29112011(getting finished)

My task yesterday was the forward bulkhead camber which was actually not my one so far. Before doing that I was sanding bits of bid and nothing else. Anyway, I could find the plank for that glued the day before. I have thought for a while and asked Vaughn the magnificent and thought again bit a while again and made it. The way I should have made is that I sand it down just one side (I sand it down with a big belt sander, sanding both side and had to be aware of the thickness of each layer). When I was using the belt sander, the plank kept being stuck in it, maybe because I didn’t turn the suction switch and actually I don’t know how to turn on the extractor for it. It has an automatic extracting system but sometimes I had to switch on the motor on the right side of it. As well as this, the paddle for measuring thickness didn’t work either. I have to know these. I used a trimmer yesterday and a router today for rebate for the camber. One tricky thing to mind is that the camber is somewhat stiff forward because it is narrow and rebate angle has to be changed that part. Before coming to this stage we would have thought about this. Definetely, next time. Dry fit, adjust and done. Make sure get the faying surface wide enough. We did a mistake of crit(?) as well. It was too long and the bulkhead banded to aftward on the top, so the door for it didn’t fit in. We cut it and used a wedge which was white cedar same as the stem. Thwarts are all right now. Make sure they don’t sit on the wall and push it out. They have to be sat on the risers. Using bend saw downstairs today, I realized that it is pretty hard to make detail like circle or things like that in just one cut. I almost cut the planking. Cut roughly with it and use another machine (sanding) or by hands. Mind it. Buzz, Tapu and I talked about surf board today. Row lock chock is one thing that I learned today. They may be in the middle of each thwart. Find the most spot to let the fishing rods be. Learning how to use coping saw and the purpose of it, I was heard that when sanding follow the grain. White cedar is not really hard and strong wood, which means that it is not hard to manufacture. Quarter knees’ arms are better to be thin rather than being thick so that break when the sheer strakes changes. We made two sanding sticks which looked like women’s nail bar(?) or something and is supposed to be quite useful. We can even make a bevel for using it in different angles. To fill the nail holes, we can use masking tape after fill them with glue. Bear tomorrow.

Ruthless

Reakless

Tender

23112011(Interior)

Terms

Inwale(doubler)

Dove tale saw

Spall

Roll lock chocks

Fair lead

Centre girder

We made risers for thwarts. First, we had to decide where they put on. They are on AutoCAD drawing but if the boat owner wants in another way, we have to follow that. One forward thwart of Moira’s boat needs space for a mop bucket between the thwart and the bulkhead. It was roughly 250mm that we reckon. To make risers fit in situ was a bit tricky because of the shape and the angle inside the boat. It would have been good to make each set of them as similar as possible. Now I am thinking about the way that we made them in proper angle, we could have used bevel square with straight edge or something like that (what is the name of the tool that indicates the right angle and horizontal with green water in it?). I used the same method that we tried to fit the skegs onto the bottom, I don’t know if that is right or not, which is quite fit though. Lance and Elvis were lofting thwarts and waiting for pattens. I kind of couldn’t understand why they need and how they work, but at the end of the day they are needed because it is more accurate that using pattens rather than just measuring from AutoCAD which is hard actually. Making pattens are not pretty hard but we had to make sure drew a line on the pattens of the thwarts going in, but again we had to measure the distance on the centre line, not on the chine line. Anyway, we sat them in glueing with hot glue gun for temporary. Because of making the patten based on the chine line we had to think about how much we have to bevel the thwarts. Chris showed us how to do that with bevel square. One thing that I thought about is the sequence of making the pattens and fitting the bulkhead in the situ. We used a spall for make the width of boat original as it was on the temporary frame. It doesn’t really matter but I thought it would be more efficient that glueing the bulkhead before making them. Thwarts have 3 solids and 2 gaps between them. Outer solids follow the chine line shape and the width of the middle ones are even for the forward thwart, the middle one and the aft one. It depends on how to dress the wood or which people do the machine, that how much margin the wood need to be had but for me it is 5mm. So if I am aiming 50mm thickness of planking, I have to make them 55mm before sending. Always make them bigger enough to dress. Jib’s task is bulkhead and I picked up how to make it but it is not all. The bulkhead needs to be beveled off. I finished making my tools (tool box, oil stone box and long board) today. For making sure that the thwarts don’t move after glueing up, we used nail method the same we did when we were making our tool box and nailed on both sides of each solid. Epoxy gets hard when it is not spread, which means that it doesn’t meet the air. Weird… The grain for the foredeck has to be longitudinal direction of the boat, which can be easily bended round transversely. I don’t know how to make the foredeck. I missed the whole thing since I did inwale of the transom. I made it with dove tale saw to make perfect joints, saw, chisel and sand paper with a right angled wood to make the mitre(?) joint. First thing to do is make a rebate on the frame attached already on the transom. Then measured and drew lines for fitting the joints. Make rebate on the inwale. Set in situ and cut off the rest of it. I missed how to fit the doubler for the bulkhead in situ, which was really tricky (I totally couldn’t understand.). We also made quarter knees for one boat. Actually, we were making for both but it cracked, which was kind of hard that control the bending timing between cool down and breaking.

