Mast step

This morning I woke up with the brain wave that I had not yet made a mast step for my Peapod.  For the mast step the forward stem should be reinforced. Therefore it had been better for me to do that before planking. In that stage the reinforcement pieces could have been bevelled to the right shape to receive the planking.

Now  I made two pieces of red cedar and sculped them to fit against both sides of the stem. As the fit with the inside of the garboard could not be perfect I installed them with an overdose of epoxy.

Additional I epoxied a piece of red cedar on top of the stem and reinforcement pieces. Later I will drill a 32 mm hole where the mast foot should come.

Next tasks will be gluing the aft breasthook and further cleaning the inside.

First breasthook is in

After a good night rest I continued to get the breasthooks right.  The western red cedar is not an easy wood as it splinters easily.


I decided to use my old stationary belt sander for further shaping and that was a good decision.

After a bit of sculpting the fit was quite acceptable.

After extra cleaning at the bow side I first made a "crown" on the breasthook with again the belt sander and subsequently glued and screwd the bow breasthook in place.

When the glue is set some final sanding is necessary but that is the next step.

Hopefully tomorrow the aft side is clean enough and the aft breasthook can also be placed.

Cleaning the inside

Cleaning the inside is a nasty job.  As stated in previous blogs I am a bit messy with epoxy.  My wife would state that the same applies to food. Most of my sweaters have food stains.  In a previous life the same applied to ties.

My principle with epoxy is that there should be enough epoxy used to get a nice squeeze out.

Of course that implies that after clamping you have to clean the surfaces.
The problem however in my previous shed was that it was small and stuff was stored under the boat. As a consequence the underside (inside when you build wrong side up) was not very well cleaned.  Learning moment for the next project.

The cleaning is done with a scraper and heatgun but I don't want to weaken the joints so also a lot has to be done with sanding.

I am now halfway with cleaning and to get some fun back into boatbuilding I started with the breasthooks. The two breasthooks were roughly cut from red cedar on the table saw.

After that I measured the various bevels with a bevel gauge and transferred them to the breasthooks.

Cutting the angles was done with a jig saw.Doing it on the table saw is too dangerous for my fingers and I don't have a band saw. Even with my DeWalt it is difficult to cut a perfect angle. So some adjusting is needed.  Until now the fit is not good enough.  Continuing tomorrow.

An amazing day

Today I planned to start again on the Maine Peapod. The junk from my previous workshop has been somewhat distributed around the boathouse at my holiday home to get working space.  Furthermore I did made countermolds for the stations #4 and #8 as boat rests.

My wife helped me to turn the hull and place it on the countermolds.




The previous weeks I have done some minor work on my Galloway Faering (an Iain Oughtred design).  You can see it on this picture to the right side.

I removed the aft thwart and replaced it by an oak bar with a mahogany backrest.  The original back thwart was too wobbly for me and I like to sit on the floors when I am sailing. Don't think Iain would approve but I have to use it....


After lunch the phone rang. Our "middle"  daughter (we got three) called to tell us that her baby daughter was born.  That was very good news and we dropped all things, got out of working cloth into somewhat more clean, put the dogs in the back of the car and drove the 2 hours to Delft at max. speed.

This  "Madonna with Grandchild"  tells it all. We are extremely happy with our second grandchild named  Yfke Sophie.




Of course the Baby Tender I made for her firstborn was ready to receive number 2.  This mini boat is made from poplar riveted on oak with a mahogony transom. Design of this 45'' Cradle Boat is from Warren Jordan from Oregon USA. http://www.jordanwoodboats.com/

The move at last

Yesterday the movers came to load all our belongings including all my tools and other stuff in the shed and the Maine Peapod.

First time showing the inside...

The boat was put on its side in the van.  No problem as all molds were still in place.

This morning the Peapod arrived at our boathouse in the North. Don't know yet if there will be sufficient time available to work on the boat before it is transported to our new home somewhere in July.

Will keep you posted.

Daggerboard drawing

While shifting through the drawing package in preparation of further building tasks I could not find a drawing of the daggerboard.  The difficult solution is inventing it yourselve.  The simple solution is sending an email to Arch Davis with a question. 

As usual Arch responded quickly.  Apparently it was not included by mistake so as corrective action I received an Addendum to the Building Manual.

This shows how an omission can be transformed in a good customer experience! 

Cleaning the shed (2)

Done already quite some sorting out.

To make the transition to the interim location possible I disassembled a storage rack at home and built it up again in the boat house at my holiday home.

The good thing is that in a few weeks time the boats will go out to the water giving more than ample space to work on the Maine Peapod.

In the mean time I did a first round of sanding the hull.  Also further "sculpting"  of the stems was done.  The stems are not yet what they should be.

Also I used my remaining 4 mm ply stock to rough cut parts for the floorboards, daggerboard case and saddles.

Still some sorting and packing to do but almost no other progress the coming three weeks.