Varnish and Paint

Suddenly all the woodwork was finished and it was time for the finishing work.

I started with the varnish work first on the basis that I could paint over varnish but not vice versa.

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To start with I sealed the hull inside and out with two coats of epoxy. This was sanded down once dry and hard to give a smooth surface for the varnish. In hindsight I should have also filled some of the small gaps with coloured epoxy. This is made with a combination of glue filler and wood flour in the epoxy to get the right colour. Now, over a year down the track the varnish is starting to deteriorate from the edge of these gaps. The inside of the hull and transom was given five coats of varnish.

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I then flipped her over and started by sanding the epoxy coats and then applied two coats of primer. I used the International Interlux paint system which is a single pot paint and give a good finish with just roller and brush.

At this point I erected a very big tarp that I held aloft with a number of tent poles and ropes. After the primer I gave the hull a light sand and filled some of the little dents etc that seems to stand out at this point even though it was checked carefully at the previous stage. Next two coats of undercoat, sand again and then three final coats with a light sand after the second of these.

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To promote good chemical bonds I ensured that there was only about 24 hours between coats which required me to rise early before work and apply a coat to start the day. When a coat was to be sanded I would leave it a bit longer to allow it to be a bit harder.

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In the photo above you can see the masking on the transom. The paint needs to cover the end of the ply on the plank. I decided to make the planks look about 10mm think by masking inside the planks which I think looks better that having the thinner 6mm of the plank and definitely better than having the paint not follow the planks.

All up the finishing did not take that long but it did require a dedicated three weeks of work each and every day. This is not something easily done on weekends as per my usual work schedule.

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Rail Caps

OK its been a while since I have posted here and since I have actually launched the boat and enjoyed some great sailing I had better finish off the build posts so I can get on with the sailing part.

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So here are some of the finishing parts of the boat. Let start with the rail cap. I used Douglas Fir or Oregon Pine depending on where you are from. For this I started with the caps on the breast hook and quarter knees. These were screwed into place and trimmed for the correct over hangs. Don't get to aggressive here as it is better wait until you have evrything on and then you can shape them as one.

For the mounting blocks for the oar locks, which sit proud of the rail cap, I left the ends at full hight and fitted and screwed these to the gunnel's as well. I then removed the mounting blocks so I could lay full boards over the gunnel's to shape the rail caps as they sweep around. This way I could cut out the birds mouth joint concentrating just on the shape of this part of the joint without worrying about lining up the sides of the rail.

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Once this part of the joint was right I pushed the joint up tight and screwed the mounting blocks back down on top of the rail cap to trace out the birds mouth joint at the other end. I was conservative in cutting this end out so that when the rail was put back in place it had to be slightly sprung into place between the quarter and the mounting block.

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Once satisfied with this joint I screwed along the rail cap and then marked and cut the rail cap. I followed this procedure for all the caps and then did the final shaping on the boat. This included using my Dremmel tool to sand down the mounting blocks to the height of the rail.

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Now typically you would finish the rail cap off with wooden plugs but I decided on something a little different. In New Zealand the Maori have always used Paua shell to decorate their carvings and boats. The Paua is a shell fish in the Abalone family and the Paua is a particularly colourful variety. It just so happened that I had a bag of Paua shell cut as button blanks that pretty much fitted the holes left by the screws. These were shaped and set in epoxy on top of the screws and sanded flat with the rail when dry.

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Seat Laminations

One of the things that I have noticed when looking at other people's boats is the stark contract between different woods in the boat. While the Fijian Kauri that I used goes very well with the marine ply, I wanted to ensure all of the seats blended together and looked to be made of the same wood.

To achieve this I laminated thin planks of Fijian Kauri onto the forward and rear seats to cover up the ply tops. This had the added bonus of being able to get a nice tight finish at the edge as trying to achieve this with the ply alone is a difficult job.

The planks were made by splitting a 19mm board in three and then using the thicknesser to bring them down to 3mm. Once all of the boards were shaped I set them in epoxy glue and weighted them down with bricks. Once set the trim bit on the router was used to aligned the front with the bulkhead ready for the edging piece to be added.

Another little trick to used at this stage is to mix some wood flour with your glue. By doing this your glue lines start to look like wood and blend in rather than the ugly white colour of the glue that you will never hide. Just mix enough in to change the colour to what you want, it will not change any as it dries.

Seats

Here are a few shots of the seats. These all came together quite quickly other than of course cutting the recess for the stringers. I wish I could give you some good advice on how to do this but I can't. The best I can do is to say sharpen your tools and place your work bench close to your boat because getting this to look good is a slow and patient process involving a lot of testing and then back to the bench.

