~MENU~

Archives Menu     Main Project Menu

January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December

Even though, to the untrained eye, it could appear that I got very little done this week, in actuality I made great strides forward.  At the end of last week I thought I was ready to dive right in, but I discovered shortly thereafter that I had many things to think about, and many decisions to make before I could truly install anything in the bare hull.

Monday turned into an errand and ordering day, and office catch-up.  I ordered a substantial amount of Honduras mahogany for the boat--100 board feet, to be used for deck framing, sheer clamp, and interior/exterior trim and finish work as necessary.  Whether this is too much or too little remains to be seen, as my order was not based on any precise calculation.  But mahogany has myriad uses for all things boat-related, so it will not go to waste whatever the case.  I also ordered 8 sheets of marine Meranti plywood for the bulkheads.  I had hoped to get delivery by midweek, but unfortunately the deliveries to my area occur only on Fridays, so I was forced to wait until then.  Whether or not the lack of actual materials slowed me down or not remains an unanswered question, but as it turned out I had plenty to do before I needed the wood anyway.

With Monday essentially wasted, at least as far as accomplishing anything actually on the boat, I hoped Tuesday would bring more tangible results.  Again, I found myself stuck in my office trying to catch up on the usual stuff for most of the morning, but in the afternoon I got to work readying things for the bulkheads.  

My first order of business was to level the hull in both directions--longitudinal and athwartships.  Getting the boat as nearly level as practicable was crucial for at least the initial steps and installation of the first bulkhead; once one bulkhead is installed and known to be plumb and level, all other structural components can be measured off the known quantity, so if the hull should change position later it is less important.  I used a water level to level the hull; I didn't have one, so I made one, which turned into a silly waste of time that nearly 3 hours.  But in the end I succeeded.

Read more about leveling the hull by clicking here.

Next, I continued with some general layout and planning as a sort of continuation of my activities from the week before.  Consulting my very basic hull and framing plan, I took some scale measurements of the two main bulkheads--one in way of the mast step and eventual chainplate locations, the other forming the forward bulkhead demarking the end of the cockpit and the beginning of what will become the shelter cabin.  I measured down the centerline of my plan to get a straight-line measurement, and also drew in some angled lines from the stem to the intersection of hull and bulkhead on the plan, and took scale measurements from there.  I double checked my mast location with some stock Triton drawings that I had, since I'm not intending to change its basic location.  With these basic measurements at hand, I began layout of these two bulkheads on the actual hull, marking and installing a cross beam that would help with positioning the actual bulkheads.  This whole process ended up taking the rest of Tuesday afternoon.

Click here to read more about the initial bulkhead measuring and layout.

With the basic layout complete, it was time to work on templating the bulkheads.  But this is where things came to a screeching slowdown.  Wednesday was my birthday, and for a variety of reasons I couldn't get out to the shop to begin work until nearly noontime.  Sitting in the hull and pondering for what seemed and eternity, I made a number of critical decisions about the forward most bulkhead--the one in way of the mast step, and to which the chainplates will eventually be installed.  It took me the rest of the day to decide on a number of key issues surrounding this bulkhead, and to create a basic cardboard template that allowed me to better visualize what I was thinking.

See more about the thought process and initial template here.

I spent all of Thursday attempting to turn my initial, rough template into a working pattern to use for cutting out the real bulkhead.  I tried a couple different templating methods with frustrating lack of acceptable success before finally returning to what I should have just done in the first place--templating using a tick strip.  But by the end of the day, I had a final tick-stripped template ready for each half of the chainplate bulkhead, and was ready for action when Friday's scheduled wood delivery arrived.

Click here to see a sidebar on the tick strip method. 

Friday, my wood arrived, and I wasted no time getting the seemingly huge amount of material stored around the shop, and then creating the chainplate bulkheads.  By the end of the day, I had both halves of the chainplate bulkhead cut and tacked in place.

Click here to read my detailed account of the final bulkhead fitting and installation.

By the end of Saturday, I had the second (cabin/cockpit) bulkhead located and cut to fit.  This bulkhead is so large that it needs to be pieced together from several sheets of plywood, so what I chose to do was to laminate it from two layers of 3/8" Meranti, for the total thickness of 3/4".  Details on the fitting and construction will follow next week, but the photo shows a sneak preview of things to come.  Eventually, this bulkhead will run to the keel, and above the cross beam to a height suitable for forming the aft end of the shelter cabin.

Busy week!  Hope you enjoyed the progress--I sure did!

Monday, I picked up where I left off on Saturday.  My goal for the day was to finish the fabrication of the second bulkhead, and to get the multiple pieces cut, shaped, and epoxied together so that they could cure overnight, allowing me to continue work on Tuesday.  Other commitments kept me from the shop until nearly noon, but in a very busy afternoon, I still managed to get the bulkhead cut and glued, down on the shop floor.  I turned the heat up to 70 in the shop overnight (I usually keep it at 60 night and day) to help ensure the epoxy would cure sufficiently to allow work to continue on the bulkhead the next day.

Tuesday morning, the laminated bulkhead was ready for use, and I spent some time sanding off the excess epoxy and doing some final shaping before lugging it into the boat with great effort.  By the end of the day, it was tacked in place.

Click here to see more information about building and installing the second bulkhead.

