Building the Maid

[Draketail]

As one engineer to another: Well done!

Keep up the good work. And you're right that the problem solving, head scratching, and general musing all part of the fun.

Hope mid terms turned out well. Not that I've ever posted on the WBF when I should have been writing the midterms for my students....

Draketail
(civil engineer)

[auscruisertom]

Great job Jonathan,as far as the keel timbers moisture contend no worry you would not be the first boat builder to
have selected a freshly felled spruce for spars fir planks ect. In the past many boats have been build in the Pacific Northwest using only hand tools.British Columbia boat builders such as Allen Farrell built more than 40 wooden boats some hand sawing all his own planks.I personally milled a framework for a pole home in the Gulf Ilands using trees from the clearing,with minimal checking and warp.As far as your engine try for a modern smaller diesel,as it will be much easier to work on due to lack of space,towing logs stick to a three bladed prop. Happy building looking forward to further updates.

[BBSebens]

You lucky dog...

You will never regret getting a motor thats a bit bigger than needed, but you will regret having one thats undersized. Step up to one thats 10 or 12 and know that you've got the grunt to get going.

First rate work. Your living the/my dream.

[epoxyboy]

The 3/4" is for the ballast bolts of course. It seems like massive overkill because only one bolt can hold about 24,000 lb (in tension) before reaching the yield stress of 55,000 psi. My ballast weighs 1100 lb and has six of these bolts holding it on. (This is a somewhat simplified analysis, a real one would need to account for bending moment, preload,...etc..but the result would be similar.) Why such large diameter bolts?

-Jonathan

After twenty years of fatigue and corrosion, I am sure somebody will be very glad that the keel bolts are "as designed", when they find themselves dropping off a few big waves one dark and stormy night.
Look at how many bleeding edge racing yachts lose their keels when the going gets rough. I can only assume that in spite of fancy engineering degrees, CAD software and better materials, the engineers responsible (and we are talking multiple boats with different designers) simply underestimated the loads involved.
Keep up the great work. As a plywood and epoxy woodbutcher, I only have one decent piece of advice: If you aren't having fun with the build, walk away and do something else for a while. A while might be a few months, but that is OK - you will come back in the right frame of mind, and do work you are happy with.
Small jobs like rudders and tillers are great for restoring enthusiasm, and don't require a huge commitment of time or space - and you make a lot more progress that you realise at the time.

Pete

[J.Madison]

After twenty years of fatigue and corrosion, I am sure somebody will be very glad that the keel bolts are "as designed", when they find themselves dropping off a few big waves one dark and stormy night...............

................I only have one decent piece of advice: If you aren't having fun with the build, walk away and do something else for a while. A while might be a few months, but that is OK - you will come back in the right frame of mind, and do work you are happy with.
Small jobs like rudders and tillers are great for restoring enthusiasm, and don't require a huge commitment of time or space - and you make a lot more progress that you realise at the time.

Pete

Yessir I hear that advice and I'll make sure things stay fun. I've also found that spending some time actually sailing helps to rebuild that gumption needed to put in the hours in the shop. It helps me remember why I'm working so hard all the time.

As far as the bolts are concerned- I will be building them as designed. In fact today I picked up the rod that will become the bolts.


That is a life savings represented in Silicon Bronze. I was surprised how heavy they were. That is 50 lbs strapped to that 2x4. In the background you can see some more results of the day's shopping spree. Most of those chemicals and solvents are destined to become part of my homemade red lead primer.

The number seven mold was completed today and that leaves only five more to build. I didn't take any photos because it looked a whole lot like the other molds already posted.

Building these molds has created a large amount of waste offcuts. It is mostly sapwood and not good for much, but it is perfectly dry.



My goal is to keep Dad from using it as firewood in the house so that I can use it to get a nice hot fire started when it comes time to melt the lead ballast. We heat all winter with wood and it seems there is never enough that is dry. So we inevitably heat the later winter months with wet wood. Having something dry to burn to kick off the fire should help things get hot and get there quicker when melting ballast.

The other news from the day is that a neighbor had a Yew tree blow over a couple years ago. It is about 18" in diameter and has been laying on the ground ever since. He told me that I could have it if I want it. I have heard good things about Yew as a boatbuilding wood so if I can verify that it really is Yew I'll drag it up and see about getting some boards out of it.

