Garden Tom Cat

[Skegemog]

Appreciate it Jim! Going to Condon's Tues for mast and spar Sitka. Birdsmouth mast. Going with Betsy to St Michaels for Saturday only as a look see, non-participant.Targeting Spring launch. Have sail order in for May delivery and TRYING to get Reineck to respond for some hardware. Best to you! ( Ithink you and Ginger SHOULD join the docking rodeo... Sounds like an Eastern shore Texas marriage for boat'n.

see you at St. Mike's!

[gregleetaylor]

Sitka Spruce for mast, boom & gaff $8.50 BF, good quality



Test of dimensions for mast Pine); outside diameter 3.5":



Son, geared up for planning and sawing; mast lumber 18ft long so two person job in back yard.



...and son's (edited) shot of dad struggling to make feather boards:



We took the basement sliding door off and dragged the planer and table saw outside. We planed the two 18 footers down to 3/4" and cut staves for the birdsmouth out of one of them before stopping for the day:



The un-planed 6/4 piece in the pile here will become the gaff & boom; solid spars. Son has been recruited again to feed and catch long lumber for remainder of stave ripping, and the birdsmouth cutting. I can handle the 13 foot gaff & boom piece myself if we don't get to it.....

[gregleetaylor]

colors under natural light. I have spent an inordinate amount of time on this and continue... I am working on warming up the color of the yellow cedar which needs to get installed now!!!



Door off to get tablesaw outside. Think that little cat can go out through there on her side? We shall see..



18' long spruce ripped into birdsmouthed staves. The solid gaff and boom were planed and blanks cut out of a 6/4 length. some curving as tension released when cut but not much.

[gregleetaylor]

Lots of time and trouble using Behlen dyes to try to color the interior boards. Twp seperate attempts so far and still not satisfied.



late day sun through windows...

My problem continues to be that the interior color, a nice tan in natural light, shows up as "Pepto Bismol" in the shop...



I think I'll paint a large sample on some scrap an take both back outside for a decision...

[Skegemog]

Be careful, Behlen dyestains
are not necessarily lightfast. A mordant would
be far better in terms of finish clarity and long term stability. If you must stain I would use Lockwood’s water base aniline stains; lightfast and readily finessed by altering water to stain ratio.

[schoonerjay]

Good to see you back at it, and attempting an artist's eye to perfect your color scheme! Having the same planer I can only imagine how much you bribed the neighbors - guessing also whoever was catching the feed was covered in sawdust! It sure does plane a rather smooth surface however on the slow feed setting.

Good luck!

[gregleetaylor]

Jim,

Consult requested. The Behlen gave quick results and was easy to mix but the dry fast time does require an good hand to avoid uneven results, even using their retarder @ max rate. Their adds say light fast and high UV resistance but... they are adds....

I've decided to change the interior color completely and I'll likely sand off the stain and try again so.... I like the idea of a different approach. A Mordant sounds pretty deadly but I'm liking the qualities. Looking it up on the interwidewebski.

Researching Lockwoods as well...

How would you like to help out gluing up my 16.6' birdsmouth!?! plan to G flex it all in one go if possible. Watch you think?

Schooner Jay,

I may be able to put a palette together on canvas/paper but I wiped out on the boat colors! Outside assistance steering a new course now. Yes that planer is reallly good but the exhaust end always has me looking like a flocked tree after a bigger job. I have the neighbors "in the boat" and so far, no angry looks or calls...

[gregleetaylor]

Ok, the boards are sanded down to try again. The interior is going to get a COMPLETELY different color. (You may breathe easier, no more wildness inside). I dont know what is going to come next but it WILL be much less vibrant and MUCH more harmonious. I could easliy have built two boats with all the false steps on this one!

[Skegemog]

Call it meticulous prep work and move on....

and yes, available to help with mast glueup, why Gflex rather than regular epoxy? I would think the high viscosity would give you fits in the glue up, i think you would want something that wets out effortlessy

[donald branscom]

Great workmanship!
I kind of like the pepto gismo interior!

[gregleetaylor]

Jim,

Two dyes ordered from Lockwood today. I will get the right hue between them. I will appreciate being able to work the application a bit in order to facilitate even coloring. The alcohol based was quite prone to "lapping" even doing my best technique. I'll be using some larger test pieces and a dilution schedule to stack the deck. I agree the viscosity (and expense) of G Flex disqualifies it for a 17' x 8 stave glue up. Thank for you advice here. Will let you know abut handling the glue up after I run through the dry fit.