Oh, chalk; this would be my piece of advice. Cover the stringer with chalk so you can see where the seat is touching the stringer.

To set the locations of the seat supports you first need to level the boat on its water line and athwart ships. I have a self leveling laser that really helps with doing this type of thing. Once it was level I moved it inside the boat and marked all of the support locations.

I am going to put an 1/8 inch veneer on the fore and aft seats so that the wood matches all of the way through the boat on the seats. To do this I had to lift the seats all around this height. The other benefit of this was in fitting the plywood to these areas. I used the tick stick method but still found that I couldn't get a really good fit. However the veneers are only 4 inches wide so fitting these is a lot easier to get a good finish.

Breast hook

My approach to the breast hook is a bit different to what Arch describes. For a start I laminated the block up from two pieces of 3/4 inch Fijian Kauri with the grain running at right angles.

Rather than scribing the lines on the block and shifting them as Arch describes I started by making a template from some ply scrap. This gave me an exact pattern at the top of the sheer. I then copied this onto the bottom of the block. I cut the block on the bandsaw to these lines square to the block surface.

One little amendment to this is due to the angle of the stem and the fact that the top of the block is 1/4 inch above the sheer. To account for this the top edge against the stem needs to be moved forward, 1/8 inch in my case.

Next I cut the angle to match the back of the stem. In my case this meant moving the line under the block back 3/4 an inch. I cut down to this line with a saw and chiseled out the waste. From here I was ready to cut the angle on the side of the breast hook to match the angle of the sheer. First I scribed a line 1/4 down from the top surface, the level of the top of the sheer. I then set the bandsaw to the angle of the sheer and cut the edges of the breast hook so that the top of the cut was 1/4 from the top surface.

Perfect fit! All that was left to do was plane the camber into the top of the breast hook to bring the edges down to the top of the sheer.

In the end I think this was a good way of doing this as I was confident that the block would be the correct shape rather than risking moving several lines. However having never done the latter then I’m not sure how difficult it would be.

Turn over day!

The day finally arrived where I could turn here over. After two coats of epoxy it was looking great and all that was required was a few more hands and a few bubbles of course.
Finally outside and looking great. This is the first time I could stand back and look at the boat and appreciate the length.
Now with that done it is time for a drink all round.

Rudder and Tiller

I built the rudder over Christmas in between too much food and beer. To build the rudder I diverted from the instructions a bit. First I created a board using some Fijian Kauri and Tasmanian Oak. Next I made a template from plywood from the dimensions on the plan. I used the template to mark out the rudder on the board and cut it close to the line with the bandsaw. I then used the template to trim the board to its final shape with the router.

Next I marked on the rudder the cutout for the tiller and the bottom edge of the cheeks. I then attached the cheeks to the rudder with screws above and below the tiller slot and then trimmed the cheeks to shape using the router. I then removed the cheeks and used the bandsaw to cut the rudder into its three peices.

Here is the end of my tiller. Probably a bit much for a small boat but it was a bit of fun doing it.

Deadwood and stem facing

To complete the deadwood required a 1 inch think plank about 7 inches wide and 12 foot long. This wouldn't have been a problem back in Auckland but being new to Melbourne it took a while to find a timber merchant that had Fijian Kauri. Eventually I found a great one that had all sorts of exotic woods. Very exciting for a boat builder, maybe a bit boring for others.

The deadwood was very easy to shape and attach to the boat, however it did expose a problem with the flat I had planned along the keel earlier. It wasn't quite straight near the stern which required a bit of filling.

The stem facing went on great. When I planned it down to the lines as per the plan it lined up beautiful with the planks. It ones of those parts of the boat that people cannot help touching when they see it.

Planking, planking, more planking

Well I haven't posted in a while but as you will see I have been busy. Busy planking that is. I must say that after a while this gets very boring but its good to see the boat growing.

Cleaning up excess glue is a painful job but now I've turned her over I appreciate the time taken to remove most of it while wet.

The scarfe joints have gone together well. They look better on the inside than the outside so its is good I am not finishing bright on the outside.

Here are a few more shots of the planking as it progresses.

First Plank

The time has arrived to start planking! Here is the first plank going on the boat which was quite exciting as once I get through this stage I will have something that will float (hopefully).



The process went without a problem in the end and the plank pulled down quite well. The twist at the front is quite extreme so I took it slowly and ensured that it was supported with a clamp as I was concerned that the pressure on the end screw might pull it through the plywood.