Now we've got only next week left.

Mast

Kevlar

Carbon fibre

A material that looks like honey comb

17112011(Turn over and beer)

Vaughn the magnificent have had us this Monday. We glued up sheer strakes and skegs at the end. Brass nailing seemed quite hard without using dolly. Stem, my task, hasn’t emerged yet, because it is under the planks that I would planed off later. My long board glued last Wednesday looked okay. I reused a piece of off-cut which is 12 mm plywood. One achievement we got today is that we figured out how to push the planks against the temporary frames. We started to talk about that with using long piece of woods nailed on the temporary frames and sort of complicated method but we found out quite an easy and neat way to push them, it doesn’t hurt the planks as well. First, nailed a long piece of wood firmly onto the frames and make a groove at the end of each piece to hold another piece of wood for pushing wedges against the planks. EZY. After, arrange them the only thing to do is pushing until the glue comes out. We used only 3 cramps to hold sheer strakes.

The method we found worked well checking next morning. Starting with sanding the glue off, I kept doing the stem. Planing the glue off is much harder than planing the wood. We used glue enough to fill the gap between here and there, but it was too much somewhere so that planing was quite hard. To make gunnels, Chris showed us a jig for them and how it worked. Buzzer, table saw and thicknesser were used. To make the skegs round, we used router. There are a couple of gaps on the planks which are usually between two planks at the edge of faying surface. Chris showed us how to fill them up without any messiness with using masking tape driving both sides of the edge, glueing and taking the tape off. Simple. Stem is getting its shape with taking off the glue and planks covered on it. Prior to glueing the gunnels, we decided to have them into steam machine, because they were too stiff to put directly on the sheer strakes. It took about 1.5 hour to boil the water and 15 minutes to steam the gunnels 15 minutes to be cool down for taking a shape. Before doing the steaming, we measured how round it is, checking the heights from both ends to the bottom. So many cramps were used for holding the gunnels on the planks. We made small bits of wood to protect and to hold the gunnel firmly. Anyway, we have to keep thinking about how to protect the boats and how to work easier and more proper.

One thing happened on Wednesday morning was the skid was 7mm off to the centre line. Forward part was okay but it shifted aftwards. We were told that we can learn by making mistakes. I thought that it wouldn’t really effect on the stability or the maneuverability of the boat but for the future we have to think about what was the mistake and how to solve it. Think before I do. Think while I do. Think after I have done. I should have taken a picture written on a white board by Chris. Anyway we have to take the skid off by sawing with two flat thin sheets of wood for protecting the boat rather than using a grinder. It was felt like a punishment or things like that. Otherwise, we could turn over the boat that morning. It took for whole morning to take the skid off, sanded the glue on the bottom, chiseled, made another skid again and fit it. By the way, Jibreal brought some doughnuts for us from a bakery which one of his friends set up. It was delicious. Stem is looking good so far. Anyway, we turned over Moira’s dory, but before that we had sweep stake for guessing the weight of the boat. I guessed 30kg and bet 1 dollar but it was 31.5 or something. Actually, a temporary frame for station 3 was stuck with the boat and it took a while for taking it off. We used wedges and a hammer. Additionally, I made a handle for my long board. I used off-cuts for making it three pieces and assembled it with glueing each other. We had a time with boat owner’s husband who is Chris, my teacher, to hear about the concept that normally he is going to use it for fishing. He told us about thwarts, risers, quarter knees and bulkhead. After the class, Chris and us went to Carrington and had beer. I told him about what I did last vacation and what I am going to do in the future. It was really good time, the weather was even good as well. Choice!

sweepstake

rice puding

11112011(box and land joint)

There was a reason why the line of the first plank didn’t follow the edge of each frame. This plan was from U.S. and their drawing is normally for outside measurement and this one is so. For changing into New Zealand style it was simply deducted 6mm of its thickness but that didn’t work. Anyway, it isn’t really a big deal at the moment, because we’ve got much bigger surface for faying. A team glued afterwards skegs but we didn’t. We tried to set the topsides in situ but it was 4 P.M. when we were ready for doing it, so we delayed doing that to next week.

Leave 1 mm gap considering the thickness of epoxy, otherwise it would be like the bottom we did
(one side high, another side low)

How to remove the gap between to planks (bottom and the first plank)

(long enough two woods, a cramp – put one inside attaching the bottom and the other one outside lying on the first plank – cramp smoothly, not until ding the bottom

Use white masking tape to make a reference of height of each frame which is already driving a fair line.

Use batten to make a fair line before beveling and draw a line on the other plank (topside)

Cramp a piece of wood with a frame for laying down planks

Adjust jigsaw angle or plane angle for working different angle of sawing or planing (transom, box and land and whole lot of use)

Most lines on the boat have to be fair. If it is not the drawing is wrong.

