Keel glued in place!

I took the plunge and glued down the keel. I have spent about a week (ok, maybe only 7 hours or so) fitting it along the frames and centerboard trunk. I cut the centerboard slot with my jig saw. The jig saw (or maybe it was me) didn't make the straightest cut so I also had to spent some time with the rasp. I checked the alignment once again and clamped the keel in place. The plans call for 28 screws and two 7" bolts to hold it all in place. I pre-drilled all the holes, being sure to recess the screws deep enough to allow for planing the keel to a point. Then I roughed all the glue spots up with some sandpaper and set to gluing. I put the clamps on for good measure, but they are mostly show after all the screws.

I had a little gap where the keel attached to the stem so I made a shim piece on the sander to fill the gap. Gap + shim + lots of epoxy = (look deep into the epoxy)The gluing was a little hectic with this piece. I knew it was going to take a good amount of epoxy but the pieces were not very big. It's time consuming to spread the epoxy on the thin sides around the centerboard hole. I kept checking the clock and time kept marching on. I put the transom end in first and the keel to stem bolts didn't fit into their holes. So I had to un-clamp the transom and knock it into place a little better. The I bolted the keel and stem together. I worked back toward the transom with screws. I finally learned to slather the epoxy on thick so it will fill all the nooks and crannies. Epoxy squeezed out all along the keel so I must have used enough. With the keel in place it is starting to look like a boat. I can move on to fitting the chines and sheers now. I am also starting on my scarf joints. I ripped two 4x8 sheets of 1/4" plywood to make the sides and bottom pieces. I set them up stepped back 3" each and sanded down to a smooth angle. Now I have to glue them up. I got a straight piece of wood for a guide and fastened it to some base material. Now I have to figure out how to put some pressure on the joint as it dries. Then it's just a matter of epoxy.So a little more work and then the pieces will need about a week to fully cure before I try bending them too much. I am hoping that they will cure while I fit the sheers and chines. That's the plan anyway.

Let's talk about a mast

About two months ago I was looking for an outboard, a trailer and a mast on craigslist. I found a mast which is a definite start. The ad was for a Hobie 14 mast. A little research found the lenght of a Hobie 14 mast to be 22'3". That's close enough for my purposes to the 22' spec on the plans. $200 got me a mast, 10' aluminium boom (exactly lenght the plans call for,) an old sail, the standing rigging, some jib tracks, jib block/cam cleat combos and a swivel cam cleat for the main sheet. Not a bad haul I thought.
Since the mast is made for an all aluminium framed Hobie I will have to adapt it to my purposes. I sketched out the shape on a block of wood that I will mount to the keel. I have to sand it down to shape it. This is the base piece that mounts to the Hobie frame (my keel.) The hole in the back is for a connecting piece that is used to step the mast. Once upright and stayed, the pin can be removed and the mast is free to rotate. This rotating action increases the performance of the Hobie sail. I don't think that my boat will tap the high performance aspect
This is a little graphic of the process. My Picassa skills are unrivaled even by professionals. The sticker reminds you that aluminium will indeed conduct electricity if you happen to hit a high voltage power line.

I am still searching for a trialer and an outboard. You never know when the wind may die.

Keel work

I finally got the piece of wood I needed for the keel. Mahogany is not getting any cheaper. I still don't have a table saw so I used my trusty saw guide. The rip process generates a colossal amount of sawdust, (reference earlier post) so I cut the piece outside. South Carolina's weather is perfect for boat building right now. Not too hot, lots of sunshine.

I left the frames un-notched as I aligned them on the building form, so I had to notch the frames to accept the keel. The notches were layed out in pencil first.

Then cut and chiseled to their final shape.

And of course I don't have a picture of the final product. My initial pencil was a little off from what I ended up needing. In order to make a nice curve I had to bevel some of the notches. I also smoothed them to make a nice flat surface to bond to. I really don't want to screw this one up.

This is the keel dry fit along the frames. I think I am going to need more clamps, in addition to the screws I will use, to hold the keel to the frames and centerboard trunk while the epoxy dries. It takes a fair amount of force to make a tight fit right now so I probably need some more fitting work. Witness this section at the stem.

I also need to cut out the hole for the centerboard. Since the bedlogs that run the length of the centerboard trunk are bowed out a bit the slit may have to be egg shaped. I thought about pulling the bedlogs together with a clamp while I glue and screw the keel, but I think that when the clamp comes off the bedlogs will try to split the keel at the front and back of the hole. This requires more though before I proceed.

Alignment continues

I finished the transom blocking. The blocking might not stand up to severe abuse, but it only has to last until the keel solidifies the arangement. All the measurements stayed the same overnight so it works well enough.

I also layed out the stem and frame five. I had to make this good looking piece of blocking to hold the bow at the right height. I only wish I could make it a permanant piece. It really turned out good. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the stem.