Here is a shot from the inside of the forefoot. As you can see the plank pulls down well on the keel bevel and creates the illusion of the keel sinking into the plank.

The part that concerned me the most was the scarf joint. I will have few more pictures of this in the next post.

Lessons learnt from this stage would be to watch where you put the screws at the keel. This is a fine line between getting them too close to the side of the keel and going right through and having them too close to the center and ending up with them interfering with the bevel for the other garboard plank and the flat for the deadwood.

In the end mine where to close to the centre so I removed all of the screws that where going to cause a problem. Luckily I discovered this about 18 hours after gluing on the plank so I could remove the screws before the epoxy held them for good. At this stage I don’t think I will replace them as I can’t see them adding that much to the strength of the joint. I will check this with Arch and see what he thinks.

Stem Facing

To create the laminations I used by table saw to split ¾ inch boards into three parts. These needed planning down by hand to remove variations created by cuts made from both sides of the boards. This was not my preferred method of creating the laminations but I had to work to the limitations of the tools at hand.

Ideally I would have split the boards down the center on the table saw and then brought them down to size with a thicknesser.

As you can see the gluing up of the stem facing is not a task you want to attack without a good supply of clamps.

Slight Diversion

Ok the mess in the workshop got to me so I spent some time making a peg board and shelves to house some of the tools. I got the ideas from the Woodsmith series of books.

Anyway I had to do a bit of thinking how I would make the laminations for the stem facing as my first attempt using my bandsaw was disaster.

Keel Bevel

Here are a couple photos showing the keel beveled to take the first plank. The instructions call for a process to mark the location of the bevel that works well where you make the side of the keel but I found the area near the transom, where the line runs from the edge to the top of the keel, near impossible. In the end I decided just to take it carefully rather than rely on the lines.

To help spot the high points on the keel I used a file across the bottom stringer to the keel. This automatically marks the high spots on the keel and allows you to knock these off with your plane.

Stringers

Finally all of the stringers on the frames. All in all I only shifted 1 stringer about 1/8 of inch off its mark on one frame. I have checked from all angles but they all look good to me so I have to congratulate Arch for his good drawings and his insistence on being fussy in building the frames and setting up.


Personally I found getting the stringers through the transom more difficult than getting them to sit on the stem correctly. However the most important part of the transom is the inboard side so you can get away with it being a bit rough on the exit because this will be covered by the ply on the outboard side.

My advice for the bottom stringers at the stem would be not to try and get to much twist on them. While you might be able to hold this with a clamp it is unlikely to hold with a single screw.

A Fresh Start

Well putting the parts back together has gone a lot quicker than I thought it would. I sourced some good pine for the building jig from the local hardware store and used some laser levels to get it nice and level.

I was a bit concerned when I ripped the sheers and stringers from my nice straight peice of wood as the tension trapped within the wood bent them into all sorts of shapes. However in the end this did not make a difference as they still formed fair curves as they were bent onto the frames.

Now if you think this boat is taking a while to build, the model boat behind me has been on the go for twelve years.

After fixing the sheers I then added the top two stringers before attacking the more difficult bottom stringer. However the process explained in the instruction manual all made sense when put into practise and I quite satisfied with the result.

Over the Ditch

After the last New Zealand general election in November 2005 we decided that we would shift out of New Zealand and experience something different. So this put a stop to the boat building as we made plans to relocate somewhere in the world.

In the end we decided to shift to Melbourne Australia and so plans were made, a new job found and we were off, shifting over in March 2007.

After settling into a new house the boat was started over again. Thankfully I was able to bring over the temporary frames, the Fijian kauri, and the stem and transom.

Unfortunately the garage at the new house (below) is only about six meters long and three meters wide. Not the luxury of my last one (above) but it not going to stop me.

And we're off

I have found a good source of wood locally at a supplier called Timpan. I have selected some Fijian Kauri for the keel, framing, stem and stringers that is away getting dressed. I have decided to use this Kauri for everything but the rub rails and rail cap. I have seen a number of these boats built will lots of wood varieties together and they just look awful. So I have decided to keep it simple.

I have also managed to replace my band saw with an old tanner that I bought through Trademe. This one is a decent size with a 350mm throat so should be a lot better than the old one.

Over Easter I built the jig for the boat so I will be ready to stand up the temporary frames this weekend. Once I have my kauri the boat should move along quite quickly which should be quite satisfying after such a slow start.

Rope Stropped Wooden Blocks

Here's a picture of some blocks that I am hoping mine will look like.