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.
