Cutting Bulkheads and a first lamination

So another slow day at work.  Unseasonably warm in Portland right now, and the furnace Biz just isn't that bizzy.

I stopped by the home depot and picked up some warm tubes of PL Premium 3X, the stoutest caulking gun I could find and bought a few more clamps.

Got back to the house and slapped the last piece of ply I'd already bought up onto the sawhorses and cut out all of the blanks for the permanent bulkheads and the transom.  I took the measurements for the heights off the side panels instead of the plans, and everything was within 1/8".  God that's a good feeling.

I had a little energy left not to mention warm glue and a new gun to put it in, so i cut out the leeboard halves and glued them up.  The leeboard is 60" x 20",  and i was interested to see him many tubes i'd burn.  I'm still wondering what i want to use between the two layers of bottom, that's acres of glue area.  I started by cutting open the tube I'd hacksawed and used a squeegee to spread was was @ 1/3 of a tube on.  Not even close to enough.  Grabbed a new tube, stuff it in the new gun and whack the end off full diameter for maximum splooge.  did a lap all the way around the perimeter, the a second lap inside of that one.  Broke out the squeegee again and did some more spreading and got a nice 3" band well saturated on the perimeter.  had a nice 4" side stripe down the middles as well.  Called it good enough and clamped her up.

Called it a day.  I'm going to end up glassing the edges anyway, only fear is water getting into where there's no glue.  Not that much of a fear, It would be really easy to whip out a new leeboard if this one fails somehow.  

I AM wondering what I'm going to use for a bottom lamination.  the bottom is 3 times as long and roughly twice as wide.  Need to fine something fairly strong and idiot proof that also is somewhat water proof and doesn't require loads of clamping pressure.

Minor work interruption this Tuesday

So I get done with my appointments and I'm headed home for lunch and a little work on the boat.  I stop for a right hand turn and wait for a lady and her stroller to get out of the crosswalk.  next thing i know WHAM and I'm rolling at the stroller.  Slam on my breaks and pray i was quick enough.  Thankfully I was.  Some woman in Lala Land had ass ended me with a 4WD diesel F350.

Luckily no one was actually hurt.  I spent the rest of the day talking to insurance companies, unloading the truck, getting a tow company etc.  Barely a ding in the F350's bumper.

The silly crap that interfere's with getting a boat done.

Shoulda warmed up the tubes

So I got done with what I "had" to do at work early today.  Sun was out, day unusually warm for January in NW Oregon.  Stopped by Winks hardware ( One of those good old fashioned hardware stores.  You take a number like at the DMV, tell the counter person what you need, and they fly into the racks and bring back exactly what you need, almost every time), bought a pound of bronze 1-1/4" ring shanked nails, and ran home to butt my panels together.

I'm using some nice 5 ply 7/8" plywood I had laying around the shop for the butt blocks.  I cut them to length, beveled the exposed corners fore and aft.  I marked a centerline and the 4" intervals, and started the ring nails in the blocks roughly center between the butt and the edge on each side off the butt.

Broke out a tube of PL premium, stuffed it in the gun and buttered the edge of the boat side in the butt.  spread it with a putty knife, then butted them up and lined them up.  Walked over to the first butt block, and started laying down glue.  Gun started "stripping gears" 6" into the first bead.  Several"expletives deleted", grabbed the hack saw, cut off the end and started bobbing it out with a putty knife.  got the first one buttered, took it over and carefully lined it up and hammered all of the nails home.  got about 1/4 of the way buttering the second one, hacksawed another tube to finish and nailed down the second butt.

I had @ 2/3 of the second tube left, so I took a vinyl glove and sucked it over the end.  If it doesn't work, I'm only out @ $3.00.  general cleaned up a bit and gave the glue some some to squeeze out of the joints.  ran down the edges to get most of the excess, waged my hands and shut the shop down.  I'll got out tomorrow night and stand the halves up, check out the back side of the joints and butt the two sides together to see how well i kept my alignment.

In the picture below, you'll see I ran a continuous strap from the interior framing of the cabin top right flue to the bottom.  According to the plans the chine log and sheer stringer are interior, and I should have notched for those.  I made the executive decision to move them to the outside of the boat (Like a proper Michalak design) and make my life much easier. This also means they'll "sandwich" the butt with the block from bottom to sheer.

