Building the Shilling (a 17' wooden sailboat)

Major update, or "Sorry it's been forever!"

2011-09-23T08:01:00.016-06:00

So, um, yeah, we bought a house. Almost (yikes!) two years ago now. We spent the first month after we took possession working frantically to get some "de-beigeing" done before we moved in. It was beige, beige, beige... beige carpet, beige wallpaper, beige drapes, beige paint on the trim... beige. (That's a pretty funny looking word when you repeat it enough times, but I think that's true of almost any word.) See the lovely beige music room to the left, and the lovely beige living room to the right.

Once the wallpaper was off, and the carpet was up (revealing nice oak floors), we could see hints of what the house used to look like. We had already chosen the colours for the music room and living room, and were somewhat surprised to see that the original wall colours were quite similar, but reversed. Here are some pictures of the music room and the living room just before the first winter solstice party in the new house. It's a small house, but it's looking pretty good.

We both like to read, and we have a lot of books, so we needed a good set of bookshelves. We decided to make one wall of the dining room all bookshelves, using a design of my own that minimizes materials (and costs) while providing sturdy, custom-sized shelves to fit any space. Here are a couple of shots of the dining room with the bookshelves visible. We also re-covered the floors in the back half of the house, painted the bedrooms and kitchen and dining room, and a bunch of other stuff we don't have pictures of (like new lighting throughout).

The house looks a lot different when the lights are low and it's full of musicians! It's great to have a space just right for good friends, good whisky, good music, and good times. Hooray, Little House In The Ghetto!

I don't have any pictures yet, but the latest job on the house was the front porch. We cleaned it out (maybe the biggest job, as there had been a lot stored in there since we moved), took up the old carpet, cleaned and sanded and painted the floor (a Sedona-style almost-orangey red), built a daybed (Mexican blue), set up a table and chairs, and hung up our Mexican hammock chairs. The last job is some Mexican-themed lighting, but we're not done with that yet.

The next major phase of renovations is the creation of bedroom and entrance closets, together with finally refinishing the hardwood floors in the bedrooms, entrance, music room, and living room. We'll tackle that once the winter holidays are over. In the meantime, I'm back working on the boat. (Remember the boat? There's a blog about the boat...)

Needless to say, the poor neglected boat was a bit dusty when I got 'round to working on it again. I cleaned it out and tackled various chores in and around the cockpit - a pair of lockers forward, which have some complicated and fiddly bits, levelling the bilges and installing a garboard drain and bilge pump (not quite done this yet), fitting two sets of locker lids (one set built from scratch), and putting in floorboards.

I'll leave off this post with a couple of photos from last night showing the floorboards installed; they're removable, which is good, because I still have some work to do underneath. In the picture looking forward you can see the two small lockers on either side of the CP case; I'm almost finished the coaming that keeps water out of the lockers. The angled shot looking aft gives a good view of the hatches allowing access to the under-seat lockers.

So that's about it for now - I'll try to update the blog more often now that I'm working on the boat regularly. It's been a long wait but I'm going to push hard to get as much work done as I can this year. Cheers!

News update

2010-01-21T10:36:00.003-06:00

I wish I had some boat pix to add here, but I don't. Hold on, hold on, there's a good reason for that!

It all started with Tara's birthday. I won't say the number, but it was a big one, and she decided there was no way she was spending her birthday in Winnipeg. We tossed around various options (I figured we could just head out to Wavey Creek and work on the boat, but for some reason she wanted to go somewhere warmer) before settling on Mexico.

So there we were, all set to head off to Playa Del Carmen the next morning, when all of a sudden we bought a house.

Oops.

Two glorious weeks of sun and sand and warm Mexican hospitality later, we returned to hideous cold and the dawning reality that we had a LOT of work ahead of us. The boat has been sidelined until we are settled in the new place (sorry, Dad! Wait, no I'm not, he's fishing in the Bahamas and doesn't need my sympathy!). Since we took possession we've been removing 100+ years' worth of load-bearing wallpaper/paint/plaster sandwich, patching, sanding, painting, arranging plumbing, electrical, and alarm upgrades, and generally spending waaaaay too much money at Home Despot. Also time... for a while there we were going every day, which is too often even though it's close.

So that's why I haven't updated the boat blog. Come hell, high water, or complete burnout, we'll be moved into the new place by the end of this month (because we have no choice, ha!). We'll need a bit of time to get settled in, but I hope to get back to work on the boat in February. In the meantime, I'd like to welcome new readers and assure you that the blog WILL continue shortly.

Oh yeah, I'll post some pix of the house when we're done painting, too.

Finished guitar cabinet!

2009-10-03T22:17:00.005-06:00

Brought all the pieces home and put them together this evening with a bit of help from buddy Mark. First, for Kerry and James and everyone else who was confused about the "hockey sticks", this picture (blurry as it is) should make things a little more clear. You can see the T-bolt at the top - that slides in a mitre track - and you can see the yoke at the bottom, which holds the instrument. The idea was to suspend the instrument directly below the T-bolt and leave room for the biggest peghead of which mere humans can conceive.

I'm still missing one guitar that should be in there - I have to get it back from a friend - but the second picture shows the cabinet in all its glory, lit up with the internal fluorescent and basically doing its thing. I have to play around with the order of the guitars a bit more, but you certainly get the idea.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out!

(Oh yeah, because I know someone will ask, the instruments from left to right are: 1971 Martin D-28, 2007 Morgan CM, 1980ish Fender dreadnaught, Songbird tenor banjo, Ibanez bass guitar, Godin LG electric, Godin A8 mandolin.)

This is looking AWESOME!

2009-09-27T08:46:00.004-06:00

The guitar cabinet is almost done - just another coat or two of finish and it's good to go. I'll leave the detail pictures for the final post (once I have it home and full of guitars), but here are a couple to show what we've been up to.

First, here is a shot of the laminated ash yoke holders ("hangers" or "hockey sticks") after their second coat of varnish. I really like how they came out, and if they end up being stiff enough, I may not even need retaining rings on the yokes. Oh yeah, that's a boat in behind there... remember the boat? I'll be back working on the boat next week.

The second shot (taken a couple of days earlier) shows the major pieces assembled (sides, base, shelf, top, and doors). After testing the doors and installing the cedar on the top of the shelf, we took the whole thing apart for light installation, hole filling, and a couple other small jobs. Then it was final sanding and first coat of varnish, which is now on.

I'm hoping Dad will throw another coat of varnish on this puppy - it might be the last one, or I might have to put one more on later. Either way, I should have it home and full of guitars by next weekend. W00T!

Introducing: The Moaning Chair!

2009-09-20T19:55:00.005-06:00

So I understand that wooden boat builders (and maybe woodworkers in general) have this concept known as the "Moaning Chair". It's where you sit and contemplate your latest really serious screw-up. Sooner or later everyone gets their turn, and mine was today.

See, the top of the cabinet and the shelf across the middle (which forms the bottom of the actual humidifier and guitar display portion) each have a 2x4 running across the front. This provides stiffness and room for lighting and space for the glass doors to run in. The three cross-pieces (the base, the shelf, and the top) were all carefully cut to 54" wide, that being my determination of the optimal width in which to hang eight guitars without having them too close together or making the cabinet really huge. I mean, I still need space for bookshelves on either side, right? (To say nothing of the mini-bar.)

The tricky part, though, is that the 2x4 on the shelf has to have space cut out for the stiffeners on the sides of the cabinet... whereas the 2x4 on the top is supposed to overlap the sides (the stiffeners butt up against the top 2x4). So I carefully calculated the amount of 2x4 that would fit between the stiffeners (this is last Wednesday)... and then cut the whole thing off that length, which is a bit under 53". And then made cutouts for the stiffeners. I did this, you see, because I am dumb.

Now, it wasn't the end of the world; we hadn't assembled the shelf or the top. It was a pretty simple matter to trim the other pieces accordingly, and we were back on track in half an hour or so. I've lost around an eighth of an inch between guitars, which isn't great but should still be OK. Mostly, it's my pride that was injured.

HOWEVER! The rest of the day went well, and we got the shelf and top assembled. Yes, the lengths are all correct now, thank you for asking. We then drilled all the holes for the quick-connect system. There are a lot of them, 72 to be exact, and we got all but one in the right place. I blame Dad, he had the drill and he's not here to dispute whether it was my marking of the hole or his placing of the drill...

Anyway, holes all drilled, we dry-assembled the sides, base, shelf, and top, and by Crom it actually went together! I offer you pictures as proof. It's actually looking like it should. Er, maybe an inch or so narrower than planned.

Somewhere in there we also started laminating the curved hangers that will suspend the yokes (these fit snugly around the neck of each instrument where it swells out to form the headstock) directly below a bolt in a T-track along the inside top. All eight should be laminated by the end of the week.

Next we attach the back, finish the cedar lining, test the doors (which I pick up from the glass place tomorrow), and then disassemble the whole thing for finishing.

Guitar humidifier cabinet begins

2009-09-14T19:36:00.004-06:00

A few hours into the guitar cabinet, the sides are assembled and pretty much ready to finish. Here are a couple of views: on the left you can see an inside view of the sides, complete with aromatic cedar lining (it's gonna smell goooooood!).

The front side of the side (if you know what I'm saying) is on the outside of each piece in this photo, so if you rotated the outer edge 90 degrees toward you and the sides faced each other, you'd be looking at the front of the cabinet. The cutouts are for oak 2x4s that will hold the doors and strengthen the shelf and the top.

Oh, and the ugly grey stuff is foam mat, which is easier on the feet than a concrete shop floor. Used as illustrated it doesn't do as much for one's feet, but has the virtue of protecting the outer ply of precious oak veneer, which looks good, but is only slightly thicker than, say, cling-wrap.

The second picture shows the outside of the sides; you can just make out the reinforcement/front edge strip of oak along the inside edges (which are the front edges once assembled, blah blah blah).

Next up: the bottom, the shelf, the top, the legend.

Side project

2009-09-14T08:22:00.004-06:00

Courtney here with a quick note: the next couple of weeks will be devoted to a side project, which I will try to document with a few pictures. I've somehow accumulated a fair number of guitars and similar instruments, all of which really should be protected from extreme humidity or lack thereof (Winnipeg winters are very cold, which means our heated dwellings become very dry in winter). I've decided to build a big display cabinet to house, show off, and humidify my instruments.