The bark seems a bit like a cross between a madrone and a cedar. It had the peeling effect like a madrone tree but the fuzzy stringy bark of a cedar. Does that sound like Yew to anyone? The trunk was also kind of knarled like a red cedar- especially where it met the roots- not a smooth cylinder like a fir.

[Duncan Gibbs]

IIRC Alex Low used yew as his framing timber on the Cockle replica. He's not that far from you (compared to me ) and it may prove worthwhile to visit him and pick his brains on the subject... And others of course!

[Peacefuljourney]

Saving left over?
If you already knew how much quarter saw white oak I've used to heat up the shop... I kept the pieces big enough but I end up having so much left over (Saw frames) that I've heated the shop for a whole month with White oak... Expensive heating

I buy my bronze rod, and copper rod for rivets there: http://www.onlinemetals.com/. They have a great service and it'S the cheapest place I've found.

For the red lead, I use boiled linseed oil 2/3, and 1/3 turpentine only. It take around 2 or 3 days to dry. Japan dryer sure would speed it up a bit.

I've bought around 30 pounds of red lead... So can't tell exactly how much I put as I use a cup I've made for it.

[J.Madison]

Progress!

The last several days have seen me working on the aft molds. The molds take a large reverse curve in the aft section and it has been a little slower than up forward to build them.

This large curve has required me to make up each half out of three pieces instead of two. All those extra parts really add up. For example the number 10 station mold has 18 separate parts! Each of them has to be selected from the lumber pile and cut to the correct shape and then attached.

Above you can see the mold shape carried all the way to the rabbet. Most of that long tip has been cut off so that the mold can rest on the top of the keel- it does not actually reach down to the rabbet.



It was slow but I kept at it and the pile kept growing.

Finally all the molds were done!



On the right is the forward molds, stations 0-6, and on the left is the aft molds, 7-12. The exact heights are not quite perfect- the 2x4 cross spalls must all be level for them to be at the right height, but you can really see the curves of the boat here and imagine her sailing along on a sunny day. At least I can imagine it!

I kept thinking of tips and tricks to share while I was working but now they are mostly escaping me. (It has been a 12 hour day in the shop.)

Anyways I'll just put another picture instead of making my tired brain work. Everybody likes pictures.



Its a little out of sequence but I think its kind of a cool picture.

-Jonathan

[kazeai1969]

Nicely done man...already looking forward to checking in again!

[Sailor]

Where do you find the time to do all this? That's crazy.

[BBSebens]

Are you planking upright, or upside down?

[St.J]

Progress!

The last several days have seen me working on the aft molds. The molds take a large reverse curve in the aft section and it has been a little slower than up forward to build them.

Your idea of slow is my idea of unseemly haste.

I usually wait impatiently for updates of my favourite building threads but at the moment you're posting more often than I look in.

I hope you're enjoying the build as much as I am.

St.John

[J.Madison]

Are you planking upright, or upside down?

This is a simple enough question but the answer is loaded with opinion and implication. There was a lively discussion about whether to build this particular boat upside down or not several years ago on this forum. I have flopped back and forth on which way I want to do it several times, each time being sure that I had it right. To build upside down it is best to have the molds all cut off at the same baseline, and you may have noticed that I did not do that. I have decided to build upright. This is not the only way it could be done but I have thought about it a lot over the past several months and I think it will be best for this build. The main reason is that I will through fasten the planks with rivets and not having any stringers in the way to get permanently nailed to the boat is appealing. If I built upside down I would be very tempted to fasten with screws to avoid the stringers below the frames. Screws are not ideal when fastening to a frame of only 7/8 by 7/8 inch. Other benefits include easier sighting of the shearline, avoiding having to do a roll-over, and the ability to attach the deadwood and ballast while the backbone is being constructed, making it much easier to get good fits in that structure. There is one other benefit which may have influenced me more than I first thought: In the end- I am building this boat mostly for the enjoyment and romance of the process. A boat being constructed upright is just easier to visualize in distant harbors and tree-lined coves. It is clearer exactly what you are building and how it is going to look when done. My last build was planked upside down, and I didn't really get that view of her lovely shape until the day I rolled it over after planking.

