9th April 2012

St Lucia getaway

Have been away in the Caribbean for some rest and relaxation.  Actually a gift to my wife from herboss for 35years service.  All bosses should be like that.  Great time and wonderful peopl but it is always nice to be back home, and so back to the dinghy now that the weather is improved.
My  wife keeps asking " Does it look like a boat yet?"  My answer is "Only if you know what the parts of a boat look like."  I hadn't realized how much time it takes to make all the different parts at the beginning - stations, thwarts, stems (inner and outer), stern pieces and I'm still only halfway to getting all the various pieces glued, laminated and cut.  And then there are the pieces (molds) that have to be made so that the 'pieces' can be shaped.
My studio is gradually getting more cluttered than it was.  Just the tools take up a lot of space but then something else I didn't think about and reckon on was how much waste wood there is from building a boat.  I hate to see that but there is no alternative as what to do with the scraps from a round shape cut from a square.  Kindling anyone?

Art Background

  My art training continues to be useful.
I was trained as a commercial artist and all my life many skills that I had learned in that training have proved over and over to be useful in so many different ways.
Today's job in the studio was to transfer various shapes from the plans onto plywood ready for cutting.  I could have cut out the shapes and drawn around them on the plywood.  I could have used a sharp point, like a compass, push pin or nail to mark various points through the plan onto the plywood.  None of these appealed to me so after some thinking (there is lots of this in boat building I think!), I remembered how we learned to transfer designs from one surface to another.  Essentially it was a method of creating ones own carbon paper.  Simple and it works.
Step 1    Using a soft pencil - 2B will do - scribble on the back of the plans where the lines you want trace are-

           
Step 2     Turn the plans over onto the plywood and using a hard pencil trace over the lines on the plans                transferring the graphite from the pencil scribbles onto the plywood.

The lines on the plywood should be quite visible as long as enough graphite was scribbled onto the back of the plans.

Tuesday 30th Jan 2012

Not blogged for a while as the studio has been too cold for working in (or 'in which to work').
Have been reading a bit though after having bought a couple of books.  There is enough info in the both to keep the mind working for the next 20 years.  I hadn't realized (ignorance really) that I would be treated to such a huge new vocabulary when I began this project. Who knows what 'spiling' is for instance.  As I said enough to keep one going for ages.
The books are - How to build glued lapstrake wooden boats by John Brooks
                          Clinker Plywood Boatbuilding Manual by Iain Oughtred

Was in the studio today to cut out pices of 1/8" plywood for laminating for the stem and centre frame.  As these don't have to be deadly accurate I used the hand circualar saw.  Good job too.  Cut them for the centre frame at 1 1/8" rady to plane to a finish of 7/8"

clamps, clamps,and more clamps...

Looking at pictures of boats being built it seems that everyone needs a boatload of clamps.  They are used for holding planks, gunwhales, seats and anything else one can think of.  A one off boat builders costs climb hugely if many clamps have to be bought just like if one needs a piece of mahogany for the transome, say 11/2ft by 3ft but have to buy a whole sheet.  Fine if many boats are to be built but not so if one is the goal.

Either I will have to make more boats, borrow beg or steal tools and materials or just spend the money.  Probably turns out that it will be a mixture of them all (maybe not the stealing part!).

All this because I need some kind of clamp to hold the plywood while the scarfed joints are drying.  Chatting to friends helps of course as they usually have a ton more knowledge than me.  Afriend suggested threaded rods might be a good idea in some circumstances.  Looked into it and for six dollars I can buy the materials for making clamps for the plywood scarfs.  Not bad.

Vaclev Havel and Christopher Hichens die within a couple of days of each other.  Both a great loss to this world.  RIP

Time to try joining two pieces of plywood.  Never done it before so have spent the past few days reading all I can about it.  I purchased a small power plane in the summer knowing that I would be doing this.  Have never used one of those before either so another learning curve there too.  Experts say practise 'scarphing' or 'scarfing' on  scrap pieces of plywood so that is what I am doing.
I found several well detailed websites on the subject so chose one and began.  After about 30 minutes I had what looked like a pretty decent scarf.  This was on a thicker piece than I will be using for the boat so now I need to find some thinner pieces and have a go there.  I was pleasantly surprised at how well this first try went, though not perfect, and I think that was helped by the good quality of the advice on the websites. Planing across the surface of the edges seemed to work better than down them.

I am glad though at this stage that I am using cheap plywood as there is no room for error and doing the same thing on a $100 or so sheet of ply would be very intimidating indeed.

I like the electric hand planer too.  It was light, quick and easy to handle.

I am doing this because I want to.  It is fun so far but have I bitten off too much?
Keep going very slowly and time will tell.

Today's news :  from the Globe and Mail - 'Record high household debt in Canada triggers alarm'  Hope I don't contribute to that while making this boat!

Study plans and book over and over again until the details start to become clear.  It's funny how we expect children to learn things at school after they have been taught or told things once or twice ("Don't you remember ?  We did that only yesterday/last week/last month/ in grade 4).  Yet here we are reading and looking at pictures over and over before it really starts to become clear in our heads. Hmmmm....

Comments on the various discussion boards on the topic of which kind of plywood to use are endless and very interesting.  It is amazing how many people take the time to answer questions and give their input into the topic. Great!
I have decided to go the cheap way for a variety of reasons.
1. Not a Cadillac boat.
2. To be used by me over a limited number of years
3. The other boat I made (stitch and glue plywood) has lasted well with just a paint job for 5 seasons so far and that was made out of Meranti.
4. The Meranti plywood I have found looks really good with no filling on the surface ply

I wonder how accurate the drawing and cutting needs to be to get a good boat out of this.  In my experience transferring from paper drawings to wood and then cutting with power tools never seems to provide perfect shapes.  Perhaps they might be out 1/8 or 1/16 inch here and there.  I have read that this method of building allows for small mistakes because of the use of epoxy fillers.  We'll see.  I don't want my boat to end up like the Marco Polo.  But then again she was the fastest ship in her day!

This blog thing seems to be badly organized but hey! What do I know as I am just a silly old grump.
Have built two sawhorses and am ready to make my first cut on the 1/2in plywood for the first station.
Do I have all the right tools?  Not yet.  But will borrow or buy when necessary.

It's easy to use as a journal as this is.  It helps me think and keeps me on track.
Haven't figured out how to turn photos yet.