The basic plan is a cabinet about 55" wide by 20" deep by 79" tall, with a compartment for case storage below the main compartment for display and humidification. The upper compartment will feature sliding glass doors, a lining of aromatic cedar, and eight custom laminated hanging yokes (to suspend the instruments from their pegheads) which slide in a track. It's also got lighting and a hygrometer, and the whole thing will be assembled with 1/4-20 quick connect hardware to facilitate moving.

I'm still trying to figure out how to work in a hot tub and a pony, but squeezing in a mini-bar seems like an insignificant challenge. Photos soon.

As usual it's been busy...

2009-09-07T14:39:00.003-06:00

...including trips to New Hampshire and BC. Back at work and back to work on the boat. Seat sides are installed, framed, and filleted on the inboard side. The fillets look a bit messy because we're not going to sand and paint until the inboard side is filleted too, which in turn is going to wait until we have more epoxy mixed up for the companionway lockers.

The second photo shows the beginning of the framing around the tops of the companionway lockers (they're small things on either side of the CP case). Inside the framing is a raised bit (I'm thinking it's called a coaming but I'm probably wrong) over which the locker hatches (lids) fit, with the raised bit keeping water out of the locker itself.

Man, that doesn't make much sense. Oh well, watch for more pictures.

Love this construction stuff!

2009-05-28T19:39:00.002-06:00

Here's the latest: fit the other seat side panel, and cut hatch holes in both seat sides. Not being all that familiar with routers, I think I'll wait for Dad to get back before I tackle trimming the hatch holes.

OMG I THOT U WER DED!

2009-05-24T16:31:00.002-06:00

No, just busy. Somewhere in the blur of the last couple of months we painted the inside of the boat a few times, and cleaned it all up and made it look pretty. Well, the clean-up and the pretty are almost done, anyway.

We're fitting out the cockpit now - yes, construction! Always a pleasure. A bit fiddly, the construction process; it goes something like:

1. Measure

2. Mark

3. Trim, but not too much! (I've misplaced the board stretcher)

4. Repeat. A whole bunch of times.

Anyway, it's going well. Here's a picture of one of the seat-sides, loosely in place and ready to have hatch holes added to it (but that will be on Wednesday).

Oh, and now that there are actually interesting instances of actual progress to show, expect more updates. Er, that would be all two of you who are still checking this blog in the forlorn hope that I've updated it...

We're back!

2009-03-23T07:15:00.002-06:00

Just a quick note to say we're back at work on the boat. The past month has been entirely too busy and the boat ended up on the back burner - not where it belongs! Got some solid work done yesterday and will be painting the interior Real Soon Now™. Watch this space for more regular updates and photos!

Sorry!

2009-02-10T11:09:00.004-06:00

Been meaning to update the blog but life has been rather busy. Here's a quick crappy phone camera photo to show you what we're up to.

Glassing the inside left some rough spots, which were cleaned up prior to filleting. Then we filleted the joints with thickened epoxy, masking the areas that will be bright-finished. We used the Ziploc baggie method of epoxy application, which I must say worked like a charm.

You can also see the bulwarks, which are getting their own fairing treatment. There's a bit of fillet sanding to do, and some final smoothing and sealing down around the bilges, and then I think we paint the interior.

So we're working, it's just not particularly photogenic or hugely indicative of progress.

Gunwales

2009-01-11T18:05:00.002-06:00

Having finished glassing the inside of the boat, we can make all the dust we want. Today saw the top of the cradle removed for easy access, after which we used sabre-saw and belt sander to trim the gunwales:

At some point we'll apply the outwale and then a cap rail (IIRC), but for now it's much easier to climb in and out... which we'll be doing many times as we finish off the interior. More later!

Merry Xmould...

2008-12-26T16:49:00.004-06:00

...or Chrimbo, or Solstice, or whatever it is you celebrate when the days get short and the air gets cold and the snow covers the ground and the booze becomes a necessity.

We've had a fine time in Winnipeg and in Winnipeg Beach and of course out at Wavey Creek. Shilling work started two years ago today, officially, though it would not be fair to say we have two years of work into the build. We're almost done glassing the inside, so I thought I'd put up some pix of the latest. There are nine sections, between frames, on each side of the boat, and seven are now glassed. This is one of the forward sections, mostly finished.

Tara finally got to experience the joy that is glassing, which was most fulfilling I'm sure; her enthusiasm knows no bounds, and she is now stoking it with a beer in front of the fireplace. This picture is one of Tara's sections... still wet but it looks good, eh?

More pix as developments warrant them. For now, stay warm, and drink lots. It helps.

Upright!

2008-12-16T12:55:00.004-06:00

It took a while, but we have cleaned up the inside of the hull preparatory to glassing. Courtney, Tara, Buster, Cathy, and Ron (welcome back, Ron!) then turned the boat right side up. In the pictures you can see the lovely Tara standing in the cockpit and seated in what will be the cabin.

Glassing the inside is next, probably a couple of long days this week as Courtney is on vacation. More updates soon, we're past the boring stuff!

Another rollover

2008-11-17T14:24:00.005-06:00

So a cast of thousands (well, over half a dozen, anyway) were out on Sunday to help roll the boat over onto her starboard side. Since the topsides now face away from the workbench, we can post a good photo of the interior.

As you can see, most of the glue squeezeout on the port side has been cleaned up, and some of the starboard side as well. What's left should clean up pretty quickly now that we know what we're doing. (There is a wealth of comment on the whole building process in that one sentence, folks, if you care to dwell on it!)

The final picture is a detail shot of the bulwarks and interior planking somewhere more-or-less amidships, inside what will be the cabin. The cabin side (below the deck shelf stringer in the picture) will be glassed and left bright, 'cause Tara wants it that way; this calls for a decent sanding job. The bulwarks we will paint white on the inside, so they're being filled and faired - you can see that the process is almost complete in the section above the deck shelf.

Many thanks to Peter, Trent, and Bruce & Shelly & kids - many hands make light work, and if the light don't work, we can't see to turn the boat over. Cheers!

A linky, a linky!

2008-10-05T12:02:00.002-06:00

No pictures, because the work we're doing right now is kind of boring and doesn't produce good visuals. We'll post pictures when the inside of the hull is cleaned up.

However, we would like to draw your attention to a new link in the links section. Sailing Margherita is the sailing blog for willowbayboy's Shilling. His is rigged out as a gaff cutter and is VERY striking. Check it out!

Rollover

2008-09-15T06:00:00.012-06:00

Yesterday was a LONG day of work - the longest in quite a while, as applying a coat of paint doesn't take long. Tara and Courtney and friend Tina (a traveler from Germany) headed out to Wavey Creek after breakfast to build the cradle that will hold the Shilling for the coming months of fitting out. The first picture shows the blue bulwarks with their last coat of paint.

Working from a rough sketch we started work on the cradle, building a base of 2x4s and fitting the central beam to the keel. This part progressed kind of slowly, because Buster was busy installing new sliding glass doors to the deck upstairs and needed to use some of the same tools. It was a busy day at Twin Oaks.

We had figured on about six hours to build the cradle, and it took all of that. The third photo shows the cradle partially constructed, with vertical posts long enough to support the boat upside down if need be. You can also see the beams running across the sheer - we'll remove them when we work on the gunwales, as the diagonal braces (not yet in place) should hold the boat securely when it's resting upright in the cradle.

Buster, temporarily finished with door installation, applied his drawknife skills to said diagonal braces, giving a nice fit where they support the hull. They were the last pieces to be added to the cradle, which should be strong enough to hold the boat upside down, upright, or standing on either side.

By the time we were done building the cradle it was time out for the usual Wavey Creek feast, with a cast of... well, not thousands, but Courtney's sister Lee was there, and her kids Tim and Heather, and three more helpers showed up for dinner and heavy lifting: Kyle (bass player in Courtney's band), his partner Carmella, and Courtney's colleague Colin.

The next job was to remove all of the old construction frame, which took a little while - and a lot of work from Tara, crawling around under the boat. Here you can see Tina, Colin, and Kyle (well, Kyle's head), along with the finished cradle. Note the shop floor, which - with no construction frame - is cleaner than it's been for well over a year.

The next photo shows the boat halfway to its side - you can't see much of the guys doing the heavy lifting on the far side. We held the boat roughly balanced there while a couple guys scuttled 'round and let it gently down onto its side. The whole rollover was completed in a minute or so, though the preparation had taken all day.

With the boat resting neatly on its side, we had a good look at the inside and contemplated our next moves. Plenty of cleanup, there's lots of glue squeezeout on the inside, and then we have to fair and glass the inside, and then there's fitting out the cabin, and and and and...

But it feels pretty good to reach this major milestone! The last shot shows Colin, Tara, and Tina checking out the interior, with Kyle looking on. Then it was all over except for the whisky and songs. Many thanks to our helpers, we know who you are and we'll be calling you again! Heheheheheh...

(Adjusted and updated the photos. Note to self: edit all photos on the good monitor at work! - CW)

Rollover coming!

2008-09-13T18:50:00.003-06:00

So the white Brightsides went on well, and after that two coats of dark blue on the bulwarks. We'll probably do another coat of each before we launch, just in case we nick or ding the paint during construction.

So our Shilling is ready to roll over so we can start fitting out the interior! We plan to build the cradle tomorrow and roll her over tomorrow evening (with friends to help and whisky to toast her afterward). We'll post lots of pictures tomorrow or Monday. W00T!

A picture, a picture!

2008-09-09T12:07:00.003-06:00

Just the one, though: here's a shot after the second coat of Brightsides has been applied. You may note the bulwarks are not yet painted; they'll be getting the blue stuff next.

Still undecided as to whether there will be another coat of white (probably) and when it will be applied (maybe later).

Yeah yeah

2008-09-05T08:45:00.002-06:00

I promised pictures, and now I'm not delivering. We did apply a coat of topsides paint, but we decided to do the white and paint the boot top later. The first coat of Brightsides "Blu-Glo White" looked good, wet-sanded well, and is waiting for the humidity to drop before it gets a second coat. If you're good, you might get pictures of that, but only if you brush your teeth and go to bed right now.

Priming finished

2008-08-29T07:46:00.001-06:00

Now that Courtney's back in the flatlands, the last primer coat is on the topsides. Blue boot top and bulwarks to follow this weekend, with pictures even.

