Flip It!

Last saturday I gathered up some of my karate students and some friends from work for the highly anticipated roll over.  It had been raining on and off here in central Florida for about a week and still drizzling at the designated hour.

The tires that I left outside to be used as cushions for the turning were full of water.  It's a little bit of an engineering problem to figure out how to get all the water out from the inside of an old tire.  We ended up throwing them around until they were empty.

We decided to try to turn it in place.  First we pushed it as far as we could to one side of the garage

Some strategically place tires and were were ready to go.  

Rolling...

Rolling...

Rolling...

Rolling...

We stop on the side long enough to remove the building cradle.

Since we didn't have enough room to roll the boat completely over we stopped at this point and slid the boat back over to one side of the garage before continuing the roll.

Reposition the tires...

... and continued the roll over.

Settling it down on the tires.

Done!!!

Get everything back out of the rain an into the garage.

 And it is done.

 Total time 1/2 hour.

It was actually much easier than I had imagined.  We had 5 adults but probably could have done it with less.

Since the roll I've been working on cleaning up the underside of the rub rails and getting them to their final shape.  I haven't leveled the hull yet I think I'm going to use jack stands at the rear to get the height right.

I'm adding in some odds and ends time to account for glassing the rudder, drilling drain holes, filling the weave on the companionway assembly, etc.  It's all looking pretty good.

Hours this session: 12

Hours total: 502

Ready for turning

The boat is ready to turn.  No new picts but I've been doing odds and ends.  Drilling drain holes, cutting holes for the bowsprit and other little "busy" work.  I'll be gettings some friends over in a week or two to roll this thing over!

The Rudder

The manual has a little bit of an out of order sequence.  I'm trying to get to the point where I can roll this beast over and work on the bottom.  One of the steps before rolling is to cut a hole in the transom for the tiller.  In order to do this I need to build the rudder so that I can mark the correct place for the hole.  Building the rudder is a few chapters later.  So I had to work a little out of order to complete the task.  One of the VERY FEW shortcomings I've found in an otherwise outstanding manual.

The rudder requires milling some structure to build in the airfoil taper.  This required strategic beveling of the framing.  Not hard but requires attention to detail.  In the kit there are templates for all of these pieces and they fit very well when cut accurately.

As you can see this thing need a lot of clamps.  I needs to be watertight when it's finished so pay close attention to the joints in the framing.  I had one that was a little open and when I checked to see if it was leaking (by blowing into it, I'm glad no one was around to see that), it was.  A little thickened epoxy fixed that.

The bottom plate adds authority to the rudders effectiveness and according to the manual acts as a makeshift re-boarding step.  I glued and screwed it on then checked for squareness.  I lucked out and it was dead on without any adjustment.  I used 4 screws to attach.  The manual only shows three but I put in four but what the heck, I splurged.

I feel like I'm really getting the hang of the woodworking (gee Bill, it's only taken you 2 years) and now I have many less "false starts" or "do overs" than I did when I first started building.

Next up, finishing the rudder.


Hours this session: 8
Total hours 490

Working Scared

In this installment of the never-ending build, I perform the scariest thing I've done such pouring lead.  That being cutting the hull for the dorades, hatches, and portholes.  You can't imagine my angst at setting a blade to that which I had spent so much time creating.  It ain't right.

Before I attempted this work I finished filling the weave on the fiberglass by adding 2 more coats of epoxy on the rub rail and everything above it.

Everyone has heard measure twice and cut once.  Well I must have measured this stuff about 8 times and I still didn't feel good when I grabbed my saw.  The first cuts I made were for the storage hatches.  I took one of the hatches and used it's base as a template.  The hardest part about this was holding it in place while I traced the opening.  The hatch would slide and I would have to start over.  It was difficult maneuvering the pencil around the corner between the seat back and the transom.  Eventually, I got them both marked correctly and cut out with the jig saw.  A follow up with the hatch showed that I got it about as perfect as I could expect.  Very snug fit.

The portholes were already scored for me.  I cut to the INSIDE of the scoring so that I would be sure that I wouldn't make a mistake I couldn't easily fix.  Doing that left about 1/8" of extra that needed to be removed around the outside edge.  I did this very gingerly with a Dremel tool and a sanding wheel.  I tested it with the precut plexiglass provided by CLC and found that although I'm very close to the right size they're still a little small and I need a few more passes with the Dremel to finish this up.