There are real downsides to building upright- as the inverted purist will be quick to proclaim. It is more difficult to bend in frames, plank the bottom and fair the hull. The most daunting of these for me is the tedious job of fairing. I do not claim that building upright is the only way this boat could be built. It is not. But it will work, and like so many things in boatbuilding, a lot comes down to the builders preference. There will be multiple valid ways of completing most all of the tasks that lay ahead of me, and at each step I'll have to decide which way I want to do it.

Today I got the call from the mill that my beams have been dried and are ready for pickup. Right on time! So tomorrow work begins on the backbone structure.

Thanks everyone for all the positive feedback.

-Jonathan

[Sailor]

Seems the most challenging aspect of building upright from what you say (and others will likely disagree) is fairing the hull afterwards. Nobody likes longboarding (except maybe Tenner) and sanding over head to fair a large (even if she's a small boat folks, don't kid yourself, she'll be a big enough job to fair) surface area will not be pleasant. I think you have a unique opportunity with the size of this build. She's small enough that I think, without too much difficulty you could lean her to either side to fair the hull after it's built. Then you can build upright (I knew you'd build upright the moment the question was asked because you seem to be about keeping it traditional and that's how she would have been built years ago) and have all the advantages that entails but still have a reasonable surface to work on for fairing, a task decidedly easier to accomplish when working from above rather than below. Looking forward to seeing some backbone timber gotten out. At this rate you should be posting planking pics when? Early April?

[J.Madison]

And so, by steadily marching onward, we will eventually reach the promised land. The recent steps on that march have all involved getting out the backbone. I got the call that the beams were done in the kiln the day after I finished the molds. So yesterday I hooked up the little boat trailer and headed off to the mill to pick them up. (I had an awesome tour of the mill, but that is deserving of it's own post later.)


The beams were unloaded with great effort- the big one takes two people to lift one end. The two smaller ones, which must weigh close to 200 lb each, were then fed through the thickness planer to clean off the dirt and the rough chainsawn surface. The planer was not really designed for that heavy of work, and neither was I judging by my aching back, but we persevered and some really beautiful beams were revealed.

Once clean the best was selected to become the keel and it was cut roughly to length. I spent some time with the number 6 plane (my biggest) and got the top surface perfectly straight and square to the sides. I got it as close as I could by eye and then used a string to help me get it better. I wanted that edge perfectly straight so that as I cut the beams to dimension I could tell if they were taking a bow off the saw.


The first cut was made about 3/4" large just to see if the beam moved. It didn't. Next I brought it to width on the table saw and finished in the thickness planer. Everything was checked for straightness and then brought to final height as well. I left all dimensions about a 1/16th big in case the beam shrinks a little and also to be able to take a few strokes with the plane after the ballast is attached to true up that joint.

Once cut I made up a concoction of eyeballed even amounts of boiled linseed oil, turpentine and just a bit of cuprinol. The brew was a dark green but went on nearly clear. The keel got a coat of this to prevent checking as it acclimatizes to the shop.

Well that's done. What now? Backbone patterns are next in order. The keel didn't need one because it is a parallel sided beam that is left long for the time being. All other backbone members will get a pattern made of thin luan plywood. The nail head method was used again to get shapes.

I was worried about the precision needed but it turned out to be rather easy to get the exact shapes. I just worked down to the line with block plane and sandpaper until it fit the lofting perfectly. A chisel helped in some places.

I was in a wood-cutting frenzy and so I took the stem pattern and found a good piece of wood- an offcut from the keel- and traced the outline for the minimum of grain runout. A few moments at the bandsaw and table saw gave me a very close blank that I then shaped to match the pattern with a handplane. That was easy. I wonder if everything is going to be that easy. Somehow I very much doubt it.


My grandma was visiting today to help us sew up a sail for another boat. After the sewing was done she came down to hang out in the shop, cause that's where all the action is, and she spotted an old warped oar in the burn pile. That was just not okay so she set out to make sure we would not burn it.

Here is the result:


I guess since I have now officially hung my sign above the door I'm going to have to work to some kind of higher standard. Oh the pressure!


-Jonathan

[jak3b]

That looks like a new high tech oar design,The downward curve gives an extra 'kick' when feathered.

[WX]

The excitement of a new build ahhhh.