Cruising, not building

2008-08-24T08:23:00.007-06:00

Courtney's been out in BC cruising aboard Island Eagle, and having a fine time of it, too. We've run across some interesting boats.

The other day in Montague Harbour we saw a Diesel Duck 462 (Mandarin, which was the very first 462 built by Seahorse Yachts, in fact) - this is significant because Courtney wants to retire on a Duck one day. What a lovely little ship!

We also ran across Mareva a couple of times, first in Montague and then when we moored right next to her in Ganges on Saltspring Island. Scott almost bought Mareva before he settled on Island Eagle.

Finally, for those of you who haven't seen Island Eagle herself, here's a nice arty shot framed by driftwood. Real purty, yup.

Courtney should be back in Winnipeg on Tuesday, and Shilling construction (well, painting) should resume shortly thereafter.

Quick note

2008-08-17T10:19:00.002-06:00

Just a quick note to say that the second coat of bottom paint is on. Further painting was prevented by Courtney's band playing at Folklorama for a week, not to mention the cold and ear infection the subsequent week. Still getting over that, and tomorrow it's off to Island Eagle for some cruising, so don't expect any further news for a couple of weeks.

THEN we'll be back at it, you damn betcha.

Bottom paint

2008-08-02T16:16:00.004-06:00

First coat of bottom paint is on. Pictures!

Where have we been?

2008-07-31T07:42:00.006-06:00

I've been in Brandon, headlining at their excellent little folk festival. Tara's been busy with other stuff. We have done some work, though.

Last week we went out to get ready for bottom painting (oh, hush!) but Detail Girl became sidetracked by the leading edges of the bilge keels. Too square, they were, and in dire need of rounding off ("mumble overseas mumble first place mumble fritz...").

Sooooo I went at them with a chisel, and Detail Girl (I really have to make her a T-shirt) sanded them, and we put on a coat of primer, and we sanded the rest of the primer, and we washed the hull, and that was pretty much our evening. Dad was good enough to sand and add another coat of primer (after all, this was bare wood, not sealed like the rest of the bottom) the next morning.

When we arrived last night, we sanded the second coat of primer and Pronounced It Good. Then it was time to build a water level and mark the waterline in preparation for the aforementioned bottom painting (stop giggling!). What's a water level, you ask? Well, I say, I'll tell you.

Long ago in Olden Tymes, there was no such thing as laser levels. Shocking, I know. So in order to make sure a bunch of things were at the same level, you either measured from a known reference, or you used a water level. They're particularly good for waterlines, given the irregular shape of a hull.

We built ours from an old piece of Tygon™ tubing, a piece of garden hose to which the tubing was carefully joined (ah, electrical tape), a pail, and a dive-belt weight to hold the end of the hose at the bottom of the pail. Here's a picture:

You can see one end of the hose disappearing into the pail; the business end is the tubing, temporarily jammed into the pail handle for safekeeping.

To set up the level, we placed the tubing end up against the transom/keel joint and added water to the pail until the meniscus (look it up if you have to!) was at the right level for the line between the bottom paint and the boot stripe. Then we moved the tubing along the hull, marking out the waterline from stern to bow on both sides.

After that came the fun of springing a batten along the marks to get the fairest line possible, and marking the line on the hull. This took six hands in places (Mom helped) because wood doesn't like to be bent like that. We think the line looks pretty good.

The next step was to very carefully tape off the line with expensive blue masking tape, which has a very fine edge, then add another strip of cheaper and wider masking tape below the blue stuff. By the time we finished all that, and disassembled the water level and returned its parts to their proper places, it was time to head home. But we're all set to put on two coats of bottom paint over the weekend. See how good the tape line looks? (Oooooh. Aaaaah.)

Oh yeah, you can also see the newly rounded bilge keels if you look closely at the second picture. Which I know you all will. Heh.

Primer coat on!

2008-07-15T22:25:00.005-06:00

No work last weekend because it was Folk Festival time. It was an oddity as the annual gathering of the freaky clans goes, because we missed Friday night due to a Mark Knopfler concert (awesome) and Saturday night due to the worst weather in Festival memory (cooold with horizontal rain and extreme winds). We decided a hot bath and whisky beat freezing our butts off Saturday night.

Anyway, Ed still hasn't sent the pix (c'mon, Ed!), but last week we sanded the sealer coats and washed the boat. Tonight we washed once more with thinner and brushed on a primer coat. It looks pretty good.

We'll put on the first of two coats of bottom paint this weekend, I think, and then sand and prime and sand the topsides before we put on the topsides paint. I'll try to post more pictures; our friend Malcolm came to check out the boat and took a bunch of shots of us painting.

Edited on November 17th 2008:

We finally got a bunch of pictures from Malcolm. Here are some of my favourites from the "priming the hull" series:

Washing with thinner

Half-primed

Giggling about something

The promised pix

2008-06-29T14:03:00.004-06:00

Not much has changed, really - just that there are now three coats of S-1 sealer on all the bare wood and fillets. The stem (first pic) is nice and shiny and waterproof. You can see the bilge keels and skeg, too, but the second shot makes them a little more clear.

That's probably it for sealer - now we just have to fine-sand all over and give everything a good wash, and we're ready for primer!

New linky

2008-06-27T12:47:00.002-06:00

Kind words and a link from bdillahu over at craftacraft.com. A quick glance (I am supposed to be working) suggests it's worth checking out in depth. Thanks Bruce!

Sealer coat is on

2008-06-27T07:53:00.001-06:00

Sanded the fillets and applied the first coat of S-1 sealer last night. The stuff has a pretty long pot life so I mixed up a decent batch and will put on as many coats as possible before it hardens in the jar. Pix coming soon.

Douglas fir is splintery

2008-06-24T07:39:00.002-06:00

So I'm sanding away on the keel, and the sanding block lifted up a big splinter which proceeded to enter the tip of my right thumb. Somewhat painful, some blood, but worst of all, a delay in the sanding while I glued the splinter back into place.

Then the band was off on a road trip, followed by a bunch of gigs back home, so the boat took a bit of a back seat. I'm pleased to say that I got back to work last Sunday, completing the epoxy fillets along the edges of the stem, keel, skeg, and bilge keels. Assuming tomorrow's sanding goes without a hitch, I'll put the first coat of sealer on the remaining bare wood tomorrow night. A couple more coats of sealer, final sanding on any stray epoxy drips, and a good wash, and it's painting time! Good thing Tara's home.

Oh, and I'll try to be more diligent about posting now that we're back to work.

At last, fresh pix!

2008-05-26T09:24:00.004-06:00

For a variety of reasons, it's been a while since we posted pictures, but here are a couple to illustrate progress. The first one shows the stem and keel along with the bilge keels, which will help keep our Shilling level when she's on the hard. Constructing the bilge keels was interesting - they're laminated into a curve and then fit to the hull, which involves complex curves of its own, so the fit was a tricky iterative process.

The second shot shows the bilge keels from the stern, and also the skeg, which projects up (well, down, once she's righted) from the keel. As you can see, we still have to fillet the joints and do some final sanding and sealing, but the bottom structure is basically complete. Painting is tentatively scheduled for mid-to-late June, as both Tara and Buster will be out of town until the middle of the month.

Real progress, though--W00T!

Actually, pix THIS weekend.

2008-05-23T06:08:00.002-06:00

I decided to hold off taking pictures until the bilge keels and skeg are in place, which is the last assembly job before we paint. In the meantime, we've chosen a colour scheme: Blu-glo White with dark blue bulwarks. Here's a rough look with the chosen colours:

Yep, she's gonna be pretty!

Quick update without pix

2008-05-09T09:25:00.001-06:00

I'll try to post some pix this weekend; we've installed the keel and stem and laminated up the bilge keels and skeg.

Colour schemes

2008-04-30T08:43:00.009-06:00

Per my last post, we're getting close to painting the hull. This calls for some serious decision-making, and being that kind of bear, I decided to whip up some graphic treatments of various colour schemes to make the choice more, um, reality-based.

All feature the same gorgeous BC background, sails textured from photos of actual sailcloth, and colours from the paint company's colour charts. The Photoshop work is quick and dirty, and there are no fine detail lines - we're just looking at topsides colours at this point. Oh, and I left the cabin, rudder, masts etc. white 'cause I'm lazy.

I know there are millions and millions of people reading this blog (heh), so I have decided to post these for your amusement and feedback. So, without further ado, I give you... Six Scrummy Schemes for Sturdy Sailboats!

1. With tanbark sails (kinda traditional in the land of the Shilling):

Dark blue with Hatteras off-white

Dark blue with buff

2. With white sails:

Hatteras off-white with dark blue

Blu-Glo white with sapphire blue

Blu-Glo white with buff

Off-white with sapphire blue

There are lots of other possible combinations, but these are the ones I like best, so they're the ones you get to see. If you have other suggestions, though, I'm happy to entertain them. Oh yeah, two more things: you can click the pictures for a larger version, and the colours look their most realistic if you actually print the pictures.

So, what do you think, O Mighty Blagsphere? I'd love your feedback!

It's been a while!

2008-04-27T21:09:00.005-06:00

Saw some great Oysterband shows in Alberta, and now Tara's gallivanting around the UK for a couple of months. That leaves me (Courtney) plenty of time to work on the boat.

Did some sanding on Wednesday night, and then Dad finished it up over the next few days. Today we put on the LAST few little patches of fairing compound (not much, as you can see, and it'll sand off very quickly). We also put the keel on (detail pic on the right, taken from the starboard bow).

Next order of business will be the stem and the bilge keels, and tidying the joint between the keel and the hull, not to mention the CP case slot. And THEN we'll be ready to paint and roll her over. Excitement!

Tired. No pix.

2008-04-10T07:27:00.003-06:00

Quick update: glass job was basically really good, a bit of sag on the starboard bow but otherwise pretty clean. Tara, Courtney, and friend Mark were out on Sunday to sand and tidy the edges; it was good fun having Mark there and it's always nice to find someone else to paint the fence. Last night Courtney and Buster put on a strip of glass to reinforce the bow and a thin coat of fairing compound over the whole hull. The last coat... please, please, please, let it be the last coat, otherwise Courtney is afraid that he will wake up one morning and find his arms have said "Bugger this for a lark" and gone off to Rio for hols. And that would make it hard to play music.

