Tonight we have our family dinner at my eldest daughter and her husband. The two other girls with partner and grandson are already early at our home to later drive together to the dinner. So not much time available to spend on the boat.
I could give my chisels and planes the somewhat overdue sharpening. Planing plywood dulls them out quicker than you think.
Also test fitted the long part of the 3rd plank.
Maybe tomorrow some time can be spend on the boat to get some more progress.
Progress is needed because yesterday we accepted an offer on our house. For some time we were thinking of moving more to the east of the country for a more relaxed living environment. But when a offer comes in it is a major decision to accept.
So I have to leave my beloved shed at the end of March. As we have no other place yet we will probably move temporarily to our holiday home at the lakes in the north. At least the hull has to be ready by then.
Today cleaned the hull from epoxy stains and epoxy squeeze-out with a heat gun.
It takes some elbow grease but the result is rewarding.
Next step was cleaning the shed. After a while there are a lot of wood shavings on the floor and tools are spread everywhere. A clean working space contributes to a better product. My wife will be laughing when she reads this as my office/den is often a mess.
Let's hope it is possible to put on the next plank before X-mas.
As planned I fine tuned the plank and glued it on.
It starts to look like a boat now.
As can been seen from the photo I am a bit messy with the epoxy.
As the outside temp is just above freezing point I have to use the electric fan heater to get the shed at 15 degrees C for curing the epoxy.
This heater is very effective. I keep it running now after gluing on just 600 watt and switch it of after 2 or 3 hours. The curing will be started then and as the curing is an exothermic process, as far as I know, the heat will not be a problem. The end result until now is fine.
The coming week I will do some cleaning of the hull and the shed. Maybe I will also start on the next plank. Who knows...
Today I continued were I left it a few days ago.
The other part of the second plank was scarfed, trimmed and fine tuned....
.... and glued to the boat.
Tried another way of clamping the scarf joint with a piece of plywood, nicely protected with plastic tape, screwed on the joint. On top of that a block of wood on top and also under the scarf with a clamp.
The epoxy squeeze out was used to fill some screw holes.
The other second plank was already copied on a piece of plywood and cut to the raw size.
Subsequently I made the bevel and both gains. As always the gain is the tricky part.
The stringer was laying better than the other side so less planing needed.
Tomorrow I plan to glue the other plank
The first plank (the garboard) was relatively easy. For the next planks a gain has to be cut and a lot of bevelling is necessary. Cutting the gain where the next plank lies at the stem took some time. Apparently my chisels were not sharp enough to make a clean cut so I had to sharpen them. As I have no real rabbet plane I had to work around a bit. In the end the gains came out acceptable. The stringers needed a lot of bevelling. Due to the curvature of the stringer it is not positioned flat enough on the molds.
Next step was marking a piece of plywood to get the right form.
The Boss made a visit to the shed to check on the progress and to check I did not cut my fingers...
After cutting the plank with my jigsaw the finished product needed some corrective action. Especially getting a nice inner curve took some time with the spokeshave.
Contrary to the previous plank this time I only glued the first part of the plank on the boat. Of course the scarf is already prepared.
Next step is to make the second part of the plank and glue it to the boat. And afterwards do the same procedure for the other side of the hull.
Today all fog in my head caused by the flu had gone. Or were it caused by yesterdays "healthy" epoxy fumes? Anyhow it was a nice day to get some progress.
The fitting of the second garboard went relatively smooth as I had copied the outlines of the first garboard before putting them on.
Still some fine tuning to do as apparently both garboards are not 100% identical. How come? :-)
Clamping the scarf of the second garboard proofed to be a little complicated.
The way I did the clamping on the first plank could not be used for the second as the other plank was blocking the clamp.
I used a windlass contraption to get pressure on the scarf. For the next planks I have to think of something less complicated.
After Saint Nicholas I suffered from a bad flu. Not done anything usefull for a few days but changing the router and splitter on my internet connection. As usual getting it running again was a problem. In the end the old trick of a hard reset by switching the power of made all the difference. When will anything with computers become a mature business?