[ILikeRust]

The Force is strong with this one.

[Peacefuljourney]

The Force is strong with this one.

you must feel the Force around you.

[blindbrook]

From one Jonathan to another, great work! I’m a bit further along (and much further along in time spent) on a smaller project and the one thought I have for you is a reminder that it’s a marathon rather than a sprint. But you're several months in, so you’ve figured that out. Curious, how long was your keel actually in the kiln?

[ILikeRust]

Curious, how long was your keel actually in the kiln?

I'm betting it was pretty much just as long as it is out of the kiln. I mean, it might have shrunk a teeny bit...

(ducking and running)

[Sailor]

Laugh all you like guys, this builds progressing at lighting pace and it's a build WE ALL have thought of at some point in our lives.

[J.Madison]

Curious, how long was your keel actually in the kiln?

I had trouble getting that information out of the guys at the mill. I don't think they knew exactly as it wasn't them who actually kilned it. One guy said he thought four days so I guess that's the most accurate answer I can give.

[P.L.Lenihan]

A beautiful design and a wonderful idea to document this build the way you have chosen to Jonathan. Thanks for starting this thread and for taking the time to post the pictures....everyone likes pictures around here and I don't know why!

Best of luck throughout her build!


Cheers!


Peter

[David G]

Jonathan & Bill,

I said I'd post the urban forestry contact info, and I finally dug it out of my Rolodex today.

Treecycle Hardwood -- 503-312-1730. Located close in SE

Urban Hardwood Recovery -- 503-887-0855. Located in Beaverton.

Gilmer and Moxon are both in the phone book, and both sell some urban forestry sourced lumber. Moxon has a monster black walnut right now that they're about to slice and dice.

J - I'll call this weekend about viewing your product, and seeing what your black locust needs are.

[J.Madison]

A beautiful design and a wonderful idea to document this build the way you have chosen to Jonathan. Thanks for starting this thread and for taking the time to post the pictures....everyone likes pictures around here and I don't know why!

Best of luck throughout her build!


Cheers!


Peter

Thank you Peter. Everyone does like pictures and there will be more to come soon! I daresay that I cannot live up to the standard of witty humor and wood butchery which you have given us in your thread- but then again I do not have an angry 6" tall ruffian yelling at me all day either. You win some, you lose some....

David,
Thanks for those contacts. They seem like a good resource. I'll let everyone know if/how they work out.

[J.Madison]

And the beat goes on:

I have now gotten out both the large stem pieces, the keel, and the sternpost.

The upper part of the stem is not shown here but you saw it earlier. Connecting all those parts are two knees, one at each end. Unfortunately I did not have good enough stock for either of those knees- for different reasons. The stem knee has quite a bit of sweep to it and if made from straight grained stock the "toes" of the knee would both have such severe grain runout that they would not have good strength. This area is where the main load from the stem is applied so it is critical that this part of the knee be strong.

After a search for suitable swept stock I decided just to laminate a stack of fir to the right curve. The knee will be cut out just as it would have been from solid swept stock but it will have epoxy joints.

Here is the pile of 16 1/4"x 4" laminates getting the squeeze.


It took a tremendous amount of force to get them to bend this much (which is the right amount- accounting for a slight springback). It took three iterations of the bending jig before I got one that was strong enough. It is made of 1/4" wall angle iron through bolted to a 2x12. The angle iron required another web welded on so that it was basically a three sided box. This kept it from deflecting, which kept the stack flat on the platform. I will take a picture when the lam comes off.

The other knee had to be built up simply because it is something like 14" across and the only stock I had that size had a very substantial check running down it. In the end it was better to build it out of two pieces because that way they each fit through the bandsaw and thickness planer. Otherwise it would have been quite the job to get from the 4" stock thickness to the 3.5" required.


There are two big pipe clamps underneath that are clamping the ends. I should be able to get the sternpost knee out free of any knots, another advantage of gluing up.

To tell the truth I was quite resistant to using epoxy. I find it miserable to work with and don't really trust it all that much either. I have had great success with it, and I have also had very frustrating failures. I shudder to think that my life will depend on its bond 30 years down the road. But if there is one thing I hear over and over on this forum is that epoxy failure is almost always because of user error.