But seriously, it's looking really good and we'll have a bit of an enforced break, 'cause next week is the long-awaited "chase Oysterband through western Canada road trip"!

Glassed, by Toutatis!

2008-03-30T14:12:00.002-06:00

Dad and I got two applications of epoxy on, here's a picture of the port side. We'll leave it and do some sanding - maybe even some fairing - before we put on any more epoxy. It's looking good!

Glassing progress

2008-03-29T17:28:00.003-06:00

I (Courtney) am out at Wavey Creek for the weekend, probably, due to a nasty storm. Just as well, there's lots of work to be done glassing this puppy.

Today Dad and I fit four swaths of 10 oz. fibreglass cloth. The inside layer on each side goes from the keel to a little above the waterline, then is covered by an outer layer from the keel to the sheer. Both sides are now pinned in place; we'll do the laminating epoxy tomorrow.

Here's a picture showing the glass on the starboard side (I actually took this shot before we did the port side). The arrows trace the line of the inner layer. It's still a little loose (and long) along the sheer; we'll trim it later. So far so good!

W00T!

2008-03-26T16:54:00.006-06:00

Fairing is done. At looong last. For now. (We might do a bit of fine fairing between glassing, which takes place this weekend, and painting, which won't be for a while.)

Pictures, we have pictures! First the by-now-traditional portside view, showing the results of three or four rounds of filling and sanding. It looks patchy, I'll admit - but it feels smooooove. Like Smoove B., only smoover.

Here's a close-up with enhanced contrast. You can see how the multiple applications overlap or shrink into the centre of a big low spot. Those big low spots took some filling, but don't take my word for it; ask my triceps.

Finally, a shot from the stern, looking down on the boat. You can also see Buster aka Dad, laminating up the stem for an outboard planing boat he's building. This one is a step up in size from his Mud Cat, so he's calling it Channel Cat. Needless to say, it'll be in the water before our Shilling...

But I'm feeling pretty chuffed for the moment. The fairing was probably the hardest job, in terms of physical work, we'll face in this entire build... and it's done. Ish.

So, W00T!

OMG. Also, WTF and BBQ.

2008-03-24T16:53:00.001-06:00

I hate fairing!

That is all.

Fairing continues

2008-03-10T11:27:00.001-06:00

We're into the third round of fairing and I think this will be the last one barring some isolated low spots that might need one more fill-in. Things are looking good - we'll try to post some pictures before we glass, which should be the weekend after next.

Pix, although it's not the weekend

2008-02-28T08:47:00.006-06:00

Yeah, yeah, I said I'd have these up on the weekend. They're late, but I hope they're interesting and worth waiting for.

As reported earlier, we first tried a notched trowel with our epoxy and phenolic microballoon fairing compound. However, it turned out that the hull was already smooth enough (Courtney's devoted sanding, heh) that the ridges were pretty much unnecessary. To see how the port side of the hull looks with a first application of fairing compound using a flat blade, take a look at the first pic.

The starboard side is a little further along. About 1/3 of that side got the ridged trowel treatment, before we decided it was unnecessary; the rest got the flat spatula. Then we sanded, using power sanders on the really high bits, followed by longboards. The longboards, which we made out of multiple layers of flexible plastic, conform to the hull's curves and sand down the high spots.

The second picture shows some bare wood (whitish), longboarded fairing compound (light pink), and a second layer of fairing compound (darker areas) applied to the low spots. The starboard side will be finished very shortly - we just have to longboard the second layer, which should go very quickly.

Finally, although it's in reverse order, I thought I'd show the effects of the ridged trowel. This close-up shows the ridges, sanded down and filled in with the second application of fairing compound. Again, smoothing this part with the longboard should go quite quickly.

Good thing, too - they're really tiring! Folks don't call them "tortureboards" for nothing... but at least Tara should be able to make it out next weekend, so she can experience a little of the fun that is fairing. Oh yeah, if you're playing along at home, here's what we've learned:

the ridged trowel thing might not be necessary if your hull is already very smooth;
if you use a ridged trowel, you want pretty low ridges (maybe 3-4 mm?);
make the ridges all run parallel to the floor - it doesn't make a difference when you're applying the first layer, but it does when you go to apply the second, because you can apply it across the ridges easily and it won't sag down the grooves.

So that's the big fairing update. We've also ordered 50 yards of 60", 10 oz. fibreglass cloth for sheathing, and another gallon of epoxy. The next big adventure is sheathing!

Fairing update

2008-02-22T07:58:00.002-06:00

Just a quick note with an update on fairing. The microballoon/epoxy fairing compound works very well, and about half of the hull has been covered. For the first application we used a notched trowel, but the notches are quite deep and we ended up with a LOT of fairing compound on the hull - which equals a LOT of sanding with the dreaded longboard.

For the second round we tried a flat spatula fitting the curve of the hull, and it looks like that's going to work just fine for filling in the low spots without requiring excessive sanding. I'll post some pictures this weekend.

I should also mention that we have decided to sheath with glass after all. Some spirited discussion on the Wooden Boat forum ended up convincing me that we need the structural stiffness of glass more than we need the abrasion resistance of a synthetic. Glass is cheaper and uses less epoxy, so that's a bit of a bonus as well.

That is all, more on the weekend!

Post-flu update

2008-02-13T21:19:00.003-06:00

Courtney had the flu. No film, at 11:00 or otherwise; it wasn't pretty. Somewhere in there we dry-fit the stem and keel; testing various fairing mixes now and fairing this weekend.

Anyone out there been wondering where our friend Ron is these days? Well, last we heard, he's somewhere in the Canary Islands, having sailed there from France, on his way to Antigua. Lucky bugger. He has an amazing blog: http://whyyesactuallyidratherbesailing.blogspot.com
Check it out - it's way more interesting than ours.

Sanding update

2008-01-22T08:05:00.000-06:00

A lot of sanding later, the hull is basically smooth and ready for filling and fairing. There are a few trouble spots where we'll wait and see how the fairing goes before deciding whether to use the belt sander on them, but things are looking good. Before we fair we'll dry-fit the keel and stem; that's probably the next order of business.

We were planning to glass the hull inside and out, but we're thinking about using a fabric other than fiberglass. Courtney is leaning toward Xynole - it's about 15% more expensive than glass, but MUCH more pleasant to work with (like a soft stretchy cloth), stronger, and more wear-resistant. We'll do a bit more research before making the decision, then order the cloth; it should be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $5-600.

Sanding, sanding

2008-01-18T08:20:00.000-06:00

Good thing I (Courtney) have been house-sitting out at Wavey Creek, 'cause I've been sanding my arms off. I sanded and sanded and sanded some more, until my little sander was broke (well, Dad's actually). Not wanting to wait the 7-10 days to bring in a new timing belt, I went out and bought a belt sander for Tara and myself - it makes sense that we should have one. Same basic model (Ryobi 3" x 21", variable speed), just the latest version.

This had nothing to do with tool lust. NOTHING. I mean it.

Presenting: the WHISKY PLANK!

2008-01-12T17:21:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's true, we finally fitted the whisky plank today. For those of you who are unfamiliar with wooden boat builders' traditions, the final plank on a wooden hull is usually toasted with whisky.

We did it up right, had some friends (Kyle, the bass player in Courtney's band, and his partner Carmella) over to help us drink some good single malt. Dalmore Black Pearl... yums!

Courtney's going to be busy fairing the hull now, in preparation for glassing and painting. Oh yeah, we also have to fit the stem and the keel and the skeg and the bilge keels and...

Yeah yeah, we're not quite done yet. But it's worth celebrating this milestone!

Happy Birthday to you...

2007-12-27T09:34:00.000-06:00

...Happy Birthday to you / Happy Birthday, dear Shilling / Happy Birthday to you! (Courtney wanted pictures of cake and candles, but Tara said no.)

Yes, Boxing Day (December 26th for those of you who don't have Boxing Day) was our Shilling's first birthday, in the sense that we started work on December 26th, 2006. Like most one-year-olds, the Shilling still doesn't talk much, doesn't get around all that easily, and isn't allowed to drive yet.

We're almost done planking (man, I'm getting tired of saying that), as you can see from the portside shot. We're still looking almost sane, as you can see from the picture of both of us. That's probably about all we can ask for at this point. (And more coffee - we can ask for more coffee. It's very morning out.)

Interior pix

2007-12-17T14:02:00.001-06:00

As we put on the last few planks, we're also beginning to clean up the exterior of the hull. Ron (being rather more compact and flexible than, say, Courtney) volunteered to go inside and hammer out some badly placed nails, so we have some shots of the interior.

Looks fairly well-sealed for this stage, though of course once we clean up the squeeze-out and glass the interior it will be REALLY tight!

And speaking of tight, how about this sight of Ron contorting himself around frame #2 and the CP case? We're very lucky he's decided to put in some "sweat equity"!

Sometimes we're clever. Of course, it's usually too late by then.

2007-12-03T08:41:00.001-06:00

We're almost done planking, so it's kind of silly that we came up with a major improvement to the process now. We post this for what it's worth to anyone crazy enough to be contemplating building their own boat. :-D

See, when we glue the planks onto the frames, some of the glue squeezes out and runs down the frame edges. When the glue is dry, we use a chisel to remove it. But wouldn't it be good if the squeeze-out ran down onto something we could remove easily? Some kind of sticky paper we could use to, you know, "mask" the bits where we don't want glue?

Something like this newfangled stuff called "masking tape", perhaps? (DUHHHHHHHHHHHH!)

Limber holes!

2007-11-20T10:05:00.000-06:00

Planking continues, and since we're about to start covering up the points where the frames meet the hog, we had to think about limber holes.

What are limber holes, you ask? Well, see, the frames divide the interior of the boat into compartments. The lowest point on the bottom should be between frames 4 & 5, or so it appears - in other words, if water gets into the boat, it's going to want to settle down in the bilges between frames 4 & 5. So that's where we'll have the bilge pump intake.

Of course, we only want ONE bilge pump intake (or maybe one on each side of the CP case, I have to think about this)... so we want water to be able to get down to the lowest point. That means we have holes (well and truly protected with epoxy so they don't let water into the plywood) in the frames, right where they meet the hog, so bilge water can drain down to the pump. Limber holes.

