Every second counts

I drove all over hell and back today. Parts are accumulating, money is dwindling.

Turns out the tank I purchased wasn't quite short enough. As designed the fuel tank filler doesn't have enough room vertically, so it was time for a modification. More on that later.

First thing, I pre-coated all the surfaces in the two aft storage wells in front of the transom, then glued in the soles in those compartments. I have decided to go the bilge pump route in the furthest aft center compartment below the outboard splash well. It made sense because the benches drawn for the boat preclude using scuppers. No way to drain the water to where it notes, so we will go bilge. The sole in both aft compartments as well as the main sole can all drain easily into that space, then the water can be pumped over the transom. Easy peezee.

The soles of the wells, with the SHS (some heavy stuff) clamp:



So today was fuel tank day. The tank had the aforementioned affliction of not enough headroom, so it was time to get that handled. I have a shop here in the Spokane area that does great aluminum work, and is a local family biz, so I try to support them as much as possible ( Bill's heliarc ). A few greenbacks and a couple hours later, we have a solution!:



Perfect, that was ironed out. Next the vent tube was another vertical fitting, but a 90 degree elbow fixed that right up.

So on with the tank install. This will be slightly tutorial-esque.

I purchased Moeller's tank strap kit, thinking it was straps. Nope, its metal tabs, which are smart, but a pain to build in place when you have a small space to work in. This will cause me to move the footwell bulkhead forward a couple inches, but that't the joy of stitch and glue boat building, you get flexibility.

Here is the strap in question, one of four:



We are going to need to make stud mounts, which isn't terribly difficult. Get the requisite hardware (in my case, 10/32 2" machine screws, stainless steel, with matching nylon locking nuts), some epoxy, and an hour or two.

Take your scrap ply (9mm) and use the bracket for a pattern. Clamp all four together, throw them in the vise, and drill all of them out at once. Saves time, increases accuracy.



Now due to the shape of the boat, the aft hardware pads were able to be glued directly to the boat, but the forward pads required some angled feet. Take a little scrap mahogany 1x1, cut it to the appropriate angle, drill a small hole, and nail them together with an annular ring nail.



Once we have our pads and our feet, throw the screws in the pads, then use some double sided tape to stick the strap on the pad, with the screws in place. Place the tank in the correct position, making sure its level and square. Butter up a nice thick batch on the bottom of the hardware pad, and gently use the taped-on strap to locate the pad. Press down firmly to get the glue seated, squeezing out the sides. Once there, gently slide the plate away from the strap to give yourself some room to tighten down against once you put the tank in for final placement.

Repeat for the bow, but up front we have to glue the hardware pad to the angled spacer, so we have a good hull interface. Same technique for location.

Here is the finished product, glue smashed everywhere and the whole deal:



Once it cures up, remove the tank and get the pads ready for precoating. These won't be seeing the light of day for a whole, hopefully a very LONG while:



Finally, I got started on rigging. The main filler tube can now go into what will be the port console, along with the vent tube and main fuel line. Keeping all these items on the port side allows all the steering, controls, and electrical components to run on the starboard, keeping the hot stuff away from the flammable stuff. Safety first!

Here is the hole, and location I chose:



Tomorrow, finish rigging the tank, get the bulkhead finished out, get the seat tops prepped, cut out some consoles, and go get the motor from the shop!

E

As fast as I can

I keep working and working and working....

The job never seems finished, but I had a strange revelation while I was doing this work, more on that later.

I had to finish up some of the cleats that weren't done earlier, and get that sole finished out. I get out there as soon as I can on weekdays in the morning, and work until SWMBO gets home, the neighbor wants to go fish at sunset, or some combination thereof. It makes the work get done, but at this point in the game, and in the season, I really want it done.

Here's a shot of the forward seating area, with the tank in relatively the right location, where I am trying to figure out how I will run the hoses for the fill and fuel lines:



The tank, as drawn, only has 3" of space from the tank top to the bottom of the forward seats. The filler neck eats up an inch and a half of that, so I am trying to scramble and find a way to get a filler neck thats a 90 degree angle. Not the fastest filler, but the space is at a premium.

At this point, I filleted, taped, and glassed the sole with biax, all in one shot (7 hrs) yesterday. Its not particularly easy due to heat, fumes, and hunger since there's no time to stop, but it makes for a SOLID layup, all chemically bonded. Oh and I didn't take intermittent photos. I wanted to be done moreso than a documentarian.

