those mountains which personally, I like to see. If this was an episode of CSI you could zoom in just up off the end of that first point and see my house. The town is built on a steep hill, which is nice, because I have a great view of the ocean as a result.
Getting that motorwell knocked together, that's all glassed in now...
Clearing out the hull so I can get onto the cleats, nice to see it empty.
Big pile of pine getting chopped up for cleating everything...
Oh, then I took a detour to go buy a trailer from some guy on FB marketplace:
The bunks are kind of rough but I don't care because I have spares.
Getting the cleats all fully leveled out took a couple of hours and I wasn't as careful as a should have been doing the side frames so I have to have taller cleats to level that out. But that's sorted. I'm using 1x2 anywhere I really need the joint to hold a lot of weight, and 1x1 where it's just gluing surface as the sole will pass overtop of the frame or stringer, say.
And finally here's a big pile of cleats for the edges of everything cut to various sizes for various reasons...I sanded them all on a disc sander so the surfaces are nice and fresh, and today I'll probably start coating them with epoxy to seal them up for installation during the week. I hope to have the cleating finished within a week or so. I was worried about it because it can be fiddly and I could see the side frames were too short at the outside edge, but lining everything up was actually pretty simple.
Really can't wait to get the sole cut in, that'll make it feel half done.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Work continues and the immediate goal of floating to mark the waterline is starting to feel really close.
Here's a shot of some of the last framing to go in under the deck. I wanted a 2x3 centerline support that would give me a good gluing surface as well as plenty of rigidity for the sole, which is only 3/8" (although it is marine fir which is pretty stiff).
Strap hangers for the 2x3s...
I went inside for lunch on Saturday where I found my mischievous kid only willing to consume peanut butter when not being monitored, for some reason. My wife had to look away for him to eat it. I found it really funny and took this picture.
After lunch, she brought him out to the garage and it was like somehow he grasped what I'd been doing all of a sudden. Recently he's been pointing at pictures of boats in books but I hadn't thought anything of it, I think he just hears me use the word "boat" a lot and he's on our big boat all the time but for whatever reason this day she brought him out to the garage and first he was just kind of shocked looking, but then he got really excited and wanted to get in. Which, since I'd placed the sole, was possible for the very first time. It's hard to express how excited he was, and I doubt he get that I'm building something, exactly...but I swear you could see this sort of light bulb in his head and he was just overjoyed about it. It was really wild.
He's also teething again which is ridicuous. He has everything but the second set of molars, and has since right around when he turned one, which is something like six months ahead of schedule. And now the second molars are coming in, also six months or more early. Absurd.
Anyway the sole is fitted but I still need to put cleats around the outside edges.
Now I'm going to go try to start doing that.
Oh, one more thing, which I mentioned a couple of months back:
Now why would I need that, do you figure, for an outboard-powered boat with a portable gas tank?
Here's a shot of some of the last framing to go in under the deck. I wanted a 2x3 centerline support that would give me a good gluing surface as well as plenty of rigidity for the sole, which is only 3/8" (although it is marine fir which is pretty stiff).
Strap hangers for the 2x3s...
I went inside for lunch on Saturday where I found my mischievous kid only willing to consume peanut butter when not being monitored, for some reason. My wife had to look away for him to eat it. I found it really funny and took this picture.
After lunch, she brought him out to the garage and it was like somehow he grasped what I'd been doing all of a sudden. Recently he's been pointing at pictures of boats in books but I hadn't thought anything of it, I think he just hears me use the word "boat" a lot and he's on our big boat all the time but for whatever reason this day she brought him out to the garage and first he was just kind of shocked looking, but then he got really excited and wanted to get in. Which, since I'd placed the sole, was possible for the very first time. It's hard to express how excited he was, and I doubt he get that I'm building something, exactly...but I swear you could see this sort of light bulb in his head and he was just overjoyed about it. It was really wild.
He's also teething again which is ridicuous. He has everything but the second set of molars, and has since right around when he turned one, which is something like six months ahead of schedule. And now the second molars are coming in, also six months or more early. Absurd.
Anyway the sole is fitted but I still need to put cleats around the outside edges.
Now I'm going to go try to start doing that.
Oh, one more thing, which I mentioned a couple of months back:
Now why would I need that, do you figure, for an outboard-powered boat with a portable gas tank?
John Ingram
Well-Known Member
I really like your little one's TATOO sleeves...... Just like Mom and DadWork continues and the immediate goal of floating to mark the waterline is starting to feel really close.
Here's a shot of some of the last framing to go in under the deck. I wanted a 2x3 centerline support that would give me a good gluing surface as well as plenty of rigidity for the sole, which is only 3/8" (although it is marine fir which is pretty stiff).
Strap hangers for the 2x3s...
I went inside for lunch on Saturday where I found my mischievous kid only willing to consume peanut butter when not being monitored, for some reason. My wife had to look away for him to eat it. I found it really funny and took this picture.
After lunch, she brought him out to the garage and it was like somehow he grasped what I'd been doing all of a sudden. Recently he's been pointing at pictures of boats in books but I hadn't thought anything of it, I think he just hears me use the word "boat" a lot and he's on our big boat all the time but for whatever reason this day she brought him out to the garage and first he was just kind of shocked looking, but then he got really excited and wanted to get in. Which, since I'd placed the sole, was possible for the very first time. It's hard to express how excited he was, and I doubt he get that I'm building something, exactly...but I swear you could see this sort of light bulb in his head and he was just overjoyed about it. It was really wild.
He's also teething again which is ridicuous. He has everything but the second set of molars, and has since right around when he turned one, which is something like six months ahead of schedule. And now the second molars are coming in, also six months or more early. Absurd.
Anyway the sole is fitted but I still need to put cleats around the outside edges.
Now I'm going to go try to start doing that.
Oh, one more thing, which I mentioned a couple of months back:
Now why would I need that, do you figure, for an outboard-powered boat with a portable gas tank?
Dorman Point
Crew Member
Because you and I both know a rad boat like that is crying out for a diesel and a centre console helm, just like a little Chesapeake bay boat. Oh yeah.Work continues and the immediate goal of floating to mark the waterline is starting to feel really close.
Here's a shot of some of the last framing to go in under the deck. I wanted a 2x3 centerline support that would give me a good gluing surface as well as plenty of rigidity for the sole, which is only 3/8" (although it is marine fir which is pretty stiff).
Strap hangers for the 2x3s...
I went inside for lunch on Saturday where I found my mischievous kid only willing to consume peanut butter when not being monitored, for some reason. My wife had to look away for him to eat it. I found it really funny and took this picture.
After lunch, she brought him out to the garage and it was like somehow he grasped what I'd been doing all of a sudden. Recently he's been pointing at pictures of boats in books but I hadn't thought anything of it, I think he just hears me use the word "boat" a lot and he's on our big boat all the time but for whatever reason this day she brought him out to the garage and first he was just kind of shocked looking, but then he got really excited and wanted to get in. Which, since I'd placed the sole, was possible for the very first time. It's hard to express how excited he was, and I doubt he get that I'm building something, exactly...but I swear you could see this sort of light bulb in his head and he was just overjoyed about it. It was really wild.
He's also teething again which is ridicuous. He has everything but the second set of molars, and has since right around when he turned one, which is something like six months ahead of schedule. And now the second molars are coming in, also six months or more early. Absurd.
Anyway the sole is fitted but I still need to put cleats around the outside edges.
Now I'm going to go try to start doing that.
Oh, one more thing, which I mentioned a couple of months back:
Now why would I need that, do you figure, for an outboard-powered boat with a portable gas tank?
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