We've cut some oversize holes and sealed them with epoxy, but we're not done. The plan is to wax some short (5-6") lengths of 3/4" OD flexible tubing, coat them with paste wax for easy removal, and epoxy them in place when we fillet (i.e. reinforce and seal with filler and epoxy and maybe glass) all around the edges of the frames. The waxed tubing slides out afterward (we've tested this), leaving nice, smooth, waterproof 3/4" limber holes.

Or that's the theory!

More planking

2007-11-12T15:16:00.001-06:00

A couple of crappy phone camera pix of planking progress to date. As you can see, we've crossed the sheer stringer at the bow as well as the transom now. Planks will be getting shorter quickly now as we have to cover 3-4" less at each end with each plank on the topsides (i.e. at the bottom of the picture.

We put in a few tapered planks as we worked toward the keel, and as you can see, those planks are already much shorter than the topside planks. It's getting harder to force the curve on the topsides, so we might put in a tapered plank or two to make it easier there, too.

Not long now 'til we fit the whisky plank!

There's always something...

2007-11-02T07:01:00.000-06:00

...that gets in the way of working on the boat. This time it's a cedar shortage in the shop, combined with deer season (as subsistence hunters, Courtney's folks have to get out there and fill the freezer!). Next scheduled work day is Sunday, when we'll rip up a bunch of 14' cedar boards and get back to planking. And post pictures, of course!

Interesting sub-milestone

2007-10-27T19:19:00.000-06:00

The next BIG milestone is when we finish planking (the eagerly anticipated "whisky plank"). We hit an interesting point in the planking today, though: we fit the two longest planks on the hull. Because of the way the hull curves, the plank that crosses the top of the transom (in other words, since the hull is upside down, the plank at the lowest point on the transom in the pictures) is the longest one on the boat.

It worked out well; we scarfed up just enough really long planks to finish that bit. From here on, the planks will get shorter quickly, because of the small angle at which they cross the sheer.

Um, that's all for now.

As promised - pix of more planking

2007-10-24T19:40:00.000-06:00

The planking, it continues. Took the weekend off and went to Toronto to see Ron Hawkins and Mick Thomas, and to visit Courtney's brother & fambly. It was a pretty good time, you damn betcha.

As you can see, we're getting on with the planking; it helps that we can go away and Buster keeps working! Looking something like a boat at this point.

That's about it really, just wanted to post some pictures of the planking progress to date. The next exciting and fiddly bits will come when we plank over the hog, which is currently obscured by planks waiting to be applied. But we're getting closer to the whisky plank, and the Dalmore Black Pearl is ready and waiting!

Planking continues

2007-10-22T07:22:00.000-06:00

...but we have no pix for you. Haven't done any work since last weekend, either, because Courtney and Tara were in Toronto for some Ron Hawkins/Mick Thomas gigs. Before that, Wednesday's planking session was canceled 'cause Buster had to take Dooley the Dog (the Wavey Creek springer) all the way to Saskatoon for emergency eye surgery. Sadly, Dooley lost her eye, but we don't expect that to slow her down any!

Oh, and further to the polyurethane glue we've been using, I wanted to highlight this comment from Ron: "You can add that the drippy bits chisel off real easy-like; it actually does come out of a wool garment, and offa the arm hair even after setting up." Yep, we like it.

This week, MOAR planking, with pix!

Planking pictures!

2007-10-09T10:40:00.001-06:00

Here are some pictures of planking progress to date. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled plankers. We've got about ten planks on each side now, so we're making good progress.
If you look at the close-up shot below, you'll see how the glue we're using (polyurethane, AKA "Gorilla Glue") foams up and fills the cracks between the planks. We like it better than epoxy, 'cause it's easier to work with, and it's waterproof (well, so is epoxy), and it doesn't smell bad, and it sands pretty easily, and it makes a nice strong bond. Highly recommended if you're used to planking with epoxy!

The plank scarfing jig

2007-10-09T09:53:00.000-06:00

As our devoted readers will know, planking involves some kinda long pieces of cedar. Around 18 feet long. Since available cedar boards were, well, less than that, we had to scarf strips together. Sometimes two scarfs per strip, even. The first picture shows some short strips waiting to be scarfed. That's a LOT of scarfs, so a handy jig is a good thing.

Dictionary.com tells us that a jig, in this sense, is "a plate, box, or open frame for holding work and for guiding a machine tool to the work, used esp. for locating and spacing drilled holes; fixture." We're after something that helps us line up, clamp, and glue multiple scarfs.

Turns out an open U-shaped box lined with polyethylene is just perfect. Add strips of poly between each scarfed pair of planks, and it's slicker than a really really slick thing!

Once the scarfs are glued and stacked and tapped in from each end (not too hard, just enough to press the angled ends together firmly without undue overlap), we clamp the jig. We clamp the sides together, then insert a block to spread the force and clamp from the top as well.

It's a modest little production improvement, but it lets us scarf seven planks at once. No scarfing bottleneck in this operation!

Oh, and for those of you what are still waiting for the Plank Scarfing Jig, Courtney hasn't written it yet. Too busy playing actual shows to have some quality time with a mandolin!

We've started planking!

2007-09-26T20:58:00.000-06:00

Minor emergencies (like Tim's emergency appendectomy, not to mention a wedding Courtney had to play and kind of forgot about) notwithstanding, we were actually able to start planking tonight. No pictures yet, they're coming soon. PLANKING, WOOHOO! That is all.

Summer and distraction

2007-09-16T14:53:00.001-06:00

Well, it's been a busy summer. Lots of stuff happening with the band, and various people involved with the Shilling (most notably Tara and Buster) have been out of town. Tara visited the UK for several weeks, and actually got to spend some time with Phil Swift at Willow Bay Boats - how cool is that! No Shillings like ours on site at the time, but she did get to have a look at an open Shilling and check out the Willow Bay shop.

Buster was out on Island Eagle for a few weeks, and life is always busy, so we're just getting back into boat-building mode... well, Shilling-building mode, anyway. I (Courtney) trekked out to Wavey Creek for some Shilling work today, but got distracted: my nephew Tim has a new boat!

Buster and Tim whacked together a little hydroplane - it may not have a Tara-grade finish, but it goes well enough. Tim took it out for the first time, with Buster manning the oars of Mud Cat and me snapping photos. Check it out:

It's pretty fast, but I don't think I'll take it for a spin; it's got almost no freeboard with Tim in the cockpit, and I probably outweigh him by 150 pounds!

Good fun, though. Shilling construction resumes this week.

Ready for planking

2007-06-03T08:46:00.001-06:00

Regular readers will probably notice that we've added a line drawing of the Shilling to the right-hand column. Here's a link to a full-size scan of the line drawing. She's pretty!

Not much to report on the progress front, at least not with pictures. Courtney and Buster finished beveling the frames and apron, and also tested the plank scarfing jig (I'll post a MIDI later, heh!), so we're basically ready for planking. Things are on hold while Courtney's parents are out of town, though... and then Tara's away in the UK for a while... and there's the Folk Festival... and lots of gigs... and maybe a trip to spend some time on Island Eagle...

Basically, what I'm saying is, progress is going to be slow for the next while. We hope to start planking in a couple of weeks or so. Talk to you then!

The stringers are on!

2007-05-23T07:52:00.001-06:00

Yes, all four stringers are on. Courtney and Tara once again convinced Ron to help paint the fence, er, build the boat, and finished attaching the stringers this past weekend. Buster took this shot of them working away Monday morning.

It was good to have six hands for the job, too, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that fitting the stringers works best if you have two people to hold a stringer in place and another to mark where the frame should be cut out.

The other reason... well, it's like this. There's this blade you can put on an angle grinder, and it has teeth rather like those on a chainsaw. Great for quickly roughing out, say, slots in the frames. Also good, as it turns out, for quickly roughing out slots in your thumb, if you get a bit careless with it. This left only five hands to work on the boat, or maybe 5.5 depending on how you're counting. Not the world's worst injury, and Courtney can still play guitar in his band, but it was enough to require a quick trip to the hospital.

Anyway, enough mit der sad stories - don't the stringers look great? You can't really tell from the pictures how neatly they're recessed into the frames and the transom and the apron, but it's a reasonably neat job, with the cracks all filled in with thickened epoxy. You can see Tara and Ron filling cracks in the last couple of photos.

We still have to pull the screws we used to hold the stringers in place, and then we have to bevel the frames and do a bit of trim around the hog, but the next big job is planking... and that is exciting!

Got the other sheer stringer on

2007-05-17T11:01:00.000-06:00

...last night. Took all evening. Fiddly stuff. The deck-shelf stringers should be easier. Must stop telegraphese. (Only you can stop telegraphese. You can make a difference. Send money now!)

Good heavens, the avifauna at Wavey Creek! Hummingbirds, finches, doves, a zillion species of sparrow (well, it seems that way, anyway), blackbirds, cowbirds, woodpeckers, wood ducks and mergansers, to name but a few. No orioles this year or last, though, after a few years with dozens of them. Makes you wonder what's going on with their habitat, down south a ways.

Tempus fidgets.

2007-05-09T10:05:00.000-06:00

Sometimes it's hard to find the time to update this blog. For the benefit of our regular readers, we haven't forgotten about you, and we are working on the boat; we'll have proper pictures when we hit the next milestone.

In the past week or so we:

attached the transom;
beveled the reinforced portion of every starboard frame;
beveled most of the apron; and
dry-fit and attached the starboard sheer stringer.

It's fiddly business, but now that we know how to approach it, the port sheer stringer should go much more quickly. The deck shelf stringers should be even faster, because they're recessed into the frames and held top-and-bottom... so they can't fall off.

Don't ask. ;-)

Pictures when we have all the stringers on!

We have backbone.

2007-04-28T15:47:00.000-06:00

Yowzah, do we have backbone. This thing is going to be solid like Russian tractor, minus about three wheels.

We had threatened pictures, and here they are. Regular readers will recall that when last we left our heroes, they had put the last three frames in place, but hadn't taken pictures. The first picture shows the aft frames (6 through 8) in place.

Last night, Courtney and Buster epoxied and screwed the hog into place. Everything lined up very carefully, by Wavey Creek standards anyway. Admire the lovely hog in the first two photos. Look at the second photo in particular - see how straight? Ooooooh. Aaaaaah.

But wait, you say. What's that thing sticking up forward from the hog, you say? The thing with all the clamps on it? Well might you ask. It's the apron, epoxied and clamped and happy to be where it belongs. You can get a better view in the next picture.

