Wednesday, November 26, 2014

We are finally feeling good about the progress we are making on the inners and gunnel pieces.  It is positively a two person job and it sure helps to have a wife willing to help!  We broke a lot of pieces but they



made a lot of kindling for the wood stove.  This morning we put the last piece of inner on, which is a very good feeling, as that part of this boat building project was not fun! We have the chine flats made and ready for fiberglass. We attached three siding pieces which was a great success.  We wanted to see how the plastic staples held when attaching the siding to the frame.  They are wonderful and we are so glad we took a chance on them.  The staple gun is a great tool-light and easy to handle.  You do have to make sure you clean it well after each use to get the fiberglass off.  Anyway, we are looking forward to putting on more siding when the frame pieces dry.  In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving and eat lots of turkey!

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

This has been a frustrating week of boatbuilding in the Bacon shop.  There have been material issues compounded by the complexity of the design of the bow section.  We have not been able to find good clear Douglas Fir, and as a result we have broken many pieces trying to get them in place.  The pieces we are trying to place are the areas where the sides meet the deck.  We think these are called Darwall stringers, or shear. (  We don't always know the correct names for stuff, but does it really matter?)  We have been trying the steamer, and it does help, but mostly it is a case of " put on; break;take off ;put on, break;take off.  We even checked on the West Coast for 2X6's of clear Douglas Fir, but the prices were out of sight-more than $300.00. Yow!  We are now trying other options-laminating pieces together to avoid the knotty parts on the wood we have.  We are also trying splicing shorter pieces together, and using the steamer.  We will find a viable solution, I am sure, but it is frustrating.  But--whoever said that boatbuilding is easy?  The picture enclosed is of some of the parts we have steamed and are clamping in place.  We attached some of them this morning and added a few more to attach tomorrow.  We are also going to check out another small saw mill nearby to see if they might have some clear wood we could use. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

With two chines in place, the next step was to make a template for the bottom bow section.  A template is necessary because there is so much curvature to the bow.  We used a product called VG Centurion Olympic Cedar paneling. (Cheap and Ugly)  This is shown in a picture.  The template bent a lot easier than the plywood!  Fitting the bow section was very stressful but we finally got it in place and attached.  The next bottom pieces on the first side were pretty easy to fit and attach, but then came the other side which was much more difficult.  We finally got the bottom sections on.  However, it was quite exciting when one of the chines let loose from the stem and one of the frames.  After panic and a few swear words we were able to repair the problem with the help of many clamps and fiberglass.  We were also glad that one of our carpenter friends was visiting us at the time so there were three people to help.







We discovered that the use of three heavy duty cargo straps with tightening mechanisms was a great help.
    We put weep holes in the stringers so that water will be able to travel to the stern and then out the back.
The next step will be to prep the bottom for fiberglass cloth.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Today is voting day-hope everyone voted! 
The keel and stringers are permanently in place now.  It took 60 pieces of 3 inch fiberglass tape to attach all the stringers to the frame.  It worked well to have one person wetting down the tape with fiberglass and one person putting the tape where it needed to go.  We finally figured out how to make fillets and it is for sure a two person job.  The best way for us to make good fillets is to use a cake decorating bag filled with fiberglass and silicone filler. 
It is an adventure shaping and cutting the 23 foot long Doug FIr timbers.  They have more knots than we had hoped, so we are going to try laminating pieces for the chines. There is now a lot of detail work getting everything true-lots of sanding and shaping.
  The chines have to bend and twist-it is a bit scary bending and twisting them, but we have done one, as shown in the picture and it didn't snap (yet)!  We will laminate the two pieces together to make it stronger.