Not much happening in the way of the boat. Florida is still in the grips of stifling heat. I've been chomping at the bit to do anything and as soon as I start the heat turns me back.
One little project I did start was ripping my floor boards to width. A little background on my choice of woods for the dimensional lumber. For the floorboards I wanted something light in color and heavy in weight. I figure the more weight I can get down low the less ballast I will have to use to trim out the boat. So for the floorboards I went with white oak. It's moderately heavy with a pleasing light color.
For the rub rails and other trim I wanted something darker. For this I chose black walnut. It has all the attributes of a good marine lumber and it is a very beautiful wood. Now the choice of black walnut for a boat goes against naval superstitions. The nick name for black walnut is "coffin wood". I guess associating your boat in any way with a coffin brings bad nautical mojo down upon the craft. Luckily I'm not superstitious.
There should be plenty of scrap left after doing the floor boards and the rub rails to use for laminating the tiller and the boom arch. I think the contrasting light/dark wood in layers will look very nice.
I was able to source both these woods from an internet company (woodworkersssource.com). They come in 4/4 10 board feet craft packs. I ordered 20 board feet of the oak and 10 of the walnut. I found that trying to order longer lengths drives the shipping way up since they have to be shipped freight. So I resigned myself to having to scarf together at least a couple of sections of my floor boards.
A couple of nights ago after the sun had gone down I moved my table saw just outside the garage door and into the relatively cooler night air and began ripping. In about an hour I had ripped as many of the 4" widths as I could make out of the oak. I switch to my dado blade and made scarf cuts on 4 of the pieces. After a little trial and error I got the scarfs to fit perfect. My next project is to actually glue these together to make 2 10' lengths.
Hours this session: 2
Hours total: 155
Hours remaining: 245
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