So I scuffed the surfaces across the grain, cleaned my dispensing pumps, I mixed and then let it sit under a hot lamp and then mixed again. The wood surfaces were coated and let to sit a bit more then coated once more. Clamping pressure was adequate, but not enough to dry the joint. And to top it all off, each of those joints will be completely through fastened with multiple bronze fastenings. I'll be damned if an epoxy failure sinks my boat.

(The 'pox holds together many fine boats, and does so quite well at that.... the thing is... I just don't like it. This isn't the last time it will show up in this build either. It will be present when making the large blank for the mast, when filling the holes from temporary fasteners during setup, when fixing knots and other defects in boards, and probably when scarfing long pieces such as rail caps and shear clamps. But it will be generally avoided as a construction method.)

Besides wrestling with the decision to build up the knees with epoxy, there were other straining moments in the last few days. You can see the dramatic striped pattern on this backbone members.


Bob Smalser (whose word I consider law when it comes to wood) assured me that the light areas were just where the tree formed its extractives unevenly. It is not sapwood. In these areas it is easy to tell that because there is dark wood all around the light. There were several times when I would plane down a piece and then notice a light strip down one edge. It looked so painfully like sapwood that I spent a huge amount of time playing tree detective. I re-stacked beams the way that they were in the log. Many trips were made out to the stump to count rings. Knots were matched up with each other to reconstruct what the tree looked like before the crime. There were cases in which I could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not sapwood and they had to be put in the scrap pile- no longer large enough for my needs.

It was frustrating but in the end I am confident that no sapwood has made it into my backbone thus far.

On a happy note I now have enough parts to start bedding and bolting my way from one end of the boat to the other. Hopefully by the end of next weekend I will have some (or all!) of these backbone parts permanently connected and we can really start to see what this boat will look like. Permanently attaching boat wood? That is progress if I've ever heard of any.

I leave you, at the end of this rather wordy post, with an old picture of the table of offsets. I mentioned that many of the points just did not work when lofting. This picture shows how many.
Each colored square is a coordinate that did not fair when running the waterlines, buttock lines, and diagonals. Don't use this cheat sheet when lofting your own Maid! You will surely have chosen different points as right when originally laying down the body plan, which means that your colored squares will be different than mine- but equally as right. Also please don't zoom in and try to actually get the numbers from this sheet- just buy the plans from the Atkins. They deserve it!

I only put it up as a beacon of hope to other amateurs who are lofting and feel like they must be doing something wrong. You are probably not wrong- the designer just counted on you taking the time to fair the lines full size and he didn't sweat it on the small scale. So hang in there!

Have a good one,

Jonathan

[Peacefuljourney]

Good progress you will soon reach me

That's not too bad of error on the table of offset, I got around the same amount for the Gartside Design. Scaling from a sheet it's long & tedious so I do not blame my designer for it

[ILikeRust]

Geez, what's taking you so long? I wish you would get off yer keister and get around to just building the damn thing!

But seriously - wow. Very cool. We're all glued to the screen waiting for the next installment. I for one am green with envy.

[Eric D]

Jonathan,

good luck in your journey, I agree, Maid is a sweet boat. Glad to see it being built in a mannor fitting her. I will be along for the ride as well.

As a side note, congrats on doing it "your way" and for starting....often the hardest parts.

[Sailor]

Starting's the hardest part? Man had someone told me that I would have started long ago!

[BBSebens]

Epoxy does tend to be an "all or nothing" product. If your gonna use it, it needs to be everywhere.

As such, I commend you on your approach. She should give you many years of good service.

[David G]

Johnathan,

I enjoyed our visit today. Nice to see the shop, and a real pleasure to meet your folks, and Malone. Y'all have certainly collected a few boats. Being so close, I went and visited one of the Coots in Colton. His wife knows your dad, and remembers him fondly for his work with her local river watch group. He provided the technical expertise to help fight off an effort to place a gravel quarry (or somesuch) in or right on the river. Kudos to you dad! I look forward to visiting again in a few weeks to see what it looks like all planked up <G> Seriously, though, we did to talk about black locust. Give me a call when you're ready to do that.

Just so everyone knows, Mr. Madison's efforts are every bit as clean, tight, and careful as they appear from the fotos.

