12th plank 6th of 7 rows finished

Forecast is for -10 degrees tonight. I might consider shutting the project down for the winter. I am surprised that the epoxy on this last plank is drying despite the cold weather. Think I will leave the clamps on for a good bit. As you can see I shortened the strongback in the front to make it easier to work on the bow. I disconnected the stern stem but quickly reattached it when the whole structure started to move around when I was planing the bevels on the planks.

11th Plank, Winter is coming

Here is the 11th plank glued on. Heat is the issue now. I made the mistake of putting a propane heater under the middle of the hull. There was too much heat and the epoxy between the planks dried with big bubbles in it. I had to go back and scrape out the bubbles with a chisel. It looks like hell until I smear some more epoxy over it.

Have ordered another three sheets of plywood. They will be here in November when it is really cold. I may just shut things down when I finish the 12th plank.

5th Row, 10 out of 14 planks

So here is the 5th row of strakes. Both planks went on very easily. In fact the one on the east side almost lined up perfectly. The curve to the stems is more gradual, though the bevel in the middle of the boat is pretty extreme.

Today I cut out the next two planks. I have scarfed one side, though not glued it. It is official, I am going to be half a sheet of plywood short. Too bad.
Weather is great and I was going to put a big push on tomorrow. It seems I have found a buyer for my big sailboat. Now the rush is on to seal the deal on that boat. So off to Skagway I go.

Past the halfway mark.

Things are starting to look better with the fourth row of strakes attached. Some of the imperfections have faded into the background and it is starting to look like a boat.
The low temperatures continue to slow things down as it takes forever for the epoxy to set up.

Excuses

These pictures explain why the construction process has slowed down lately.

Third Row of Planks

Things continue to move along at a glacial pace. Just back from a sailing trip.

Cold temperatures are a bit of a problem. I have both planks of the 4th row glued up but after curing for 14 hours one of the glue joints is still soft.
Right this moment it is hot outside. I am sure that won't last long.

Fustrating times

These are the gains carved into the garboard plank. The theory being that the next plank will go from an overlap to flush at the stem.

Here I am using the wooden clamps for the first time. I am still using screw blocks judiciously. I don't know how else you would get the planks to lay down at the stems.

Notice the bolt hardware, holding this plank together. The glue was not set enough and the scarf was at the most seriously stressed point.
Anyways things have been getting fustrating as I make multiple mistakes. The mistakes are so rediculous I can not share them with the thousands/millions of people reading this blog.
Maybe time to take a break.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Progress is slow as I try to figure a few things out. The third plank of 14 is glued on and the fourth plank is waiting to be re cut and finessed on. I will take some pictures of the gains in my next post. It took me a while to get my head around that concept. In theory plank number one is supposed to have a tapering rabbet near the stems so that plank number two will lie flush with plank one. It will be easier to understand with some pictures.

There has been some sloppy control going on. The two planks are not exactly flush at the stems. Also I overshot the marks on the mold by a bit. Hopefully I can correct that with the next plank.

If you go back to the first picture you can see I used the screw block method of attaching the planks. Today I made 30 wooden clamps and wedges. I may try that method for the next plank or a combination of the two techniques.

The new septic field got put in yesterday. That and the torrential rainfall are partial excuses for the glacial progress.

Finished with garboards and moving on to the next plank

I am trying a different method of glueing two of the strakes together. Hopefully there will be no surprises like the last glue job.

The starboard garboard, from hell, is finally glued on. As soon as all this epoxy dries I can try and figure out how to put two strakes together. I still don't understand how the planks come together at the stems.

Things kind of look nasty at the forward stem. Keep in mind that things will be planed flat so the outer stems and keel can be attached. Notice the extra scarf on the SB side. I screwed up and cut the blank to short and had to scarf another piece onto it. Where would we be without the miracle of epoxy?
1/7 th of the planking done. I hope things speed up to at least one row of planks a day.

First f__king plank is glued onto the molds. There was a great deal of frigging around getting things right. The reason the opposing garboard plank is not glued on is because there was a major problem scarfing the plank. At this moment it is drying after remedial work, nothing a generous helping of epoxy paste can't cure. After all this is going to be a working man's boat. If you want to see some yachty stuff you will have to go elsewhere. Anyways things are going slowly. Hope the next round will be less stressfull.

The planks have been cut and assembled and now I will wait for the glue to set up.

Here is the pattern material on the molds.

This is my scarfing bench.

Here I am making oversize planks. Once they are scarfed and glued I can put them on the boat and remark them.

cutting center board hole

Today I cut out the hole for the center board in the keelson. Still needs some work. I remanufactured a floor for station 2.
Things will be on hold for a week as I am going fishing. After that full steam ahead on scarfing the plywood and trying to get some planks on.

Planing the keelson and stems

The good news is that the epoxy worked and bonded the stem and keelson. It was a lot of work with the power planer and manual planes to get it to this stage.
It would have been easier to cut the hole for the center board before we put this bevel in it.

These are the floors in the making. Because I don't have any 1 inch stock. I am laminating 2 pieces of 3/4 inch then I will plane them down and fix the sloppy shape. They go on against the molds and keelson before starting to put on the planks.