Couple of ways how to grab and stroke planes

Get rid of dust with using a flat thin wood striking on planks

The width between two skegs is good to be as wide as possible

How to remove the gap between the skegs and the bottom (usd wedges under the bottom between frames)

Cramp at the end of a skeg and nail wedges holding up in the middle of the skeg not to move much

Brass nail OK

Lump
Flush

Chris told and showed us box and land joint which is really detail and tricky one. I was sort of upset because I beveled the forward side of the first plank, which I shouldn’t have done that because it’s about ‘box and land joint’. Anyway, it didn’t matter.

Box and land joint
(land plane or rebate plane and chisel, faying surface line for reference)

If it can be accurate, work on the bench and fit in them. There was land plane having a bit of hollow blade and also now there is, but nowadays boat builders don’t use them much than before because of the invention of epoxy and a couple of reasons…(I didn’t understand at that moment Lance and Chris talking). Additionally, I made a small plank for my long board that I used off cuts of 12 mm plywood, cut it diagonally, glue them and nailed on them on the work bench.

07112011(the first planking)

Learning something everyday makes me happy but it is not easy. Boats on the first floor are getting a shape of boat made with strips and ours are getting there, it is a bit slower though. My task last week was making a stem. I was given a laminated stem on Moira’s boat, which is the one that we (B team) are building. Actually, I was one of guys laminated it. I remember the extra bits of wood laminated on the outside corner of it and it cracked a bit, finally it was gone by planing and sanding though. It is apparently made in a same way to the mid-ship laminated frames steamed in a steam gear or something. Firstly, I had to buzz it and used thicknesser, making it as thick as possible (no?), but end up exact thickness which is exact size of it. Then, I mark up some points on it through the drawing of stem detail. The one that I wasn’t totally familiar with was the bearding line which is a reference for beveling. I used a tick stick, a girly batten and a square. After marking details on 4 surfaces, I started planing. Prior to planing, I used router for rounding the inside of the stem and used face sander for the end of it making round. Beveling surface has to be flat, because it is faying surface. Chris always tell us not to touch the line. After that anyway, I fixed it on the bed lining up the F.P. and station 0 (bulkhead) with screwing on to the bed. It looks good so far. Today, Jun and I lofted the first planking. There are two curves looking not really one fair curve and we checked twice. I thought that it could be like that it was quite curvy though. Anyway, we left 10mm both sides and no worries about it. Lofting today was the same for the bottoms, but this plywood’s thickness was 6 mm, which is half of the bottom ones, and Chris said 60 mm was perfectly enough for glueing area instead of 75 mm. If it is too long it will be rolled up. It has to be avoided lining the scarphing line of the first planking and the top side. (Not ‘has to be’ but Chris said that it is not good.) It makes sense.

Laminating sequence (the bottom plywood)

Mid-ship frame and stem

Transom

Sawing skill for making lovely joints

Wedges under a piece of wood for more compressor in the middle

Taking beveling angles with bevel square on plywood

Same method for scarphing (with resin only, no powder – powder can’t be soaked easily into the fiber of wood, so it is better used for outside of wood or something)

Skeg (follow the line of the bottom, used straight edge for flat surface of skeg and round bit for the end of it)

Box land (???)

Spoke shape (wooden body for honing)

Be aware of grain direction when sawing (stroke the grain for one side you chose)

Spiling planking (used for lofting the first planking before transferring on the card board)

01112011(scaphing the bottoms)

We reached making the scarph joint of the bottoms using wedges pushing down up against the face of H-beam under the roof and a couple of screw on the plywood. The thickness of the bottom is 12mm of plywood, BS 1088 okume, and the scarph joint is 75mm. First, we drew the bottom plan and the transom one on a piece of cardboard then transferred on the plywood with using batten. We had to make sure get 75mm of faying surface for scarphing and let the plywood bigger enough than the exact size. We made two holes for being able to see the centre line to draw one half and another half after flipping over the cardboard. Jigsaw was used for this job and had to be aware of the proper direction of grain when using it. Before planning the scarph joint, we used small hand band sander (I don’t know the name) and finished by using plane. Making midship laminated frame and laminated stem, we used temporary frame on station 3 and 1:1 scale stem plan, respectively. Yesterday, we laminated both using epoxy (WEST system) made up with resin, hardener and powder (?). Chris showed us how to use them and mix them properly with an ice cream box, a small piece of wood for mixing and a wooden plate from rubbish bin for spreading them. Lately, we can’t do all of the things to do together because it is getting specialization so we can’t hear the explanation of Chris for all discipline. Sometimes, I have to explain what I was told from Chris to classmates but mostly I am hearing. We made sculps (I forgot the name…) which is for drainage at the bottom of the boat on the corner of the midship frames. We used the method of making 10 degrees for the transom incline, chipped out by using hand drill and chiseled on top of the bulkhead for fitting the stem in it, beveled by using a long batten running through each edge on each station. Chris showed us how to make a lovely joint with using cramps and handsaw when making half-lap joint or whatever and told us what the bearding line is which was a reference line on the stem plan for beveling. At the end of today, Tapu and I laminated another bits of wood on the round corners of the forward surface of the stem to fill the gap on them. During this job, one piece of wood had a small crack but we didn’t know if it was alright or not.

Kahikatea (white pine)