The dorade vents were a little easier.  They don't have to be perfect since the trim ring will hide any issues.  Test fit went well.

Moving on to the rudder.

Hours this session: 6
Total hours 482

Companion Way Hood/Hatch Finished

I haven't stopped working but the progress has slowed a little bit.  Not because of anything except that I haven't had much free time lately.  Oh well, I don't have any target date for this to be finished so it doesn't really matter.

The hood is made out of black walnut on the sides and white oak on the front and pull.  Nice looking, but like it says in the manual it requires a little bit of woodworking.  There are bevels to plane to make it fit the top of the cabin correctly, curves to match, pulls to make and it all has to slide correctly when mounted on the boat.  It took me quite a bit of adjusting and screwing around to get it to look/act right.

The hatch is pretty much the same.  Sides of black walnut and the front, back and pull made from white oak.  Looks good now and I expect it will look a lot better when its all finished nicely.  I added the compass rose inlay to the top of the hatch.  It comes from CLC was easy and fun to do with great results.  A little expensive but very high quality veneer.

The tops and sides are fiberglassed.  It'll need two more coats of epoxy before final sanding.

Next up I need to cover the entire boat and the hood/hatch assembly with two more coats of epoxy so I can finally roll this thing over.

Hours this session: 8

Total hours 476

Rubrails, Companionway Sill and New Dog

The rubrails are made from black walnut.  Very brittle stuff and doesn't seem to want to bend very well.  The act of putting in the temporary screws for the first layer punched holes into the cabin.  These will have to be filled and then re-painted.

The first layer required steaming and bending.  The steam system (outlined in a previous post) was required to for each of the three lengths on each side to get a good bend.  Even then I broke one because I didn't move fast enough after I had removed it from the steamer.

The second layer only required steaming for the front section.  The rest I just soaked in the swimming pool overnight and they could make the less acute bends.  The final layer being thinner didn't require any steaming at all, just soaking.

The sill was an easier build than the rub rails.  They are milled out of white oak.

The sill frame needed to be beveled on the bottom to take into account the slope of the cabin roof.  The table saw made short work of this.

The corners needed to have a 45 degree bevel to make everything nice and strong.

The front of the sill turned out to be a little higher than the sides.  This is no problem as I will take care of it with a block plane.

Plenty of clamps hold the assembly in place while it dries.

In November 'Sassy' my dog 10 years died from cancer.  It was a sad day when I had to make the decision to put her down.  The family was missing having a pet and so was I.  A trip to the local pound and we were able to rescue 'Cocoa'.  A pretty, long legged mutt of unknown origins.  Like most pound dogs she seems very happy to have been adopted and is quickly bonding with the family.  She likes to be near me in the garage while I'm working on my boat.  She seems to like water so I think she may be first mate when I finally get this thing floating.

Hours this session: 18
Total hours 468

Top Sides Fiberglassing and Misc Woodwork

After finishing glassing the footwell I moved on to the cabin top and the remainder of the front.  This all was much easier work than the footwell (see last post).  It went quickly without any issues.

I chose to use one piece of fiberglass to wrap around the front of the boat to the opposite side.

I made some additions to the fiberglass schedule on the front of the cabin top.  Before continuing the fiberglass down over the front of the cabin top I added an additional layer of biaxial tape along the front edge.  This is in response to reports of separation at this join, especially with PocketShips that have a removable tabernacle as I am planning on employing.

I continued the front fiberglass over the inside edge of the bow.

Here is my table saw jig setup for cutting the 10:1 scarfs for the rub rail.  This jib worked immensely well at cutting perfect scarfs.  Took literally 10 minutes to build.

If you look at the stack of wood just to the left of the white PVC you sees all the consistent scarfs cut with the jig.  I chose to make the rub rails out of black walnut because I love the way it looks when varnished.  It has a deep brown/black color with lighter grain patterns.

The PVC pipe is my steaming box.  After a failed attempt as getting the walnut to bend around the bow I decided that I would steam bend it.  The PVC pipe is 7' long and has a brass nipple at one end to attach the steam generator.  I've already tested it and it should do the trick.

I also used the block walnut for the toe rails.  The bend needed here isn't as severe as at the bow.  I was able to achieve this bend with no problem.

Hours total: 450