Isn't that awesome? Note how nicely frame 1 lines up with the centre-line. That took a bit of doing. The joint between the apron and the hog was a bit fiddly too, but it came out OK. A bit of fairing, maybe some bolts through the joint just to be extra safe (we'll see though, Buster thinks that will actually weaken it), and Bob's your uncle. Well, actually, Bob's Courtney's uncle. Hi, Bob!

One more picture, this one taken from a ladder (this is what happens when Courtney gets a camera in his hands, folks) on the starboard side. The skeleton of our boat is almost complete - doesn't it look like a little whale? We like to think so.

The transom is next; if you look closely you can see the transom knee in the first picture, just roughly clamped in place. Have to consult with Buster before tackling the transom, though, so that's it for this weekend. Cheers!

So I changed my mind. It's allowed.

2007-04-25T06:29:00.000-06:00

Courtney here - I realise that just a couple of days ago I was thinking the hog would be next. I went out to Wavey Creek after work last night, though, and decided to put up the rest of the frames first. I am pleased to report that the frames we cleated together on Sunday are trimmed and sanded, and all frames are now in place and level. We also cut and beveled frames 2, 6, 7, and 8 to make space for the hog.

I was going to take a picture, but I'm going to wait until we attach the hog (which really IS the next job) and maybe the apron. THEN you'll see some boaty goodness, just you wait and see. It's gonna have a hot tub, and a mini-bar, and a pony...

That's the way it's supposed to be!

2007-04-23T08:24:00.000-06:00

Wow, did we have a good boat-building day yesterday. We made some final adjustments to both sides of frame 3, and attached and adjusted frames 4 and 5. Then we made plywood cleats to hold the port and starboard pieces of frames 6 and 7 together, put the frame halves and cleats together with screws, and took them apart again.

Then it was epoxy time - we filleted frames 4 and 5, then epoxied the cleats and frame halves (6 & 7) and screwed them back together. We observed an interesting phenomenon for the first time - Courtney was holding a container with two "shots" of epoxy in it, and because the heat didn't dissipate quickly enough, the whole container set in a few minutes and had to be chucked out. This, kids, is why we don't hold epoxy containers by the base, we hold them by the tops.

So now the boat is back to looking more like the photo (stolen from below, 'cause we were too lazy to take more pictures), with all frames attached back to #5. Next I think we'll attach the hog, which will give us some fore-and-aft control of frames 6, 7, 8, and the transom. Look for increasingly boaty goodness in the next few posts!

No pix today...

2007-04-19T08:32:00.000-06:00

...but if you want to imagine what the boat looks like right now, just remove frames 4 and 5 from the "3-D" shots in the last post. That's not as dire as it sounds; allow me (Courtney) to explain.

When we took the last photos, everything was "pretty close" to lined up, and it was temporarily clamped in place. There were a couple of problems, though:

frames 3 & 4, which are in two halves and butt up against the CP case, were not precisely in place;
the joint between frame 2 and the CP case wasn't plumb; and
the tripod with the laser level was bumped by the shop door and knocked out of alignment.

Not the end of the world; I was planning on taking everything apart anyway. The problem, which Dad and I arg^H^H^Hdiscussed at length Tuesday night, was that you need the CP case straight to check the level of the frames... and with the laser level you have to do that one frame at a time in numbered order (3, 4, 5)... and frame 5 is the one that straightens out the CP case. Spot the circle?

By last night, I kinda figured that our parts were precise enough that we could attach them and they'd be pretty close, but first we had to reset the laser level, re-level frame 1 (which still isn't attached to anything except the construction frame), and fix the joint between frame 2 and the CP case. This latter task involved backing out the screws, shimming the joint, packing it with epoxy/wood flour filler, tightening the screws again, and filleting both sides of the joint with fibreglass and epoxy.

THEN we could try attaching both sides of frame 3 with itty bitty brackets and screws, twisting the CP case into the right alignment, and checking the level. Vindication - everything lined up just fine, so we filleted the joints of frame 3 (forward sides only, the aft sides still had brackets on them). We'll do the same thing for both sides of frame 4 once it's lined up properly, filleting the aft sides of the frame 3 joints and the forward sides of the frame 4 joints, then move on to frame 5... which by now we have good reason to believe will pull the whole structure into pretty fine alignment.

But sometimes it feels like nothing is ever easy. This whole boat-building thing is a good lesson in patience, cleverness, and foresight.

Assembly du jour

2007-04-10T19:45:00.000-06:00

This is exciting! Tara, Courtney, and Ron went out to Wavey Creek on Easter Monday and sealed the patched and sanded frames. Ron, Courtney, and Courtney's dad Buster also braved the dodgy ice of Wavey Creek to put up a wood duck nesting box on the far side of the creek from the boatyard, er, house.

Courtney went out after work tonight (April 10th) and he and Buster actually started putting frames etc. together. We weren't sure this method was going to work, and it seemed a bit questionable at times, but everything came together amazingly.

See, we had this reasonably sturdy and square (well, I said "reasonably", didn't I) construction frame. To that we fixed 2x2 posts to hold the frames themselves. We tried snapping a chalked centre-line down the construction frame, but a stretched Piece! Of! String! (any other Jonathan Lethem fans out there?) did the job much better. Hold a plumb bob on the centre-lines marked on each frame, line 'em up to the string, and your frames are centred and plumb. But what about levels?

Heh. Well, let me tell you about what might be the best-spent $50 of the whole boat-building adventure: a tripod and a cheapy-do (but tripod-mountable) laser level. Yes, tripods... with frickin' lasers on their heads. (Any other John Christopher fans out there?)

It was brilliant. It was shiny. It was, well, red and coherent. (Not like Courtney, who is well-read and incoherent.) Best of all, it could be set to the correct reference waterline (identified on the plans as waterline 3, if this blog lasts long enough for someone to play along at home)... and used to line every frame up to the same level. It made a hairy job slightly less hairy, I'll say that. The second picture shows the tripod and level; the third shows the laser line as used to line up frame 5 ("The Big One").

Note the CP case sticking out of frame 5. We butted it up against frame 2, propped up the aft end, roughly fit the two sides (each) of frames 3 and 4 to the CP case, wondered how the hell it was all going to line up properly, and swore a fair bit. But then frame 5 ("The Big One" - there's a special sound effect, you know) saved the day. It's all one piece, you see, and once we'd made a nice snug cutout for the CP case, and centred it, and leveled it, and corrected the twist in the CP case (to Wavey Creek tolerances)... suddenly everything lined up!

I tell you, it was one of the best moments of my life. This thing might actually work after all. Enjoy this side view of the CP case and frames. We stopped after frame 5, but the last three should go together reasonably quickly. They're just clamped for now, pending the application of the hog and the apron and the transom and the stringers... but at long last, we have something shaped like a boat!

Tired. Happy, but tired.

2007-04-03T08:10:00.000-06:00

Saturday night, March 31st, Courtney's band Venus Murphy played three sets at a local pub. The show was a smashing success, splendid time guaranteed, but it was pretty tired out by the time we were done. This probably explains why Courtney and Tara didn't get up to Wavey Creek to work on the boat until, well, some time after noon the next day.

So we didn't get a ton of work done. The things we did accomplish are pretty exciting, though. At left you can see the centre-plate case, finally assembled. We're getting very close to actually putting the various pieces together.

To the right is one of the frames (this one is number five), sitting on top of the freezer for some final patching before we assemble everything. We'll be putting in some good long boatbuilding days over the Easter long weekend, and final patching and smoothing of the frames is probably the first job we'll try to get through.

Then we'll start attaching the frames to the construction frame, which is pictured on the left. At that point, the boat really starts taking shape, so there will be lots of pictures. The shop door is in the background (you can probably see the CP case back there, too); the bow end of the construction frame is in the foreground.

Finishing the construction frame felt like a really major step, even though we didn't actually do that much work on Sunday (Courtney sez "Tell that to my knees", 'cause he was kneeling on concrete to screw the construction frame together...). We can't wait to start putting the "big picture" together!

A quick update

2007-03-26T06:15:00.000-06:00

...we'll add the pictures later. Sealing almost complete, cleaned up the shop in preparation for the construction frame and assembly and planking and stuff - but we won't be able to do any more work until next weekend (mumble fritz band mumble mumble thinking...).

Speaking of which, if you're in Winnipeg, come on out to Dylan O'Connor's on Portage, Saturday March 31st, and see Venus Murphy. It's gonna rawk. More after the weekend!

It's looking like spring!

2007-03-11T08:15:00.000-06:00

Well, unlocking, anyway. Out to Wavey Creek yesterday for some tech support and boatbuilding - Courtney was put to work on his folks' new Vista machine (yoinks!) while Tara sanded down the sealed frames. We cleaned up the stringers with router and sandpaper (tried some little rounding planes from Lee Valley, too, but they didn't work all that well for this application). The picture on the left is of the sanded frames stacked up against the freezer, with a cedar plank in front of them.

Then it was time for the excitement - can you feel the excitement? - of cutting hull planking. We brought three big 1" cedar boards in from the garage and cut them into ½" strips. The smell of freshly cut Western Red Cedar is wonderful! Here's Tara standing next to one of the boards.

Now, we need a fair bit of planking to cover the hull - something like 13 square metres - and it looks like these planks won't be enough. More challenging, though, is the fact that these planks are only about half the length of the longest cedar strips we'll need.

Which means a whole bunch of scarf joints. Which means coming up with some kind of jig to make it easier. We played around with various possibilities and we think we can slide a narrow triangle against the tablesaw fence for cutting the scarfs. For gluing, we haven't played with this yet, but we can probably build some sort of box (two parallel sides) into which we slide the pieces to be scarfed. We'll figure it out and post pictures later.

Pretty cool to be cutting planking, though! That construction frame might be together by the end of the week. Or not; Courtney's band has been really busy. But the boat is moving forward.

Still here...

2007-03-02T09:11:00.000-06:00

Not many posts lately because:

Courtney's band is very busy rehearsing for the new lineup's debut performances.
The current boat workload is all about sealing. Because sealing involves an hour or two of work every day, it's not really worth driving for an hour each way when you can con your father into doing it. ;-)

The sealing is almost done, though, and we'll be moving to the next stage (construction frame, construct the skeleton, and PLANKING!), oh, next week probably. We'll post some pictures of the sealed frames etc. - they look pretty good.

