As if one was not enough.

Turns out that building a sailboat requires a considerable amount of money.  This translates into going to work every once in a while.  I spent the last to weeks in Brooklyn working on a climbing wall.  Lots of work and great ethnic food.  But while serving my sentence Beth started a new project to keep herself occupied......

After searching for quite some time we found a Dinghy that we liked, and Beth has been making quick work of it.  Selecting a dinghy seems like an easy decision, but it actually was far from it.  We wanted something we could sail this summer, but something that would fit on the cabin top of the big boat, for easy transportation.  Oh yeah and ease of construction was important, we don't have the time to be building a classic lapstrake dinghy.   This left us with a narrow scope of boats, but we settled on Catspaw 8, from B&B Yacht Designs. 

The Dinghy is built using the "stitch and glue" method, so Beth first cut out the sides and ends of the boat.  Then she "stitched" them together using wire ties.  

After some beveling, the pieces are ready for stitching.  It is quite impressive, no layout, no tedious measuring, just cut out six pieces, stitch them together and voila, you have a boat.

The topsides and ends are stitched and ready for the two bottom panels.

And here it is.  Beth has the whole thing stitched together and tonight she got all the epoxy fillets that hold it together finished.

The main event is back to full speed, we have been finishing up sheeting the hull with plywood.  All that is left is the bow section, which has to be laminated out of 3 layers of 1/4 ply, as there is too much curve for anything thicker.

Shooting the laser down the length of the hull to check that everything is in line. 

Now for the fist time we are laminating up large pieces of plywood, so we use a notched trowel to spread the epoxy evenly. 

Here it is! Two boats:  one small, one large, one up one down. 

One day at a time.

Ps:  This is Big Cottonwood Creek, which runs right by the shop, usually we eat our lunch on that rickety pallet sitting in that tree.  Its pretty nice.

 These two ducks live in the creek and are quite friendly, I almost had them in the shop one day.  Beth has named them Lin and Larry, after a famous sailing couple.  

Until next time, Cody and Beth

Sheets and Sheers

Man.  Time flies!  It's been far too long between posts.  

We've been keeping happily busy on the boat these last weeks, and making progress- progress that feels pretty big!  We've begun to attach the plywood to the frames!  She's looking more and more like something that will someday float...  hopefully...  

We've put together another little time-lapse video for you-  entitled:  "How Cody and Beth wrestled a 16 foot by 4 and a half foot, 165 pound sheet of plywood up onto the bottomsides of the hull." 

 Or something like that.   

 It's a good thing we have access to some climbing gear.  

And that was just the first sheet!  These days, we've got both of the big amidships sheets on, as well as the aft sheets.  Tonight, we're putting the first pieces on the topsides.  You can see one of them in the next photo, just being cut and fitted.  

The plywood sheets really make a difference to the look inside the hull.  We've flipped these next photos upside down- to make the boat look right side up.  

Looking forward, down at floor level.  

Looking aft, at the handsome transom- complete with stern post.  

There's a lot of bracing in this photo, which makes it kind of hard to see the boat itself.   

In order to be able to attach the topsides sheeting, which will go along the sides of the boat, we need to get the sheer piece laminated into place.  You can see it in this photo- it runs along the bottom of the frames, is curved, and has a few clamps on it.  The sheer line is the most important aesthetic line of the boat.  It's important that it runs fair and smooth, which is why we're upside down on the table trying to get a good look at it. Looking at it right-side-up makes it easier to see the curve properly.    

More clamping!  Laminating a sheer piece into place.  

I hope you all are having a happy weekend!  We certainly are.  Yesterday was quite the Saturday, filled with sunshine, some granite routes with the Mannions,  a drive to the Great Salt Lake Marina, a cold coke with a 107-year-old Navajo Sailor named Paho, a few introductions and invitations to go sailing, a little bit of sanding and epoxy work for good measure,  some chinese food, some frozen yogurt, and this.

Whew.  Good times.  

Chine of the Times

The latest development on our boat has been to install the chines, or chine logs as the salty old sailors would say. As you may have noticed, the center section of our boat has a hard bend, much like that of a power boat, this is called chine.  When the plywood planking comes together at this hard bend it creates a weak point and you need something to give support and allow the plywood to be fastened to.  Now when the plywood meets at that corner it will be supported and there will be no weak point.

This chine has too much curve to try and bend the wood on, so we scarfed together smaller pieces to form the curve.

 

This was the first chine piece we installed.  It doesn't quite go to the ends of the boat.  It would have been too difficult to lift a 30ft. curved 1X8 into place so we installed it in several pieces.

This is where the chine meets the stem.  I used a circular saw to make a bunch of cuts at the correct depth, and then knock out the pieces with a chisel.

Here is the finished product, the chine now sits flush with the stem and is glued in place.

We are almost done shaping the stem, it has come a long way.

We added a "knee," just a piece of wood on the inside corner of the stem to give more support to a vulnerable spot on the boat. 

I accidentally made two of the same frame, so I decided to test the extra to destruction.  We stuck one end of the frame around the telephone pole outside the shop and tied the other end to PJ's truck.

 It took several attempts to break.  It needed much more force than we expected.  You can just see the frame stretching and warping.  It bends quite a bit before it breaks, have a look.