Donald,

Thank you. I also have quite a few examples of re-workmanship... some noticed this evening as I finished hand sanding off the dye from round two of finishing the wood! For the third time around, the plan is to make up the test panels with and eye toward a "pleasing tone" for the Alaskan Yellow Cedar. I no longer think it should be yellowish! Once I have the boards dyed, I will hold color samples up to it for a subdued, harmonious complement. I have ideas about what that might be but suffice now saying medium to lighter gray with some color tone to go with the wood in a flat finish to make sure the "background" color doesn't fight for attention versus to wood.

Hope springs eternal, even in the fall...

[gregleetaylor]

Going with this. Dyed with raw sienna from artist pigment dissolved in alcohol. Deciding next on varnish or not. Preparing to glue up mast. Happy turkeyham!




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[gregleetaylor]

I'm very likely going to varnish the seats and floorboards...waiting on the varnish arrival. After I can see what that looks like I'll go color hunting for the interior again...



In the mean time I've made some progress on the mast. I cleaned out the birdsmouth notch which had some sections that were not cut completely down to the vee.



I then cut the staves to length and sanded the vee with 80 grit.



and then, set up the first dry fit. The top 4' and bottom 3.3' get tapers which have not been cut yet. Next, I'll set the gluing jig up and taper the top.



Figurehead

[Skegemog]

excellent, keep on truck'n!

[rpeirce]

Metal hose clamps with a screw will give you much tighter joints on your birdsmouth mast than the plastic cable ties. The wood at the peak of each stave will crush some but this will be planed away as you round the mast. At the Woodenboat School mastmaking class several years ago we used regular west system epoxy for the joints (first non-thickened epoxy to the surfaces of the joints followed by slightly thickened epoxy immediately before clamping).

[jim_cricket]

+1 on the hose clamps. Also, put a nut driver in a cordless drill to tighten them up. You can add cable ties in between as needed.

[gregleetaylor]

Right you are! My dry fit pictured above was quite disappointing to me. My test section fit way better. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it; finally got up and released it all and reversed the direction of the staves making the inner faces outer faces and, having purchased hose clamps and a nut driver, everything tightened right up!!! Here's a shot of the test for the very top of the mast that will finish out about 1 3/4" before cutting in a shoulder for the fitting to ride on.




I believe the problem was a slight out-of square non-birdsmouth end that was introduced when I passed two staves at a time through my planer, non-birdsmouth end up to get all the staves equal. When doing this, there was some tendency for the staves to go off vertical only being supported by the points of the birdsbeaks on the planer base.

More pics soon. I cut out supports to build the armature (thanks for the term Jim) and have my plans to plane the staves down on the upper 57" of the mast. Then I'll make swallowtail (quite aviary of me) plugs to ease the change over from solid to hollow section. For the base of the mast I plan to insert a non-tapered plug that will end with a short oak section that will form the tenon to fit the step. Then I'll plane down the section below the partner per plans. Good sailing weather tomorrow.........

[gregleetaylor]

Here is my "taper jig". I have started planing the first 4 staves, must sharpen plane iron...



I'm also gluing up a blank that will become an octagonal plug at the base of the mast and... the varnish arrived today...nice to have the mast building well under way...

[gregleetaylor]

1.5 hrs sharpening 3 plane blades and a chisel! 1.5 hours planing 4 staves ( half mast work )

[minuteman]

+2 on the hose clamps, but you already knew that. I couldn't get the zip ties to get very tight.

I found that this uses a lot of glue and was tricky and time consuming spreading the glue into the vee. I was lucky that I was in my 40 degree basement so the epoxy took forever to kick. If you haven't thought about it yet, I would advise a pasty bag-style delivery system (like a big zip-lock bag with a corner cut out) and an assistant to help mix or spread.

I found that birdsmouth is very forgiving and once you tighten it up it straightens itself out.

Good Luck!

[Skegemog]

zip ties worked fine for me

[gregleetaylor]

Minuteman - agreed as to all. My plan is help enlistment, hose clamps supplemented by large zip ties and lots of epoxy on hand ready to go. Pleasing to get that alignment assist!