So, sorry there hasn't been much to see, but keep watching this space - things are about to get a LOT more interesting. Cheers!

Oops, forgot to take pix (again)

2007-02-22T07:10:00.000-06:00

Out to Wavey Creek on Wednesday evening... the drive was terrible, 50 km/h from the edge of the city all the way to Highway 67 because the right lane was basically covered in ice. Assorted vehicles in the ditch provided cogent reminders that the intent of the journey is to arrive, not to get there quickly!

Anyway, we mixed up a test batch of S1 sealer and started sealing the CP case interior and frames. Very different from the glueing epoxy we'd been using to date - this stuff is very viscous, spreads and penetrates well. We mixed up a total of something like 400-450 ml and it covered all but one frame and half of another.

The S1 stuff lasts 48 hours in a sealed container, too, so you can mix up a fairly big batch at one time. There's a 12 to 24 hour window for additional applications without sanding, so Dad is probably going to keep plugging away until we can get back out there on the weekend. Hmm, the sealing might be done by the time we get there. ("You're doing a fine job, just keep going like that!")

On a completely boat-free topic, I (Courtney) am right chuffed because my recent regimen of drops and syringes has resulted in finally being able to hear out of my left ear (it's been quite a few weeks since I could say that). Should make band practice easier, not to mention just plain listening to people. Cheers!

Yeah, it's been busy

2007-02-20T07:06:00.001-06:00

Wow, it's been a while. Not much boat action last weekend; Courtney was out at Wavey Creek but was busy with budgets ("work" work, not boat work). All of this week Courtney's been busy with his band, so the only real boat work in the last couple of weeks was this past Sunday.

We went out to Wavey Creek and finished (with file, sanders, and finally Tara's great hand sanding) the stringers and frame reinforcements. We're now ready to put three coats of sealer on all the "skeleton" pieces before we put everything together. It will probably take a few weeks, but I think we're still on schedule to have the hull complete and moved outside by (late) spring.

No pix today, nothing really exciting to show. Just... slow progress. We'll put up some pix of frames etc. once they're sealed, though. Cheers!

Progress, now with pictures

2007-02-05T13:31:00.000-06:00

Not much work left to do on Sunday, so we had a lazy day in front of the fire. That's nice when it's very cold, and Winnipeg has been VERY cold lately. I think we might have hit -40° last night.

Anyway, we finished epoxying the bulwark reinforcements (earflaps) to the frames - the first picture shows an assortment of frames (they're propped up all over the shop) clamped and curing.

We also finished shaping the transom knee - this supports the angle between the keel (well, the hog, but it's all part of the keel structure) and the transom. It's another very "boaty" piece of wood, lovely curves as you can see. The long straight edge is about 10.5", and it's nearly 2" thick, so it should be very strong.

Finally, we re-scarfed the stringer that broke the day before. There's a bit more shaping to do with the stringers, and we need to clean up the laminated stem, but basically we're ready to start sealing. The frames, hog, CP case, apron, transom, and stringers will get three coats of epoxy sealer (on the surfaces we're finished working, anyway).

Then we'll cut cedar strips for hull planking, assemble the construction frame, and put the pieces together. That's when it starts looking like a boat - we're very excited to have that huge step this close!

P.S. Can you tell I took these pictures with my camera, not my phone? Vast improvement. - C.

No pix today

2007-02-03T21:35:00.000-06:00

...but we've been busy. Courtney is house-sitting for his parents (they're fishing in the Bahamas, must be nice when it's like -100° outside here in Manisnowba!), so we headed up to Wavey Creek with friend Ron in tow. Ron did a masterful cleanup job on the shop, and we made a transom knee (pix tomorrow), PLUS we finished shaping the earflaps.

Not only that, but we epoxied half of the earflaps onto the frames. Good thing we had epoxy going, because somebody broke a deckshelf stringer (OK, it's hard to turn a 20' piece of wood end for end in a room that's only about 18' wide...) and it had to be scarfed again.

Really, pix tomorrow. But first, curry!

Earflaps!

2007-01-29T11:13:00.000-06:00

Braved the cold to head out to Wavey Creek yesterday. It wasn't a long building session because one of Courtney's headlights was out, but we did some fun stuff. We sliced up some doug fir and laminated the stem, using the apron as a form; this design calls for the planking to be attached to the apron, after which the stem is applied to the outside of the bow.

We also used the bandsaw to cut out all the "earflaps" out of scraps of our precious marine plywood, and shaped most of them with the disk sander. We mentioned earlier that the plywood frames have "ears" that stick up to support the bulwarks; these ears are reinforced on either side, making for a 1.5" support (plenty strong, arrr). Courtney calls them earflaps 'cause, you know, they cover the ears. Here's Tara holding up a couple of them, with more on the bench beside her.

And that was it for another day. Oh, in case you were wondering, the transom glued just fine with all that weight on it. Next, the transom knee!

Frames, apron, and... transom!

2007-01-23T20:17:00.000-06:00

This past Sunday, we worked on the frames - cut some holes for hatches, finished shaping and cleaning up the edges, and marked reference lines for construction. We also got the apron ready for laminating.

Yesterday I (Courtney) picked up Dad at the airport (he'd been representing Kasba Lake Lodge at a big fishing show in Atlanta) and we drove out to Wavey Creek. We laminated the plywood cheeks onto the apron, and also laminated two sheets of ply together for the transom. The apron is the first picture (lots of clamps)... but how do you clamp sheets of plywood?

You can use a press, if you have one. You can also use a vacuum bag, which is surprisingly effective (well, if you think about it, with even a semi-decent vacuum pump you'll get at least 10 pounds of pressure per square inch), but we couldn't be arsed to come up with something that would work. So we, ah, just piled a bunch of heavy stuff on the the two well-epoxied plys of the transom. Sections of rail (they make handy anvils), some cast-iron weights from a body-building set that's older than I am, lead dive-belt weights, containers of water, a heavy grinder motor, we even put a big bag of cat litter on there!

Which seems kind of fitting, as I expect this glue job to be the cat's ass. Heh. (Sometimes I'm funny. I know this isn't one of those times, but sometimes I am...)

Driving and thinking and learning

2007-01-17T13:49:00.000-06:00

Courtney here - driving around lately, I've been thinking about how good it is to live in a part of the world with such an abundance of natural beauty. Last night when I drove out to Wavey Creek to work on the boat, there was a very strong south wind blowing and the ground-drift (I'm talking snow, for those of you in warmer climes!) was spectacular. Its eerie, snakelike, shifting strands of windblown snow, which at times completely obscured the highway lane markers, reminded me in shape and form of some spectacular aurora, albeit on fast-forward. It was pretty cool in every sense of the word.

And this morning, driving to work, I was struck once again (it happens a lot in the winter around here) by the magnificent, understated, almost hallucinatory clarity of the prairie sky in winter. The wash of orange and gold at sunrise, the subtle gradations of purple and pink and grey on an early evening horizon... I don't think there's any way to capture these visions, though William Kurelek's watercolours come close.

Learned a bit about the power of moisture in wood, too. Most of the boards we bought (see earlier posts) for building were kiln-dried and stored inside, so they were dimensionally stable. The cheap cedar packing for the centre-plate case was not. Dad didn't think it would be a problem (famous last words!).

When we took the clamps off the CP-case sides, though, the top framing opposite the packing was bent and cracked. The cedar - a relatively small piece - had dried and bent the plywood, which in turn bent and cracked the mahogany framing. No huge deal to fix; we chiseled off the broken part, cleaned up the old epoxy, fit a new piece of framing... and clamped the sucker down onto the table-saw top to keep it flat. Of course, the packing board had to give, and it cracked down the centre, but that's no big deal; it's not structural, and it's going to be completely saturated with epoxy anyway. But at least the CP-case will be straight!

We also cut the "apron" out of a jeezly big plank of douglas fir. The apron is a kind of proto-stem that sits behind the externally visible stem; it's formed from two pieces and will be faced with marine plywood cheeks before being bevelled to fit the hull planking. It's a very "boaty" piece and gave me a bit of a thrill of accomplishment when we put it together. It was hard to clamp, though: we ended up holding both pieces in place with nails (a workbench made of old boxcar bottoms is a forgiving thing!) and using a wedge to drive the two pieces together. You can see the clamped joint in this photo - note the wedge at the far right.

And that's about it for now!

It's cold.

2007-01-16T10:35:00.000-06:00

Real cold. Like, wind-chill below -40° cold. That didn't stop us heading out to work on the boat on Sunday, though, and Courtney will be heading back out tonight.

We scarfed up the last sheer stringer, and trimmed and glued the top framing for the CP case - that involved lots of clamps, see the picture? It's just for Nightfall, courtesy of my new Blackberry Pearl. We cut marine plywood scraps into blanks for reinforcing the projections on the frames - I call them "ears" - that support the topsides. We tidied up the frames and apron cheeks some more, that's going well.

We also finished shaping the hog, which was a bit of a pain due to a serious jog in the board... it's the right shape, and straight (now), and shouldn't present any structural problems, but it's (ahem) an inch narrower than spec. We won't talk about whose fault that was, other than to say that Tara was not involved. ;-)

We're making slow but steady progress, and will soon be ready to put the construction frame together and start assembling all these pieces into the boat's "skeleton"... and then we start planking. I see you shiver with antici--

Cracks and cases

2007-01-09T22:01:00.000-06:00

More work a couple of days ago (well, only a little) and today. Discovered nasty cracks in some of the framing for the centre-plate case, so we injected glue and clamped the pieces (it's going to be painted anyhow, so minor glue seams don't matter all that much). Kind of a pity, though, as if we hadn't had to do that, we might have finished framing the CP case sides. No pix today, but we did prepare the rest of the framing, screw and epoxy the bottom framing to the CP case sides, and scarf up the first sheer stringer.

Actual construction!!!

2007-01-03T21:21:00.000-06:00

I (Courtney) drove out to Clandeboye today after work to get in some construction. Dad and I worked on scarfing the deck-shelf stringers together (well, one of them, anyway - at two scarf joints per stringer, we can't do more than one stringer at a time). The scarfing was interesting - it's hard to imagine people scarfing together many sheets of plywood, but apparently it's a standard boat construction technique.

