In view of the upcoming move to another location I started sorting out and cleaning my shed.
But first I had to get the boat outside. In the past one of my followers questioned the possibility of getting the boat through the doors. I had no doubts but anyway it was nice it went rather smoothly.
With the boat outside it was possible to assess the mess I had accumulated the last two years. You always keep cut offs of wood because you never know when these can be of use :-)
So first I started to sort out the stockpile of wood and ply. Quite some wood went to my neighbour for his woodburner. Monday I will go to the dump to get rid of assorted mess of plywood and old tins of paint etc.
Next task will be sorting out all hand tools and screws. Not finished yet....
Of course there was just not enough epoxy to finalize the front stem facing.
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to the epoxy shop. As it is a 50 km ride I also bought amongst others epoxy resin to seal the boat in the future.
After that I made the lamination.
This morning I got the lamination from the mold and did the first cleaning and shaping.
The test fit showed too lare a gap. I also checked the lamination with the full size drawing and that was a better fit.
Apparently somewhere in the process I have done something wrong with the stem shape.
After spot shaving and brute force the fit was sufficiently good to epoxy.
Sufficiently good is of course not good enough but what else to do. The good thing of epoxy is its gap filling properties.
Now waiting 24 hours to see the end result.
I am almost at the stage where I will not continue with the boat in view of my house move at the end of March. I think the boat is best transported on the jig.
So no festive hull turning yet.
Next step is getting through to drawings to establish what I can do with the remaining ply. So I will try to cut parts for the daggerboard case and floorboards.
I basically don't want to transport scrap. Thereafter it will be cleaning out the shed and start sorting out and packing tools. Will be interesting what I find. Although I have this shed for less than two years a person accumulates...
The aft stem facing came quite nice out of the jig.
Of course a lot of cleaning due to the squeeze out.
Thereafter further shaping with the block plane.
This picture shows the dry fit. I had to remove some material from the stem to get a better fit.
Next I fixed the stem facing with four screw in the stem. Arch Davis does further shaping in the vise but I decided to do that on the boat. For me it is difficult to clamp the stem sufficiently on the workbench.
After a bit of shaping with blockplane and and chisel I glued it on with a lot of epoxy for filling the gaps.
Tomorrow some further shaping. Maybe this weekend I will also make the front lamination but I am not sure I have enough epoxy left.
I would not call it dry today but dry enough to rip the laminations. First I cut a 350 cm long board to 45 mm width on my tablesaw. Next I cut 4 mm thick strips in two runs as my blade is no high enough to do it in one go. Also it will give less heat that could scorce the wood.
That worked reasonably well.
After cutting the strips to the required length I put the strips through the thickness planer to get them to 3 mm.
The blades of the planer need urgently some sharpening so the result was reasonable but not fantastic. But good enough for laminating I think.
Next I did a dry run on the mold.
Finally messing about with epoxy and putting the clamps on.
The outside temp is around 8 degrees C. The epoxy was stored inside the house so on high enough temperature. The electric heater is on for a few hours. Everything OK for good curing of the epoxy.
Tomorrow we will see the result.
As the mahogany test lamination was a disaster my plan was to remake them in red cedar.
I first checked and improved the jig.
My plan stopped there as I had to rip the red cedar but due to the length of the wood that has to be done al fresco.
Of course it started to rain so no ripping at the moment.
Therefore I continued cleaning my garden tools storage because we are moving out March 27. Two trips to the dump were the result. When you live for 20 years in a house you start to collect a lot of things "you could be needing in the future" but you almost never do and it is going to the dump when you leave.
Nothing done on the boat. Still too cold. Last week was dominated by the possibility of the "Elfstedentocht". (eleven city tour) That is an 200 km ice skating event along all 11 Frysian cities. It has not been done for a lot of years due to the mild climate. We were almost there but the ice was not good enough to get 16.000!!!! skaters safely around. As from Monday next temperatures will rise to above zero level during the day so: Peapod Here I Come.
Yesterday I went to the Boot Holland annual boat show. Not many woodenboats of course. One boat was interesting because it was built from Accoya. That is a treated wood. (see www.accoya.com) The guy who built the boat (www.roelofunderweis.eu) stated that the wood did not need any surface treatment and would keep its structural integrity for many years even underwater. Apparently the wood is much cheaper and lighter than hardwood.
Interesting concept.
We went today to our holiday home in the North. Picture pretty landscape and a lot of skaters. (not in the picture by the way)
The white behind the flagpole is the ice.
Grandson Taeke on exploration.
Just wanted to show we have to suffer a lot :-)
Yesterday was the coldest day since they started to record meteo data in the Netherlands. Road and rail traffic were a complete disaster.
My neighbour asked me to keep her warm so I lend her the electric heater from my shop.
Now my guilt that I don't work on the boat at the moment has disappeared. Just have to wait until the heater is returned.
Nothing done on the boat. In the first place it is subzero (in centigrade) and it is an effort to heat up my shed to be comfortable. Second and more important: I was in a bidding process to buy another house. That took some concentration and energy.
Luckily yesterday evening we came to an agreement with sellers. So a lot to look forward to. The new house has a double garage plus a workspace so the whole could be perfect for my boatbuilding.
We have to leave our present home at the end of March so a lot of packing and sorting to do. And I want to finish most of the outside hull of the Peapod. Both stem facings in place and the hull cleaned and sanded. Wait and see.
Our new home will be available at the end of June and some refurbishing has to be done. Consequently we will live for almost half a year in our holiday home up North. And in Spring and Summer that is a perfect place to be on the waterfront!
At the moment you can skate there on the ice!