Wednesday, I began work on the final set of bulkheads--a small pair back aft, about six feet behind the mid bulkhead.  These particular bulkheads  will eventually form part of the support for the cockpit sole and sides, and the sidedecks aft.  I wanted to get them tacked in place, even though at the time I didn't know exactly where the cockpit sole or sidedeck was going to end up.  So I left the bulkhead oversized in all directions, for trimming later.  Shaping and installing these bulkheads was a cinch after the massive middle bulkhead, and I used the same tick strip method for templating, much as I did before.  

Click here to see the third set of bulkheads going in.

On Thursday, I began by removing the beam and supports for the third bulkhead installation, and then spent a couple hours finishing off the foam fillets on all the bulkheads with thickened epoxy, to make the smoothest possible transition between the bulkheads, foam, and hull.  I did this in preparation for my planned tabbing installation on Friday, though I was waiting for some 12" fiberglass tape to arrive first.

Read more about the fillets here.

On Friday and Saturday, in two separate laminating sessions of about 2 hours apiece, I installed the bulk of the tabbing on the new bulkheads.  A small amount of tabbing remains undone--the upper portions of each bulkhead, where they meet the hull, will eventually be incorporated with and glassed to the wooden sheer clamp (which supports the deck beams), so I left these areas untouched.  Also, the lowest portion of the large amidships bulkhead  required some additional work before being ready for tabbing, so I also left this undone for the moment.

Click here to read all about the fun you missed by not being here when I installed the tabbing.

Where do the weeks go?  Once more, the week flew by, with less visible progress than last week, but still with many significant steps towards the ultimate goal.   The bulkheads were one of those things that goes fast, and marks an immediate and satisfying amount of progress from a visual standpoint.  Other steps, like many of those taken this week, are not as satisfying or immediately apparent, but are every bit as time consuming and just as important to the overall process.

My first step on Monday afternoon (after another morning involved in other things, sadly) was to sand the newly installed tabbing to remove any sharp edges and to prepare the surface for whatever steps come next.  Before sanding, I scrubbed the cured tabbing with a Scotch-Brite pad and water, in case any Amine Blush had formed.  Better safe than sorry, and the washing is an easy step.  I sanded all the tabbing with my random orbit sander equipped with 40 grit discs, and only sanded as much as was necessary to remove the sharp corners and to scuff the entire surface.  Amazingly, this ate up most of the afternoon, but I had enough time to begin work on the lower portion of the mid bulkhead and the limbers there.  I spent more time on Wednesday tabbing the lower portion of the bulkhead.

Click here to read more about the bilge and limbers.

See more about the layout process by clicking here.

Click here for more about the deck beam design and construction.

Click here for more detail about locating the sheer clamp.

Monday morning, I began by gluing up another deck beam--what is becoming a daily ritual.  A beam a day; at this rate, I'll have all the beams for the foredeck done and ready to start fitting later in the week.

During the rest of Monday, I permanently installed the forwardmost sections of the sheer clamp on both sides of the bow.  Last week, I measured and located the rough positions of the clamps, and now it was time to install them permanently.  After successfully installing the two bow sections of the clamp on Monday, I continued with the remaining clamp sections during Wednesday and Thursday, completing the job.

Click here to read about installing the sheer clamp.

All the while, I continued gluing up deck beams for the foredeck area, one per day.  I glued my last one on Thursday, so Friday morning I began by cleaning up the six beams, running them through my planer to remove glue spillout and to straighten any minor unevenness between the laminations.  I discovered that somehow I had cut all the strips to only 1-7/8" in width, rather than 2-1/8" (see last week's log), so I was careful not to reduce their thickness much further when planing them smooth.  I must have thought I was moving the table saw fence to the right and instead moved it to the left when I cut the strips earlier.  Fortunately, the beams are still plenty wide, but it was still an irritating mistake on my part.  With the first six beams planed smooth, I began fitting them for final installation.  I thought I would get further with this job on Friday, but it ended up taking much more time than I thought to work out the first beam (mostly from my inexperience, but also because of some complex cuts).  Still, by the end of Friday I had fitted three of the six beams, with the first one taking several hours to get right, and the second two going much more quickly and more smoothly.  I expect to have no trouble fitting the last three full-length beams the next time I get out there.

Read more about the deck beams here.

Thursday afternoon, after I completed the sheer clamp, I turned to the bulkheads once more, and trimmed them to their proper and final (more or less) sizes.  This made a marked difference to the appearance of the boat, and provided a strong psychological boost as well.

Click here to see the result.

I had other business that kept me away from the shop until Thursday afternoon; in fact, by then it had been six days since I had last done any work of consequence on the boat.  I began by picking up with the deck beams where I left off last Friday, but as I looked at the next beam in the line I puzzled over how to make the cuts again, since I had just been getting the hang of it last week and it still didn't come naturally.  Consequently, I made an error on the first one I cut, and ended up cutting it too short on each end.  All the other cuts were correct, but I had marked the end cut wrong.  Rats!  I knew better, and the cuts hadn't felt right, but I just couldn't put my finger on what was wrong until the damage was done.

The incorrect cut did highlight what my error was, and I breezed through the next three beams without further incident, completing the rough fitting of the foredeck beams.  To replace the short beam, I laminated a new section at the end of the day, so that it would be ready on Friday morning.

I noticed that last week's log incorrectly stated that I fitted three beams before the update; what I actually did was fit the first two, and marked out the third beam, though I didn't cut it.  As I wrote the log I had convinced myself that I had done the third one, but in fact this is the one that I messed up as described in the above paragraph.

Continue to March>