Oh... you can find John's email at the website I mentioned. He said he's quite happy to hear a Maid is being built in this area. I'm sure he'd love to discuss it with you.

[J.Madison]

Thank you for the compliments David. But don't tell people things were too clean- they will think me untrustworthy. We had swept up just before you got there, honest. That was my Dad who helped fight off the rock mine. I didn't know he was so famous.

It was nice to meet you today- thanks for coming out.

Progress of late has been two steps forward and one step back, but at least progress is being made. I had a failure in, what else, the epoxy laminate. Four laminates in a row popped apart about an hour after coming off the jig. Because they were all in a row it looks like that mixed cup of epoxy was unfortunate enough to get one less pump of hardener than it should have. I mixed four separate cups of epoxy for that glue-up and only one had any issues.

So the stem knee got weight loss surgery and I think it will still work fine. There is now just a larger filler block.



Today I cut my losses and made a new larger filler block that is glued onto the back. The laminates are the full width of the "wings" and they will provide the strength where it is needed.

Well that slowed down work on the front end of the boat so I next turned my attention to the stern. The sternpost and it's knee were laid on the lofting and all the design lines were transferred across the faces. These lines will help with aligning the two parts together.


The parts were then taken to the bench and the knee was drilled for drifts using a sighting guide stick. Then everything was put together just as it would be on the boat and clamped firmly. The drift holes were dropped down into the sternpost to the correct depths.


The knee is wider than the sternpost which is why the lines look as if they don't line up.

The mating faces were poisoned with cuprinol and sealed with two coats of red lead. The red lead was made by mixing 6 lbs of lead tetroxide powder with about a cup of japan dryer and filling the balance of the gallon with even amounts of turpentine and boiled linseed oil. It worked a charm. Recipe courtesy of Bob Smalser. Be careful with this stuff as it is poisonous. The powder can become airborne quite easily so take appropriate measures.



The drifts used were 1/4" SB rod. I heated the ends with a torch and then rounded them over against doubled thick stainless washers. This formed a nice head for the drift. The opposite end was given a bit of a point by hitting it with the hammer against the big vice. The holes through the knee were 1/4" which gives a loose-ish driven fit. In the sternpost the holes were 7/32" which some experimentation showed to be a good size to be tight but prevent splitting. The drifts were roughed up on their lower half with a file for extra holding power.



Once the red lead was dry Dolphinite bedding compound was applied to the surface and the knee lowered into place. It was aligned and clamped firmly again until a bead of bedding compound was oozing out all around the joint. I used a forstner bit to create a flat landing for the washer and head of the drift, making sure to put down some poison on the flat before driving the drifts home.


Scrape off the extra compound and there you have it. The first two pieces of boat permanently joined! It is a bit of a milestone. Now to see if I can't get that stem built up and figure out how to connect the two ends with the keel. Won't that just be somethin?!

[St.J]

The picture of the proud owner with Sternpost is great. Sometimes it's difficult to see the scale of big lumps of timber you're playing with.
Great work.

[J.Madison]

A two update weekend? Sure why not. I started the day with two pieces of boat connected and now I have three.



The keel has been attached to the sternpost assembly. The first step was to secure the keel exactly in its position on the lofting using blocks nailed beside the lines. The sternpost assembly was then put on top of the extra long keel and held exactly in position above its lines on the lofting so that the keel could be marked for the cut needed. I did the cut using a handsaw and a square to keep my blade perpendicular.

Next everything was secured to the lofting for final truing up of the joints. A very homemade system of clamps and wedges pulled it all tight so I could drill for the drifts. I waited until after drilling to coat with red lead so that the holes could be sealed with it. After the primer was dry I spread the bedding compound and drove the drifts. Done and done. This thing is getting big in a hurry.


She looks good but she just don't row worth a darn.


Funny business aside I am really enjoying how instantly I can see how a finished part turned out. I am used to having to wait for epoxy to dry and then undoing clamps to see the finished product but with this style of construction I just drive the drifts and there it is.

Meanwhile work is continuing on the stem.


It won't be long before it is ready to be bedded and bolted and then mounted on the keel. That job will require a little more precision because it is critical that the stem be in the same vertical plane as the sternpost.

There were a lot of firsts for me this weekend. My first experience with red lead, my first drift pins, my first brush with a natural bedding compound, and importantly, the first permanent boat parts connected. I am having quite the time with this. You've got to try it.