We also worked on the hog, which I would have called a "keelson". Didn't do too much, but we did cut out the slot to fit the centre-plate case. The hog is sort of the backbone of the boat, working together with the frames and centre-plate case and stringers to form a rigid structure on which the planking is laid.

Most exciting of all, we did some actual construction - we started putting the centre-plate case together! First we cut the cedar packing to fit (this holds the sides of the case apart at the fore and aft ends of the case). Then we epoxied the packing onto one side of the case - you can see it epoxied, clamped, and drying in the last photo. And the first bits of our boat go together!

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T19:19:00.000-06:00

Headed back into Winnipeg today, so not too much doing on the boat (and no pictures), but there was SOME progress. We cut cedar packing for the centre-plate case, fore and aft of the centre-plate itself, and prepared a bunch of mahogany for various bits of CP-case framing. For those of you unfamiliar with a centre-plate, it's like a centre-board (think of that as a keel that can be raised and lowered), but it's a plate of galvanized steel rather than an actual board. Strong, and provides ballast down low which is also good.

We also prepared some mahogany stock for the sheer stringers. These long strips of wood, one on each side, are set into the tops of the frames and run end to end at what will be the very top of the hull (called the sheer line, hence the name). The sheer stringers form the inner gunwale and anchor the gunwales to the frames. Pictures will make this more clear, but we're a ways from that stage as yet!

About six inches below the sheer stingers are a set of deck shelf stringers, running roughly parallel and set into the frames like the sheer stringers are. These form, if you can believe it, a sort of narrow shelf on which--wait for it--the deck rests. We haven't prepared the deck shelf stringers yet, but we'll be getting to them once the CP-case and the hog* are finished.

And for the clever folks who wonder why the decks are lower than the tops of the frames, a simple answer: the frames have little ears (well, that's what Courtney calls them) that stick up above the deck line to hold the gunwales and bulwarks (the hull above the deck line, basically).

*And if you can guess what the hog is, you win a free pint.

New Year's Eve, now with extra sawdust

2006-12-31T20:37:00.000-06:00

Lots of bandsaw action today, as we cut all the frames, the apron cheeks (more on these later), two layers of transom, and the center-plate case sides out of marine plywood. This is 12mm okume marine plywood, mind you, at about $200 a sheet, so the first two pictures represent, oh, about $1000 worth of plywood. From the stem back to about frame 5:

...and from frame 5 aft to the transom:

Oh, and we haven't used any of it yet, but we promised pictures of $400 worth of mahogany and Douglas fir. The longest board on the floor is about 16', the longest standing board is about 8'. For the mathematically impaired, there are eight boards in total - and two of those, the cheap cedar filler, were about $6 each. The others were, well, rather more.

As you can see, $400 doesn't buy that much wood. Buster mentioned how when he was a kid you could build the first floor of a house for $400!

'Ello Mrs Premise, been shopping?

2006-12-30T17:31:00.000-06:00

Well, yes. Nothing much to report today, but we did buy $400 worth of assorted wood (Honduras mahogany for the brightwork, Douglas fir for the not-so-bright work, and some cedar filler). I'll post a picture later so you can see how pathetically small $400 worth of wood really is...

Day 2

2006-12-29T15:22:00.000-06:00

After a day off in Winnipeg, we're back at it. We had a few more construction templates to cut out, including a couple of frames, the "apron" (kind of like a proto-stem for planking purposes, the actual stem is laminated on top of the apron) and the centre-plate case. The latter was a bit of a pain, because that sheet of the plans is distorted, so we couldn't directly trace the shape.

As it turns out, though, there were good measurements for ALMOST every dimension of the CP case, so drafting up a template was pretty simple. We even got to do a bit of lofting to fit the curve of the keel:

Once all the frames etc. were roughed out with a jigsaw, it was off to the bandsaw for some fine work. You can see Bandsaw Girl in action below. Final fairing of the patterns is mostly belt- and disk-sander work, with a little file and drum-sander work for the fiddly bits.

Tomorrow we'll probably start the whole process again, but this time tracing the patterns onto our precious marine plywood. I had my doubts, but Spacial Perception Girl used scale tracings to demonstrate quite convincingly the feasibility of getting the frames etc. out of four sheets of ply. Yay!

First work day

2006-12-27T10:21:00.000-06:00

We had planned to start work on Boxing Day, and (somewhat surprisingly) we actually did so. Spent some time cleaning up the shop and making space for the boat, then posed for a quick picture. We had trouble deciding whether we were spoofing American Gothic or gangsta poses...

Before we get too far into this, you might want to see the shop. This is Courtney's dad's basement shop, AKA Wavey Creek Boatyard (ours will be the seventh boat built here), N 50°16'15", W 96°58'7". The north-west angle:

The south-west angle:

First cut honours went to the construction frame, as photographed for posterity:

It wasn't long before the pieces of the construction frame were ready to assemble, but we decided to hold off on assembly because once the frame is together it's going to be more difficult to move around the shop. The pieces:

Next step was to cut patterns for the frames, transom, stem/apron, centre-plate case, etc. We're using thin hardboard for the patterns, then fitting them as efficiently as possible into sheets of marine plywood (expensive stuff, that). The workshop plans table, AKA the downstairs freezer, was a bit cramped for tracing plans:

...so we took over the dining room. Before it became too dark to continue, we had finished about two thirds of the required tracing:

Today's handy hint: When using carbon paper to transfer both sides of a set of plans to pattern or workpiece, trace the printed side first. When you trace the un-printed side, use a strong flashlight (we used a dive light) at an oblique angle to highlight the minute relief of the previously traced line.

Ah, John, we need you.

2006-12-25T18:52:00.000-06:00

So this is Christmas, and what have you done
Another year over, and a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones, the old and the young
A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear

And so this is Christmas for weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones, the world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas for black and for white
For yellow and red ones, let's stop all the fight
A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear

And so this is Christmas, and what have we done
Another year over, and a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones, the old and the young
A very merry Christmas and a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear
War is over if you want it
War is over now...

We have had a simply marvellous Christmas. An abundance of comfort and joy, good food and drink and cheer in a magnificent natural setting, family gathered 'round the fire and all that. No kidding, it's been great.

Even the boat got a present (well, more than one really, but this one is worth blogging). Enigmatically labelled as being "From Admiral Nelson" to... well, you don't get to know the name of our Shilling yet, I (Courtney) couldn't think what it might possibly be. And what to my wond'ring eyes should appear? When Tara was in England, she picked up a little bit of Victory. As in, H.M.S. Victory. Yes, that H.M.S. Victory, the one from the Battle of Trafalgar and Admiral Nelson and "Kiss me Hardy" and all that.

So our little Shilling will incorporate a bit of oak from Victory. Check it out:

Anyway, I've been thinking about presents, and hoping everyone finds some resolve this Christmas to do like John says, you know, and start making the world a better place for everyone. 'Cause love is a good place to start, but I think the man himself knew something about getting down to the business of changing minds and then changing the world.

Merry Christmas, and all that.

Plans and review - now with photos!

2006-12-25T08:39:00.000-06:00

So Tara was across the Pond seeing the Oysterband and she picked up the plans from our friend Anna. As soon as Tara got home, we had to take a look at the plans, which completely filled Courtney's living room.

That weekend Courtney and his dad (Buster) went over the plans, decided that the whole thing was basically reasonable, and decided where to start. Most of the construction will be in the Wavey Creek Boatyard, a.k.a. Buster's basement shop. Sadly, the first plan review was not recorded for posterity.

Just a couple of days ago, Tara's family got together for Christmas, and a proper Plan Review Panel was convened (see photo). The design met with general approval, which was something of a relief; Bret, Gerry, and Dal have all built boats, so their opinions were important! Left to right are the Plan Review Panel: Tara's brother Bret (Cedar-strip Directorate, Kayak Division), dad Don (Member for Prairie Boatbuilding), uncle Gerry (Commissioner for Plywood Studies), uncle Dal (Director of Sea- & Air-worthiness), Tara, and Courtney.

Next: First steps in construction

How did it come to THIS?!

2006-12-24T21:42:00.000-06:00

We've been talking about building a boat for a while now; boat madness kind of runs in both our families. We initially talked about a little power cruiser, say in the 20-22' range. We looked at a few designs, but nothing really jumped out as "The One".

Courtney crewed aboard his brother's Island Eagle, support vessel for the 2006 Shipyard School Raid, and had the chance to look at lots (and lots, and LOTS) of wooden boats when the Raid arrived in Port Townsend. He was still thinking 22' powerboat, and when Tad Roberts offered to design it, that seemed like that.

But then, reality (or rather, that phenomenon that is LIKE reality, but affected by the Boat-Modulated Reality Distortion Field) set in. Like, our car is tiny. Like, a 22' boat would be really expensive by our standards, and take a long time to build, too. Like, a 22' boat wouldn't even fit into the only shop we have readily available. Like, um, maybe we don't want a powerboat.

So we started looking at smaller sailboats, and reading about sailing, and thinking not so much about how MUCH boat would be nice to have, but how LITTLE boat would meet our needs. (Well, Tara was thinking about this all along, but she's the bright one, you see. As she puts it, "I like Small.")

You know, the WWWeb is wwwonderful. There are boats and boats and pubs and big red-- wait, this isn't a Robb Johnson song... where was I? Oh, yeah - the Intarwubs are full of boat plans. Cool boat plans. Millyums of them. And I think we looked at them all, over a few weeks.

When we saw the Shilling, a design by Phil Swift of England's Willow Bay Boats, we both kind of figured she was the one. We ordered the study plans and KNEW she was the one. So we ordered the Full Set Of Plans. (These deserve capitals, because they cost £200!) We had a few adventures getting the plans, but they are finally safe and sound in Canada, and we're planning on getting started building on Boxing Day.

NEXT: Photos!

Fr1st Post

2006-12-24T17:40:00.000-06:00

You must be in the wrong place - this is Tara and Courtney's boat blog.

What, still here? OK, welcome. Bienvenue. Failte. This is where we'll document the details (pictures, lots of pictures) and progress (maybe not so much of that) as we build our Willow Bay Shilling. The Shilling is a 17' length-on-deck day sailer, built in cedar strip on plywood frames. We figure, any jocular comments to the contrary notwithstanding, that she'll take about a year and a half to complete.

Time for Christmas Eve dinner with the family, so we'll leave this introduction short and sweet. Next: How did it come to this???