Today the fog in my head started to get away and I only needed to blow my nose every half hour so back to the shed.
I finished scarfing both parts of the first garboard and did a dry fit. A few minor adjustments and ready fot the epoxy.
I use epoxy with already a filler in it. It should be mixed with harder 2 : 1 on weight for which I use a small electronic scale.
As always applying epoxy is a messy affair.
The plank is scarfed on the boat. First time I do it that way. The scarf is extra clamped. Of course the wood I use to put the pressure on the scarf is covered with plastic to avoid gluing them to the boat (I hope).
As can be seen on the picture there are epoxy stains on the plywood. It seems to be impossible for me to avoid that. Removing the squeeze-out epoxy is the main culprit.
The electric heater is blowing in my shed to get a 15 degree C for curing.
Tomorrow we will see the result and will continue with the other garboard.
Although not yet December 5, Saint Nicholas did visit our house tonight with a lot of presents for all.
Now I can disclose my side project of the last week. I built a paddle for the aluminium ( sometimes you have to be practical..) outboard powered sloop of my eldest daughter and her husband. It is laminated from red cedar and mahogany. Finishing is done with Deks Olje 1 and two layers of Deks2. Another layer of Deks 2 will be necessary but there was not enough time to do it. So the present includes a small bottle of Deks2.
After the weekend more time will be spent on the Peapod.
This week not much work will be done on the Peapod. One of the reasons is Sinterklaas, (St Nicholas) the traditional Dutch Winter holiday figure who brings presents to childern on December 5th. Although the Netherlands are a small country bringing presents to all children is a big task so all parents are "helping" him. My adult daughters still come home every year with their husbands for the celebration. Traditionally gifts should be accompanied by witty "poems" that make a fool of the person that gets a present. So a lot of work to do.
Back to business. I cut the first banana shaped garboard with my jigsaw and made a test fit on the boat. As the ply is 244 cm long a scarf joint should be made to lengthen the plank. On the picture I am making that scarf. It is not finished yet and I am not yet happy with the process. Maybe I will make a test scarf before continuing with the real one. Also sharpening of the block plane will help.
Although other things consume more time than anticipated I managed to bevel the keel today.
The garboard stringers also needed attention as they not always lay nicely on the molds.
The masking tape is on for easier removal of epoxy squeeze out.
Next step will be marking the first plank (although calling a piece of plywood a plank....) but that will be at the end of the week.
This morning the epoxy for the stringers was nicely cured. As now the backbone is stable I could remove the ends of the strongback to be able put on the seat risers. Removing the ends was a little more work than anticipated as I could not reach most screws anymore with the cordless as stringers were now somewhat blocking access. So back to the old manual gear to get them out.
Next step was getting the seat risers on. Learning from the advice of Arch I planed them down a bit more. After that they went on well. Just a little shortcut while sawing one end gave a less than perfect fit but nothing that epoxy could not fix. Lesson again not to make shortcuts.....
Again the heater on for curing.
The coming days I have some other things to attend to but will try to start with bevelling the keel and the garboard stringers to accept the first plank.
Start looking like a boat isn't it?
As I was a little low due to my stringer problem I decided to send an email to Arch Davis to ask his advise. Considering the difference in time zone and the fact it was in the weekend he answered very quickly. Arch had no experience with red cedar for this application but he advised me amongst others to plane the stringers down 2 mm to make bending easier and not to twist the stringers completely and accept that the stringers will need some fairing and bevelling before planking.
I also looked in back issues of WoodenBoat for articles on the subject. There was one in WB 129, page 99 (1996) on bending wood with dry heat. So I also applied a heatgun (paint stripper) to help the bending and twisting.
In the end I was able to get the garboard stringers on. Not 100% neat but sufficient to be workable.
Next thing to do was gluing the stringers and sheers to the stems with epoxy. As the ambient temperature is 4 centigrade at the moment I had to use my electric heater to get temperature sufficent high for curing. Nice messy job.