The Result couldn't have been better. The frame broke the wood and not the glue joints.   It is reassuring to have hands on proof of the incredible strength of epoxy.  So far there is not a single mechanical fastener on the boat just lots of epoxy. 

Just for fun, Beth and I wrestled a sheet of plywood onto the boat today, we are getting so close to sheeting the hull.  It is very exciting. 

Springs and Clamps

 The thing about this world of ours is that it just keeps on going.  A year ago, around this time, Cody and I lost a good friend.   The day after his funeral, a whole bunch of us got up in practically the middle of the night and drove to the hot springs in the town of Meadow, Utah, a favorite spot of his.   We got there just in time for the sunrise.  We did it again this year.  Cody and I rolled out of bed sometime around 3:30 am, met up with friends, and caravanned our way to the springs.  It was a beautiful morning, and we all had a great time, chatting and joking, diving to the bottom of the spring, throwing bits of slimy moss at each other.   A new tradition, perhaps, and a very peaceful, lighthearted way to spend a Saturday morning.  

 The boat project continues to occupy the majority of our spare time, but we make satisfying progress every day. We've got one more layer to laminate on the keel before it's complete and ready for shaping.  

  

We have 29 clamps.  We use each and every one.  Often.  

Lots of epoxy!  For each lamination, we try to get a nice even layer on the length of the board, then clamp it until it oozes out.  

Here I am planing some boards we'll use for chine pieces.  The planer cuts an even layer of wood from the face of the board, making it an even thickness over it's entire length.   You would be surprised how uneven some of the rough lumber we use can be!  We fill our trash can with wood shavings at least twice whenever we plane a load of wood.    

Here, Cody cuts notches for the chine piece, which will run from bow to stern along the corners of the frames. 

Things are rolling right along here.  The weeks seem to pass by before I have a chance to realize.  But spring is springing, and we're loving the warm weather and all the blooming trees and tulips.   

Stem to Stern

We've been doing lots of laminating lately.  Laminating is the process of gluing together many layers of wood to make a thicker piece, or one specifically shaped to your needs.   Cody has built the stem of the boat- which goes on the bow, as a continuation of the keel.  It's very thick and very heavy, and will be the foremost point of the hull.  

The stem on the table, getting sanded and prepped to install.  

The stem in place.  We'll cut off the stair-steps on the top of the stem, and attach the keel piece, which you can see above the stem in this photo...    

Like this!  

The stem, with the top planed flat and glued to the first piece of the keel lamination. 

In this photo, you can see the keel piece we installed last night.  It runs along the spine of the boat, and is the first of four layers of lamination.  The frames are much more rigid now- and being inside feels more like an enclosed space than it did before.  

Cody, clamping the keel piece into place.  The whole underside is coated with epoxy, and at each frame there is a thicker, stickier coat.  When we apply the pressure of the clamps, we want to see epoxy come oozing out the sides, proof that we've got enough in the joint.  It's a messy job.  

It may be a messy, sticky, dusty job, but it sure is a beautiful one!  

With every piece we attach, every step we complete, the boat comes more into focus.

I find myself daydreaming of turquoise waters lapping the sides of the hull, as we lay at anchor in some tropical lagoon...  but then reality comes back to me as I shake sawdust out of my hair and the orifices of my face.  We've got a LONG way to go until that is even a remote possibility. 

For now, we just attach one piece to the next, and keep dreaming.  

Hey! There's a boat in our shop!

Check it out!  

We got every frame stood up on the strong back in one afternoon and evening!   

The strong back is the ladder-shaped frame on the floor of the shop, and it supports the frames for us, and serves as a crucial point of reference so we can get the frames perfectly lined up.   It also allows us to have a level plane to work from, as the floor in our shop slopes almost 8 inches from corner to corner...

It's easy to get lost in the little parts of the project, in aligning, measuring, preparing each piece,

but, as we worked, we would occasionally stop and admire the shape that was emerging from the chaos of frames stacked all over the shop.   

The dream lives!

Beth & Cody

The Frames are Finished!!

We got our material in a few days ago and last night I glued up frame #14, the last one.  We are so close to tipping up all the frames.  Its going to be very exciting.  Up until now we have just been building parts and coating things.  The "boat" has been spread all over the shop, but tomorrow we if all goes well we will stand all the frames up on the strongback and it will start looking like a real boat!

We also had time to laminate some deck beams las week.  

We are using 4 pieces of 1/2" material, which us with beams 2" by 1 3/4" 

This frame was covered with heavy glass cloth to protect it from abrasion/impact, as it will be one side of the anchor locker.

Beth; checking thickness after planing our frame material

This bulkhead is being covered in a thinner layer of glass cloth, just to seal it and prevent the wood from checking.  Here I'm wetting out he glass.

Yesterday was amazing, sunny and close to 60 degrees!! 

We found this scenic pond, I think it might have unintentionally formed due to the construction.  Anyway it was fun to sail and there was just enough wind.

So far this project has been everything we wanted.  It is so cool to watch this boat take shape and it rarely feels like work.  Hopefully we can keep this momentum up.  Well I better get back to the shop and prep the frames for tomorrow.

Beth and Cody