[BBSebens]

This thing is getting big in a hurry.

Well, you are building a boat after all.

Looking Good!

[David G]

Fun stuff. Good progress. Yeah... it's gonna get crowded in there soon. You've got a big enough space, though, that a little shuffling, and you'll be fine.

[Larks]

Terrific progress indeed, this is a great thread!!! BTW, that's not a Delorean in the background is it??

[Sailor]

This thread is tres tres cool. That's french for uber cool. Love the build, progress and the design is one heck of a boat. We'll all be expecting some mighty fine shots of her launch as well as a whole thread on her sailing qualities as you learn to waltz with this lady.

[CaptScot]

Hi, Maid does look like a wonderfully shaped boat. To make the red lead primer, were did you find the lead tetroxide powder? Thanks, Scott

[bischoffboatworks]

Got mine at Idaho: http://www.firefox-fx.com/

[J.Madison]

Terrific progress indeed, this is a great thread!!! BTW, that's not a Delorean in the background is it??

Ah no but good guess. It is a right hand drive 1978 Lotus Esprit S2. The chassis is sitting behind it and the engine is up on a workbench. Everything else is in various boxes around the shop. I was making real good progress on that car right up until I discovered wooden boats. I haven't touched it since. I will probably just sell it soon to get some more room in the shop.

Hi, Maid does look like a wonderfully shaped boat. To make the red lead primer, were did you find the lead tetroxide powder? Thanks, Scott

I got it at firefox. The same place that bischoffboatworks gave the link for above. To order from them you have to send a copy of your driver's license and sign a release saying that they aren't liable if you poison yourself or make a bomb. Kind of a pain but it can be done with a scanner through email. If you call they are helpful. They even labeled the individual containers with the exact weights which aided in mixing.

[J.Madison]

Alright crew let us continue this adventure. When last I left you the stem was in process but not yet completed. It seemed that the first logical thing to do was to complete that stem. And so I did.



The bolts were made of 1/4" silicon bronze rod threaded to accept nuts. One end was threaded just enough for a nut plus about 3/16". It was then peened over with a hammer so that the nut could not rotate like the head of a bolt. This is important so that the head can be held while tightening up the other end without having the rod emerge out of your countersunk hole.

I spent quite a bit of time tuning up the joint with hand planes to get a good fit. The hardest part was trying to hold everything together with clamps to run a saw cut up the ends to perfect the fit. Those curved surfaces do not like to be clamped.

Once the stem was done I cut the keel to length and trued up the fit of the stem to keel joint.



To make sure that the stem is in the same plane as the sternpost I ran a string from the exact center of the stem to the exact center of the sternpost and then plumbed down from that with a level to the centerline of the keel. The joint was not perfect the first try but a few strokes of the plane along the keel made it exact. It took very little planing of the joint to move the top of the stem a whole lot- so be careful not to remove too much in jobs like this.

Once it was perfectly placed I marked for bolts and set up the drilling guide.


The bit is aligned right along the corner of the guide. It gives amazingly accurate holes.

As usual the mating surfaces were primed with red lead and then spread with dolphinite (we tell visitors that it is dolphin brains), and bolted home.



When making these bolts I had several twist off in the die, it took great effort with drills and taps and other more violent tools to remove the broken pieces. I finally just went to town and got another 1/4" die and the problem never happened again. I think the old one had become quite dull or possibly damaged at some point. Lesson learned: use sharp tools.

And there she stood, noble and unassuming, as if the wood had always intended to take this exact shape.


This entire structure is quartersawn timber, all taken from that single log I milled myself. The tree grew not 50 yards from the spot it sits now, he and I both growing up on the same land. In fact I remember playing beneath this tree as a child. I am glad to give it a purpose higher than just becoming firewood or rotting in the forest where the wind pushed it over a while back. Better timber could possibly be found, but none closer to my heart and home.

When I stepped back to look over my accomplishments I was very excited so just for kicks I grabbed some innocent passers-by and made them hold molds up for our viewing pleasure.



It will be a while before I can rightfully say that the backbone is complete. I must pour and attach the ballast and then fill it out with deadwood, and I must cut the rabbet before that statement could be true.