I had to unscrew every stringer end, put epoxy on it and screw it back on. In the end my cordless drill/screwdriver is now epoxy coated.
If the epoxy is sufficiently cured tomorrow I will remove the front and end pieces of the strongback to be able to get the seatrisers on. As they are not very curved I don't expect any problems but you never know......
Today I managed to get most stringers fixed on the molds. "Most" implies of course "not all". The garboard stringer proves to be the hardest although also on others bending sometimes resulted in splitting or cracking. Most of the time the stringer had enough length ot try once more. The last garboard stringer had to be remade. Apparently red cedar has some bending problems. Another reason can be that the ambient humidity is low at the moment. Tomorrow I will give it another try using hot towels to facilitate bending. Keep you posted!
My objective to put all stringers and sheers on the molds was over ambitious.
Of course there were again other priorities like going to the gym and getting a haircut. But also the red cedar wanted to show it was "living material". When I put the first sheer on the molds I saw a minimal irregularity in the wood. Nothing to panic until I bent it very slowly to the stem and just at the end it broke.
Consequently I had again to rip a board and plane it to the right thickness.
This time the sheer could be fastened to the molds in the right way.
That was not yet the end of the misery. I had screwed the second sheer to the first stem and wanted to prepare the it for the second stem. But alas, there was a lot of tension on the sheer and one of the clamps fell of resulting in a chain reaction at the other clamps. The first screw could not hold this "explosion" and the sheer did split at that point. Back to the old saw and plainer to make again another sheer.
Luckily that was the end of the disaster. The second sheer went on well.
To continue I first had to round two corners of the stringers on the routertable. Some manual sanding gave the finishing touch.
To finish I just clamped the first stringer on the molds and called it the day.
Not much progress the last two days. Other priorities.
Worked a bit on a side project. Had to laminate some mahogany and red cedar resulting in the normal epoxy mess. Outside it is between zero and 6 degrees C. Maybe slightly higher in my shed. So I had to bring it inside the house to cure. Maybe I should buy a hardener that cures at lower temperature.
I was planning to put the stringers and sheerstrake on the molds but had an itchy feeling about it so I checked the drawings and luckily found a mistake.
As mentioned in an earlier blog entry I had ripped the sheerstrake under an angle. Mistake! The angle is needed on the rubrails (outside of the planking) but not on the sheerstrake (inside of the planking). Just in time. So now I had to rip another board and plane it to the right thickness.
Present planning is to put the sheers and stringers on the molds tomorrow. Let's hope there are no more surprises.
Today is my birthday. Yesterday my daughters plus their husbands / boyfriend came for a surprise dinner. Also their gift, a very nice bench vise was much appreciated.
Not much work done today. First planed down one board from 20 to 16 mm.
Next I ripped this board under an angle for the sheer and straight for the stringers.
Bit difficult to handle the 4 meter board on my own.
I clamped one stringer to the backbone what was rather more difficult than expected. Maybe western red cedar does not bend that well.
Tomorrow is an other day. Let's party.
Yesterday I continued with cleaning, marking and bevelling both stems.
First of course I did cut the plugs flush and removed the rest of the epoxy stains.
Marking is a precise proces. Especially the flip side where you have to copy from the other side. In the end the result was not too bad.
Next step was to put a stem in the bench vise and start cutting with the block plane. A nice and satisfying job. Of course after planing remarking various lines is necessary.
Afterwards I did rip a long board on the table saw to get the keel. Arch specifies 3/4''(= 19 mm) and my western red cedar board is 20 mm. I did not bother with that 1 mm difference. It is within my own accuracy. Handling a 4+ meter long board on my own was a bit tricky to keep the board fixed against the straight edge of the tablesaw.
This job was done al fresco as you cannot rip a 4 meter board in a 4.75 meter shed.
I put afterwards the blade of the table saw to a 11 degree angle to cut a preliminary bevel. It was a bit experimenting to get the cut ending near the middle of the keel. As you can see I stayed a bit on the safe side.