The interior post-glassing, note the size of the overlap, I am using full width fabric, which allowed a little more overlap in the most heavily walked on areas:



A shot from the side showing the trim up the sides and the fillets:



I realized the other day that I had no photos of the boat in its entirety since the flip. Let us fix that.





Tomorrow: find a way to finish out the fuel tank, plumb it back to the motor, and do the overboard, finish the gunnel, start working on the decks.

Its gonna be floating just after the 4th.
E

Even on weekends

Okay, I like my wife.

I don't work on the boat over the weekends typically. Its strictly an 8-5 M-F program when shes at work and Im at home. Unless The Thumb calls me to go fish, then it slows me down a bit.

This week and next, shes working on a big ad campaign which is causing her to work weekend days. Why not capitalize since we are so far behind the Dougster-named "Liveline". Might as well get some projects done, and a step closer to the finish line!

Big news this visit is the fuel tank arrived. I am having some issues figuring out plumbing routing as the space provided by the designer does not allow for the fuel tubing to come up as a normal boat would. This is going to take some fabricating or some modifying, not sure which yet. But the good news, its here.

For those on the various boat forums, this is the picture I promised of the clamps.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) clamps:



Well using that name is going to get me on some wierd terror watch list or something Im sure, with Dick Cheney listening in to my phone conversations and such.

I found that I prefer masking tape to the DHS clamps. For some reason it sticks more reliably. Who knew.

This is the framing for the forward seat tops. Lotsa pieces in there. I didn't want to drill through my faired hull, so I cut my cleats (1"x1" phillipine mahogany) into 8" lengths to glue more easily and make the curves without some insane clamping method.

Masking tape version:



The last of the gunnel pieces for the port side are on and curing as we speak. I took nary a photo. Scroll to another post, it looks like that.

Im off tomorrow. Plan is to iron out the fuel tank issue and get the fillets and glass in the sole area. We hope.

E

A detour

Okay, so sometimes you need a couple hours off.

Got the sole placed, got the cleats for the compartment soles, and the neighbor says, "let's go fish!"

He has a problem.


We try some tested methods, with no real success. We decide to go troll a bit to catch some Northern Pikeminnow (the scourge of our lake, bigtime predators with no value). I don't have my go-to perch print, so I go to a lure that has never caught any fish. It's a white crankbait, of all things. I think its going to go poorly....



One big suckerfish, and a 5lb 8oz blackmouth King Salmon!



This lake is dam controlled, and does NOT have fish ladders. We are upriver of Grand Coulee dam, with another 2 dams between here and there. This is a resident fish of either our lake or Coeur d'Alene, but who would think to fish for salmon in a bass/crappie/perch lake?

Alright, Ill go work on the boat.

Back to pace

I love having this thing right side up!

Things go so much faster when you can work on multiple projects as others dry, cure or require other tools. I have been working 8+ hrs a day, which is a luxury. Today I flaked out and only worked 7, but thats not such a bad deal.

Please enjoy this blurry picture while I think of something witty to say:



Firstly, the bow seating area needed the footwell sides glued up. Its a matter of finding the right project for the right tools at hand. I had the drill out, I had epoxy and woodflour from other stuff I had worked on, so off we went. They needed a bit of fitting as I didn't get the B frame quite as vertical as I should have.



For context, here is her ever-so-sexy caboose:




Per the manual, the sole needed to go in before anything else happens. The epoxy is curing very fast as of late (its been near 90 today), which makes projects go fast. Jacques wants a clamp glued around the entire perimeter for support of the sole, so that was a daunting task. It turns out that I had enough scrap mahogany from other boat projects that I could glue up everything I needed with Phillipine (bastard) mahogany. The sole is butt blocked together to make a solid piece, which I used more 9mm ply at 4" in width.

Here is a shot of the clamps glued in place and precoated with unthickened epoxy:



Panel numero uno in place (which takes a bit of acrobatics to get it down level without messing up the epoxy):



The final placement, complete with a little weight to get a good smoosh of epoxy:



I also managed to get the clamps cut and prepped for the aft wells, and the A frame is tacked in place (didn't put it in earlier, probably should have). Tomorrow the chompers get cleaned, and my uncle might be flying in with his RV-6 running a converted Mazda rotary engine ( http://www.weslick.com/RV6Index.htm ). That might eat up a little building time, but I have the parts laid out for a rapid recovery and progress!