I have used approximately 13 ft. of 1/4" SB rod thus far. 7 drifts and 7 bolts. Some tips for those who haven't done this before:
-Leave stock big to allow tuning. I did not leave extra thickness to the stock because I didn't anticipate changing anything in that direction but it would have made the joints less taxing to get right because I could re-thickness when done.
-Take the parts to the lofting often to sneak up on the fit of joints.
-Always angle bolts so that they pull the joint together. This makes more difference than you might think in getting those end nibs pulled up tight.
-Check often with your square while working the surface of a joint. You can do crazy things that look just right but are far off.

When all was said and done I laid the backbone back on the lofting for a final check and was pleased to see that it was very accurate. I think all the surfaces are correct to within 1/8", and most of it is exact. Experts can probably get it better but having a stem that is within 1/8" of where it is supposed to be relative to a sternpost 21' away is quite good in my book.

Up next: the ballast casting. That is going to be an adventure. Stay tuned!

[P.L.Lenihan]

I grabbed some innocent passers-by and made them hold molds up for our viewing pleasure.

What a shapely midsection you've got there Jonathan!!! Try offering free coffees and donuts next time, will ya, so that you have more "passers-by" to get all the section molds up for a pre-view!


Looking very sharp!


Cheers!


Peter

[ILikeRust]

And there she stood, noble and unassuming, as if the wood had always intended to take this exact shape.


This entire structure is quartersawn timber, all taken from that single log I milled myself. The tree grew not 50 yards from the spot it sits now, he and I both growing up on the same land. In fact I remember playing beneath this tree as a child. I am glad to give it a purpose higher than just becoming firewood or rotting in the forest where the wind pushed it over a while back. Better timber could possibly be found, but none closer to my heart and home.

Poetry...

[Rich Jones]

I've been following the thread but haven'st thrown in my 2-cents worth, yet. All I can say is, Well done! I built a 20' pilot sloop of equal dimensions and complexity over 20 years ago. At that time, although I was a professional carpenter, I only had a couple of plywood dinks to my boatbuilding resume. No training in boatbuilding other than books. And, gasp!, no internet or Forum at that time!
So, keep up the good progress and, one piece at a time, it'll become a beautiful vessel.

[bischoffboatworks]

That's a big moment in the life of the build. Congrats on such a great job and dedication to keep things moving along.

[peter radclyffe]

A very nice start, everything looks very well done. Keep it up.

There is one thing that makes me wonder, and that is the quarter inch diameter bolts joining the backbone members together. Not having the plans, I have no way of knowing what the designer calls for, but to me it seems kind of light. I'd be more comfortable with three-eights. I don't know the figures, but you can put a whole lot more pressure on the bigger bolt with far less tendency for it to stretch or strip the threads, and the bigger washer under the nut is a definite advantage with a softwood keel.

yep

[J.Madison]

A very nice start, everything looks very well done. Keep it up.

There is one thing that makes me wonder, and that is the quarter inch diameter bolts joining the backbone members together. Not having the plans, I have no way of knowing what the designer calls for, but to me it seems kind of light. I'd be more comfortable with three-eights. I don't know the figures, but you can put a whole lot more pressure on the bigger bolt with far less tendency for it to stretch or strip the threads, and the bigger washer under the nut is a definite advantage with a softwood keel.

The plans do indeed specify 1/4". Galvanized steel is specified but it has strength numbers similar to Silicon Bronze. Actually SB is a bit stronger than the low grades of steel that would probably have been originally used. The yield stress for SB is 55,000 psi. That means a 1/4" rod could withstand nearly 11,000 lbs of tensile force before yielding, and substantially more than that before failing altogether. I highly suspect that my beams cannot take that type of loading without washers pulling through or the beams breaking but I have not ran the numbers for that yet. There are several places where I have decided that the number of fasteners specified is inadequate and I have either already added more or plan to do so in the near future. The stem is one of those places. Of course care must be taken not to weaken things by adding too many holes.

The issue of washer size can either be alleviated by adding fasteners or finding larger washers. I think my best bet is to add a few fasteners where needed because that will solve all the problems at once. And I do have some faith in Atkin's ability to specify correct fastenings. The stem will surely be under less stress than it would in a catboat like yours! But you already knew that.

Thanks for your concern.