2 lessons learned.

1)  keep your tubes warm.

2) don't buy cheap calking guns.

Pays to read the fine print

So here I am assuming that the boat is designed at 48" wide.  Closer inspection of the plans and bulkhead dimensions reveal the fact that the width of the temporary mold at the widest point is only 45".  Add an inch for the 1/2" ply on each side, and you have an O.D. of 46".  There's a whole 1" of ply on each side to spare, so the chine logs can easily go to the outside at no extra cost and a lot of labor and headache savings.  I could actually do this with the sheer stringer as well, let and the butt strap be continuous from the bottom to the framing for the cabin top.  This would sure make it easier to bend the ply around the bulkhead as both log chine and sheer could be installed AFTER the boat goes 3D, and saves me 8 notches to fit.  I'll also have my butt joint "clamped" at two good spots.

Owner design modification #1 has been self approved :-)

Fore sections curt and ready to butt

The fore sections came out just as nice as the aft sections.  I can finally see a whole profile.  Gracie, my Girlfriend in the picture is 5'4" tall.

I put everything flat on the floor so see how it squares up/lines up.  I couldn't be happier.

Bottoms line up, tops line up, lines for the sheer stringers line up.  Just have to get some proper 1-1/4" fasteners and I can glue/nail the ends together with the butt blocks.  i have some nice dense 5 layer 7/8" ply that I'm going to make 5-1/2" wide butt blocks out of.

After that, clamp the sides back to bad again, clean up the curves on the bottom and start making bulkheads.

I'm seriously considering buying enough extra ply to go to exterior chine logs.  It simplifies so much, and is a lot more failsafe baking up the butt join on the ply.  The boat is a bull 48" aide as designed. so I'd have to narrow it 1.5" if I don't buy the extra ply.  that messes with more than one bulkhead width and the angle of the stem.  It's only money, right?

The Aft sections have been cut

So I got done working and the dog around the block in time to head out and run the saw for a bit.  I double checked my layout and angle on my saw, made one more lap with the flat hammer to align the sheets and shot the screws to keep them aligned.  Pulled the trigger and about 20 minted later had made all of my cuts.  I had one inside angle (where the aft of the cabin meets the sheer) I had to finish will my little pull saw to avoid an over cut with the skill saw.  I love that little saw, it really lets me crowd the lines with very little fear of going over.  it's got plenty of power to go through the 1" of plywood it had to cut.

Here's the end product.  this is the "down" side that had me wondering about the angle of my saw and the quality of my layout.

I'm thrilled.  I had almost the exact saw clearance to the lines, and didn't cross inside of them on either piece.  Well, cutting the curve of the bottom i took out the line more than i wanted, but I'm going to be VERY close to the curve that Jim drew.  I might end up robbing 1/4" of inside vertical clearance sanding the curve fair.  This assumes i do as well on the forward half later today/this evening.

I set up my old HI8 tape video camcorder to record the process.  Turns out all of my current computers are too new to talk to it.  I'll have to abscond with my old Toshiba laptop I've been letting our shop foreman use on his bench to get the video uploaded.  I should have that done by this weekend for any other Newbie boat builders to see how quick and easy this was with the right saw.  The trick is very careful layout and alignment.  measure 6 times, cut once :-)

GETTING READY TO CUT

So I've laid the two aft side panels onto some junk 2x4 on the floor.  Grabbed my little 4.5" diameter porter cable skill saw and started fussing to try to get it at a dead on 90 degree cut.  The gauges on these tools are worthless, you really need to break out a square and measure to the side of the tooth, not the meat of the blade.

I think I have it pretty well set, but I'll do a test cut on some scrap before tearing into my boat.   Second thing I need to do is get the panels perfectly lined up.  My Sheetmetal hammer has nice flat sides and works well for this.  About 12 laps around the two sheets going "tappity-tap-tap" and I think I pretty well have it there.  I'll shoot 1"drywall screws through areas like where the window cutouts will be and where bulk heads and chine logs are landing to make sure the finished work stays aligned.

First I'm gonna have to go walk the dog in the rain though.