Finally I put both stems and the keel on the strongback and screwed them together. I also put screws through the cleats on the molds into the keel for a good fixed positioning. These last screws are of course temporarily.
Next step is to rip the stringers, seat risers and sheerstrakes. These longitudinals are specified with a thickness of 5/8'' (= 16 mm) so I will have to plane the stock to that dimension. No cutting corners here. As my portable planer is somewhere else I cannot continue before Monday next. I will use part of the time in between to clean out the mess in my shed. Although the Maine Peapod is a small boat, it takes up a lot of space in a small shed.....
Before my grandson arrived I tried to flush trim both stems on the router table. I was not satisfied with the result so I stopped and decided to do further trimming manually with a spokeshave and a blockplane.
In the mean time grandson Taeke came looking what his granddad was doing but shifted attention when grandma came with cookies.
For right positioning while gluing I had put screws through the stem halves. As I had put these screws were they could be visible after bevelling (case of doing before thinking) I decided to plug the screw holes so I cut some plugs on my drillpress and glued them in the holes.
Tomorrow after curing we will see if we can make a nice flat surface. The following step will be to mark the stems for bevelling and alligning.
Today I went to Enkhuizen to the Klassieke Schepen Beurs (Classic Boat Show).
On the opening day there was already a nice crowd. Promising for the weekend!
Of course I visited the traditional smoked herring booth. Delicious!
An example of a traditional Dutch yacht at the show.
I also drove by PolyService, the epoxy shop in Amsterdam to get a few tins of the stuff. Back home I couldn't wait to glue both stems together.
We are blessed at the moment with relative high temparatures so the curing temperature of 15 Centigrade will not be to much of a problem. That will change the coming week I expect.
This weekend my first grandson is visiting so not much progress on the Peapod.
Today I tried to construct a router table. Not a very fancy one but at least one to flush trim the stems. Issue with a router table is always the way to adjust the height of the router bit. My router is a cheap one and the movement of the base to adjust the height is not easy and that is an understatement. As a fancy heightadjustmentmechanism ( triple score with Scrabble?) is not an option I did it the crude way with a piece of wood clamped below the router and some blocks between to get to the right height. Good enough for the flush trim.
For rounding the sheerstrakes in the future I will have to make some adjustments.
Looking forward to the Classic Boat show tomorrow.
Today I cut the first piece of western red cedar with my jigsaw. All four stems that were pricked out yesterday came out nice. My shed was filled with the smell of cedar. And of course a lot of fine wood dust that I put into as glass jar for future use as a color filler for epoxy.
Four stems with a double ender? Yes, that is correct. Both the forward and the aft stem are made of two pieces of 20 mm glued together to get a 40 mm stem. One of each I cut out as accurate as possible.
The other half will be made to the right shape on the router table after they are glued together with epoxy. The only slight problem is that I have a router but not a router table so I will try to construct one. Nice job for tomorrow.
Friday I will go to the Dutch Classic Boat show in Enkhuizen and on the way back I will get a few tins of epoxy in Amsterdam.
One of the stem halfs I put on the jig just for fun. Start to look like something isn't?
This morning I went to the "Arnhemse Fijnhouthandel" (Arnhem Specialty Woods) to get the solid wood and ply for the Peapod. Just an hour driving from my home.
AF staffmember Ton Hendrikx was very helpfull in finding the right pieces of 20 mm Western Red Cedar. I bought 2 pieces 252 x 4250 mm and 3 pieces of 292 x 3650 mm. These are all net dimensions. Later I will need some extra wood for thwarts, seats and seatbeams but for the moment this was enough monetary outlay and weight to transport on the roof of my car. I also bought 3 sheets of best quality 4 mm Okoume ply which were cut in smaller width as per my specification. Let's hope I specified right....
It was a puzzle to get the wood in my shed. To finalize the working day I pricked out the fwd and aft stem on the wood and will cut them tomorrow with the jigsaw.
.
