More sawdust!

My Douglas fir arrived last Tuesday and I've spent most of my time since, preparing bulkhead cleats and floor members. This is quite a lot more work than it really looked!

Firstly I had to plane all my wood, as I went for the cheap skate option of purchasing sawn timber, which saved me a fair bit of money.

It's been cold and damp all weekend, but tomorrow I hope to get some of the cleats epoxied to the bulkheads and might have them all finished by the end of the week. I've started to mark out the stem, but as yet haven't actually cut any wood for it. It's a big heavy chunk of lumber at the moment.

I bought the wood for my Chine logs at half thickness so that I can laminate the two bits together in situ. It was only when I came to measure and cut to length (they were too long to fit in my building shed!) that I realised just what a job it's going to be to fit them. I had read about others struggles bending them to shape, thinking that they were talking about the athwartship curvature. It was only when I laid them out against the side panels that I realised that following the rocker on the bottom is where the main problem is going to be!

I'm taking my time over things and trying not to rush. I keep reminding myself that one day I will be trusting my life to this little vessel, and I have only my own workmanship to blame if something fails. Saying that, to me everything seems to be heavily over spec'd.

Most useful tool purchased to date.

This little Stanley Surform has been really useful.

It really cuts through plywood like butter and is excellent for shaping the bulkhead cut outs and sides.

More progress this weekend.

With continuing good weather and a Bank Holiday weekend, more progress has been made. I sorted out my deck beam jig, and now have 5 beams completed with only 2 remaining. I've become quite slick at fabricating these after the first attempt, which had me covered in epoxy up to my elbows!


All the bulkheads and side panels have been marked and cut out, leaving me with a nice "kit" of parts for assembly.


Today I brought all the parts out onto the path and assembled a hull mock-up. I was pleasantly surprised to find that everything appeared to line up like it should do. Just the small matter now of finishing all the bulkhead cleats, floors etc., scarfing the side panels and I'll be ready for second trial assembly.

Real Sawdust!

Well I had a busy weekend, and real sawdust has finally hit the floor (and just about everywhere else).A lot of Saturday was spent scratching my head trying to fit Bulkhead 2, the transom, and the forward side panel onto one sheet. After lots of drawing and rubbing out, I decided the only way I was going to get it right was to cut out the bulkhead and transom first then make the other side panel and use that as a template for the "hard to fit sheet". I eventually managed all that (and boy was that a tight fit - not a single mm spare wood). So now at close of play Sunday I had Bulkhead 2 and the two forward side panels cut out. I also had partially cut out the Transom, but was unsure if the sides should have a slight curve or not. No dimensions were shown on the plans. I also have Bulkhead 3 and the 2 aft side panels marked and ready for the saw.
Tonight (Tuesday) I finished cutting out the transom (with curved sides) and ripped five 25mm strips of 9mm plywood for my first deck beam lamination.
I clamped the laminate to my jig, but on measuring I'm not happy with the final overall curvature. I decided not to glue up the beam tonight, and tomorrow I'll probably knock up a sturdier jig with the correct offsets. Shouldn't take long and it's better to get it right now before I waste wood and epoxy.