Unfortunately the stem is a l-i-t-t-l-e twisted. It took me a little over two hours to figure this out. I don't know if the humidity did it but the stem is curved to the right. With a straight edge across it there is a 1/4" gap in the center. I tried to align frame 5 off of frame 4 and hope that the stem would be close enough. I found out that frame 4 is not quite perfectly square. But the transom through frame 3 are spaced perfect! So I spaced frame 5 off of frame 3. Now all I have to worry about is getting the stem square. I tweaked the stem and blocked it in place. If you look close you can see the block. I think it is a little closer than before, but I need a plum bob or some such item to make sure it is actually straight now. So the quest for the final alignment still continues. As for frame 4, it's only off a little bit, so I think that mistake will fade under the epoxy.

Keel. Chines. Sheers. Battens. Planking. Glass. Flip. Sail! So close.

Alignment

I am pretty sure that this next part is the MOST critical. The old story goes like this. The frame alignments are off a little. So the planking doesn't go on right. Then water leaks in unbeknownest to the captain. Soon enough the fasteners rot, the epoxy comes unglued and the boat sinks. So, that's what I am up against. Needless to say, I don't want to rush it. So I started with the frame 2, 3, 4 and centerboard assembly. This part was easy; all I had to do was L bracket it in place. All the dimensions are set in epoxy already, so there's no going back now. There is about 1/8" to 1/4" difference in distance between the left and right sides of some of the frames. I will either have to live with it or put the frames at the right dimensions and hold them with the chines and sheers.

Frame 1 had to be notched into the building form so it would sit level. I measured the distance from frame 2 to locate frame 1. You can see the L bracket used to hold it down.
The transom was the next piece I set up. It has to be at an angle and it doesn't touch the rest of the frame. So I had to align a free floating piece with the rest of the frame in three dimensions. After several tries I came up with a workable method. I attached two 2x4 blocks cut at the transom angle on one side and vertical on the other. Then I used some 1x4's to adjust the vertical dimension while using a level and tape-measure to align the distance from frame 1. Left- right was taken care of by extending the sides of the building frame with a square and checking the distance from centerline.

On the far side of these pieces are the marks I used to set the vertical height. Basically it was a ruler drawn out on the 1x4 and an alignment mark on the 2x4 block. I still have to finish up by bracing it all in place. I will have to do some final chisel work on the chine, sheer and batten notches so the transom will have to be held in place pretty well.

I had to add these little pieces of floor timber back to frame 5 to allow it to sit on the building form correctly. I cut them off to allow the floor timber to attach to the frame without interfering with the gussets. I tried lining up frame 5, which also has the stem attached to it, but I think that the stem may not be exactly square. I can't get the frame 4-5 distance equal on both sides while keeping the stem aligned along the center of the boat. I hope it is because I haven't tried hard enough.

These last two give an overview of what the whole thing looks like so far. I cleaned up all the tools from between the frames. I need to lock down the transom and the frame 5/stem assembly and I will be bending chines. I have read that epoxy covers a multitude of mistakes. I hope it will cover mine. And be waterproof.

Timely advice saves fingers (maybe)

Beyond being ingeniously executed, my table saw plans may have lacked a little bit of practicality. The table itself was a little undersized. And a little light. And TERRIFYING to use. And the battens are only 12 ft long. So I needed a better method to cut the 16 ft chine and sheer I had left to do. The method suggested by a commenter was exactly what I was doing before, but it made me rethink how I was doing it. I realized that I could cut off either side of the wood. That allowed me to set up the guide on the other side of the saw so I could finish the rip. Putting the workpiece on sawhorses also makes life easier. Why didn't I think of that earlier! Cutting these last pieces was much easier than this weekend's adventures.

This is my straight edge clamped to the work piece and some scrap support 2X6's. For this last cut the straight edge was actually off the work piece due to the warp of the wood. To keep it all together and hold it stable I put a drywall screw into the edge of the work piece. Drywall screws are the most versatile faster ever made. If I wasn't sure they would rust after about 5 min of water contact I would have used them for this project.

This is a detail of the straight edge setup. I measured the distance between the edge of the saw blade and the edge of the foot of the saw. I had to think about which side of the blade I should be measuring to for about 5 min to make sure I got it right. Then you add this offset to the width of the piece you need. Set the straight edge up with a few clamps and you are in business. I cut about 3 inches into the piece then checked to make sure my width was right.

This is my workspace right now. The next step is clean up. Then I will align the frames and start bending the chines and sheer into place. I didn't realize how much bend these pieces will have until now. Wait, I still don't have a keel! AHHHHHHH! So the next step would be to make the keel. And brace the frames and transom in place so I can bend the chines and sheers around them. I feel like I've been here before...