Stay tuned, I might even have pictures of the salmon I caught tonight, 280 miles from the ocean, on a dam controlled lake with no fish ladders.....

E

To her feet!

The primer took time to dry. A full day. Might as well find something to do while it dries, eh?

This is what they are talking about when you are drawing a fair curve. I use spring clamps, quck clamps, and nails to get the points, and bend an aluminum 1/8" x 1" batten around them.



I felt good about that, so I took a picture. It was progress, so I needed proof.

I decided life is to be spent enjoying it, not quabbling over a mirror finish. To hell with fairing, lets prime!



I laid on System 3 high build primer ( WR-155 ), one coat one evening, then two coats a day later. This had two different reasons. First, thats all the time I had. Second (and this might have been more about justifying it, but it sure sounds good on paper), I think the bottom layer cured up a little, which makes it harder to sand through. Who the hell knows.

You can see the wavy lines, but I dont care:



Here is a considerably more finished looking transom, almost like its supposed to look:



I then proceeded to longboard this for about 8 hrs. It ended up with a bit of orange peel/knockdown drywall texture. Nice to fair into, but just more work, I think. Alright, Im sick of longboarding, so out came the ROS, vac attached, and 120 grit disks.

Did I mention I left the camera inside?

Everything ended up smooth, but still with some waves, no hard edges to the fills, but you can see some altitude changes. Ya know what? WHO CARES!! This isn't a $100,000 mahogany runabout. Life isn't about finishes and perfect mirrored surfaces. This is a boat, first and foremost, that will be used daily. I mean that. My neighbor put 208 hours on his boat in a year. We will rival that, as the fishing season is 9 months long, not to mention I have friends in various places on the lake which requires transportation.

I don't want to sweat a little nick or rub here and there. I want to be able to dock anywhere. I want to be able to put it on the beach. I want to be out in the salt sometimes. I dont want a boat that isn't USABLE.

Oh, and I forgot the camera for another phase.

Well here is where the camera comes back in, photos by SWMBO:



What happened? Its like a peacock! She has sprouted colors everywhere!

The bottom paint is West Marine BottomPro in red, laid on by myself (1st coat) and Jerry from down the lake (2nd coat). Massive mixing issue with the first pint. Get it mixed at the shop. If it has any solid masses in it, switch to another can, use the better paint, and have that shaken or replaced. It went horribly due to the solids coming out of solution. Jerry laid on the 2nd coat, but the 2nd can was fully suspended and required minimal mixing.

Topside paint is Kirby's Grey-green. I highly reccomend Kirby's for one particular reason; this stuff is literally fun to paint with. It lays out smoothly, it cleans up easily, it hides brush strokes well, and with a little penetrol, becomes very smooth. It is a semi-gloss to hide imperfections and the inevitable damage later. A little goes a Loooooong way with this paint. I used less than a pint for one full coat.

Two coats of bottom paint, one coat of topside. Due to this being the first of its kind built, I am not putting the waterline in place until its actually in the water, loaded. Thus the lines are a little here and there. but you get the general idea.

Once again I recruited the crew, Pete, Brady, Shayne, Ron, Sean, Tom, and myself (with a little assist at the end from Shayne's girlfriend Stephanie, the greatest cake-maker in the world). These people have been a tremendous help by coming over at short notice, giving of their Father's day to help me flip this thing. On with the show!



There is a ton of interior bracing built of 2x4 inside the boat to allow rolling it on the gunnels like this:



Add some 10' doug fir studs for handles:



To the trailer! Note Brady isn't pulling his weight, so Pete is stuck with a big load:



Stephanie helping out, and getting it up on the trailer:



All in all a fun event. Big thanks to Jerry, whom I had planned on purchasing the trailer from, but was unable to get bunks built. He saw the issue and built those monsters from supplies he had at his house midday sunday. Huge help, and I hope he doesn't mind that I just drove down and stole the trailer from him.

Thanks again to everyone that helped.

Oh, there is so much work to be done now.....

E

Not sanding

Okay, the title is a bit of a misnomer. It's not that I'm not sanding, I just didn't sand exclusively today. For the first time in about 3 weeks, I had tasks other than fairing. Let me tell you, what a nice change of pace.... Above you can see the current state of our subject in all her post-deadline glory.