Jim - taking your advice again; I'm going with un-thickened epoxy to get a good penetration with thickened epoxy following. I've got tubes of West epoxy to gun into the vees and I'll have two gunmen shooting. Then two to align and clamp.

Another 1.5 hours today tapering the other staves and the mast is dry fit again. Nice to have something to show for the effort. I was surprised how much effort it took to plane a little bit of spruce down; even with sharp planes!!! The blank for making the plug at the foot of the mast is glued up. I'll make it fit the octagonal hollow next...

[gregleetaylor]

The chocks to hold the mast in column during gluwup



Top taper portion, no fitted top or bottom plugs just yet...

[gregleetaylor]

Plugs:
Oak (not glued up yet) to make a strong base and tenon 6+". The plug for the top of the mast laying down on the left...



Dry fit with softwood plug



base of mast plug - top
view

[Skegemog]

Looking very tidy Greg! A word of caution, key the faying surfaces of that plug with some really coarse sandpaper to maximize your mechanical bond, white oak has been known to be a little coy with epoxy

[gregleetaylor]

Roger that Jim! I'll rough it up real well before glue up. Off schedule for last Thurs. with work and holiday activity...

[gregleetaylor]

The new year and back to the building! Gluing the mast was planned reasonably well as I was solo at the job. In the end, all should be well however I did make my usual foul up!
I got all my staves (5, see below) started in the clamping before I noticed I had arranged them in reverse order. This wouldn't be a problem but back in my dry fit earlier (post 612 above) I found that the fit was quite a bit better one way than the other. I pulled them apart and reversed the order...

I had decided for control that I would glue up five of the staves with a layer of plastic on top and the remaining three staves dry fit in place for clamping up. Provided this works as tested, I will then epoxy coat the inside of all the staves, insert the head and foot plugs and glue it all up. I was only running 4 glue lines down 16 1/2' staves and the temp was 60 degrees but still, I was happy not to be trying to do the whole thing at once. Pictures forthcoming but not tonight.

[Skegemog]

The new year and back to the building! Gluing the mast was planned reasonably well as I was solo at the job. In the end, all should be well however I did make my usual foul up!
I got all my staves (5, see below) started in the clamping before I noticed I had arranged them in reverse order. This wouldn't be a problem but back in my dry fit earlier (post 612 above) I found that the fit was quite a bit better one way than the other. I pulled them apart and reversed the order...

I had decided for control that I would glue up five of the staves with a layer of plastic on top and the remaining three staves dry fit in place for clamping up. Provided this works as tested, I will then epoxy coat the inside of all the staves, insert the head and foot plugs and glue it all up. I was only running 4 glue lines down 16 1/2' staves and the temp was 60 degrees but still, I was happy not to be trying to do the whole thing at once. Pictures forthcoming but not tonight.

keep on truckin, and let's see some pics

[gregleetaylor]

All right, here are the pics...

6 1/2 hours in the shop today. Most of it, of course, getting ready...

final fitting of top plug



close up of squeezout from first four staves



locating bottom plug



Incredible amount of stuff flows onto the flat surface...

[gregleetaylor]

Amazing brush holdebr />


beads of West thickened epoxy from tube cartridges (thanks Jim), ready to go



more of same



with hose clamps...



cleaned up a bit and zip ties added. The careful viewer will note the utility of the amazing brush holders!!!

[Breakaway]

Amazing brush holdebr />


beads of West thickened epoxy from tube cartridges (thanks Jim), ready to go



more of same



with hose clamps...



cleaned up a bit and zip ties added. The careful viewer will note the utility of the amazing brush holders!!!

Nice work, Greg Lee!

I had a sawhorse that was an Amazing Brush Holder for about a year before I needed the full width of its top!

Kevin


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[gregleetaylor]

Thank you Kevin I have akways found the "byproducts" of building interesting in form... offcuts, holes, metal bits; unintentional scultpture!

[Skegemog]

looking good Greg!

[gregleetaylor]

Thank you Jim. I have a spar question for you soon...

Lots of time spent removing sqeezout with heat gun but I think it was worth it to help with a good planing result following



about three hours and a pretty sore back latebr />


power plane, Jack and block; 8 sided. Hope to make it through to sanding by MLK end, may beeeeee

[gregleetaylor]

What is this?



may be of some use, we'll see



mast 16 sided, next 32:



Probably quickly go to 64 before sanding. Mast is straight and round. Hope it's strong enough; time will tell...