On an aside, one of my frequent readers has renamed it a "liveline" instead of a deadline. I thought that was a very good way to put it!

Well I laid on another batch of quickfair from System 3, and needed it to harden up, so I started pecking away at other tasks. I also had a lift that wasn't going according to plan (non-square pads right at the transom) so I needed to remove some humps and bumps to get it right.

Under the boat with the drill we went:



I used a piece of scrap with a hole centered at 3" and bored for a pencil. Marked out all the interior lines per plans, then drilled holes adjacent to them on the inside. These holes were then connected with a straightedge and re-measured for squareness on the outside of the hull.

Transom curves marked out:



Same goes for the bottom (excellent no-look photography):



And now, ladies and gentlemen, the scariest cut I have made on the boat to date:



That one will give you an ulcer, Doug.

Onward with the tools, I used the circular saw to hack the straight lines, and used the jigsaw VERY SLOWLY to cut the curves. These are by far the smoothest curves I've ever cut:



Then finish out the cut to near the transom, which is to be finished with a handsaw:



This is a particularly good time to see just how good your craftsmanship is. All of your construction transgressions become very apparent when you cut directly through the joints you made many moons ago. Unfortunately my camera was of the opinion that the towels in the background made a better focusing topic, but you do still get a good view. Note the plywood joint, the fillet, the glass layers, the rounding of the ply to accept the glass on the outside, the filler making the edge for the transom, and filling the atrocious hack job of a stern section I made:



After these festivities (and lunch) I finished out that lift where the plywood had dipped. Its the lovely quickfair brown. Unfortunately our weather went from 90 and sunny to 58 and rain, so the quickfair didn't harden up in the 2 hrs advertised. I will let it set until I get back from work:



So the day was winding down, nothing was curing to sand, so I took up another of the need-to-do projects, the rubrails. Jacques reccomends using 6mm ply laminated in 3 layers, so I started the process. I have a bevy of clamps on loan from a friend, but as in all boatbuilding, I don't have anywhere near as many as I need to do both sides, so I just got one side glued up tonight:



There you have it folks, actual visible progress! You have no idea how nice it is to see something change unless you have been mired in fairing for too long. The rubrails will continue to be laid up one layer at a time for the next week or so, the last of the sanding comes thurs and fri, which leaves us primer mon-tues and paint thurs-fri. Lets hope for good weather!

E

Intersection of dissapointment and hope

Sorry, the photos will have to wait as I am at work and it looks the same (only slightly less lumpy).

Here we are, June 1st, 2007. This is the smell of failure. I have spent COUNTLESS hours on the boat (probably in the 200ish range now), but have not succeeded in getting her wet by the titled date. The bowels of sadness smell worse than I thought.

Several factors contributed. I ski heavily in the winter, so there goes a majority of work days. That was figured in, however, in the final date. I had a 5 week wait for plywood. That wait was unplanned, and had a horrendous effect, as I couldn't finish the jig or do any other projects while I waited. Perfectionism, and the inability to see certain errors compounded one another. Mistakes were made, but others could not be blamed, as Im the only one working on this pig.

An inventory of the current situation:

I have the motor, but it needs to be converted from tiller to controls.

The exterior surface of the hull is complete structurally. I have one more day of sanding and filling to do. Then primer and paint.

The interior framing is in.

I do not have a trailer, but I have a line on one.

I am getting the fuel tank this week.

I am sick of sanding.



There is, however, a bright side.

I am only a sole, bow seat tops, 2 consoles, and a deck away from a functional boat. It will be stiff enough, once assembled, to use. The motor will be ready in a week or two. I will attempt to get the rudimentary electrical equipment in so that it is a running, working boat. Once I have achieved a whole structure, I will put it in on weekends to use, and have it out on weekdays to complete it.

July 4th.

This is the current "usable" target date. It may not have a windshield, or a coat of paint on the interior by then, but it will be wet, and it will be used. From then on, I will peck away at the finish work, getting it done when its done, not rushing to do tasks and doing a poor job.

The moral:

It will rarely be done when you plan on it. A boat you build is a living, breathing entity. It requires nurturing, its going to give you headaches, and it will be worth every second in the end. It will not be done when you teil it to be, but it will be done when its finished. Bearing that in mind, if you build your own boat, it will never be finished. There will always be that little improvement or missing feature you want to add. There isn't a thing wrong with that.

Keep posted, it will be finished.

E