The Cape Henry 21 building thread

[Max F]

Finally after all preparations yesterday was day 1 for my new build, that I had allready anounced in my bow shed thread.
It felt awsome to do the first real boatbuilding steps .
I started with the building of a jig for the laminate radiused transom.
Here I gave it after gut feeling 25mm more bend to allow some spring back.

P1050565 by capitan max, on Flickbr /> I´m curious how it will turn out.

P1050559 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050561 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
Unfolding the mylar pattern that had spend months in the cupboard was the next big step.

P1050568 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
More will follow soon.
Max

[Rich Jones]

And so it begins. Wonderful! Do you have a picture of the plans so we can see what you're building?

[Jamesh]

Cape henry 21
http://www.dixdesign.com/ch21.htm
james

[EeBe4]

The boat building cathedral! Looking forward to watching this one Max-

[capefox]

Having built one of Dix's boats myself, an Argie 15, and being a big fan of the Cape series of cruisers. I can't wait to see your project unfold.

[Old Dryfoot]

Yes please!

[TheFullback]

Fantastic - a Cape Cutter 19, Henry's little sister, is on my shortlist so I'll be keen to see how this progresses.

[DudleyDix]

Max F, thanks for starting this thread. I am sure that it will become a valuable resource for other builders.

[Max F]

The Transom was done in a rush.
Where the planks will land I cut it 30 mm off the line to add meat for the planking bevels.

Here are the two inner layers are bend and clamped to the molds to see how the bending changes the allignment.
Due to the bend the layers of the outcut moves relativ to each other.
For that the first layer was roughly cut 10mm off the line while the second layer is allready fair and to is finished dimension.
After bending I could scribe a more exact line to the first layer .

P1050576 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
I left the second cut out a wee bit prout of the line too, just in case the parts would move unwanted while glueing and clamping.
That will easily and quick cut perfectly flush later with a copy router bit.

P1050578 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
Preparing for the glueing session.
P1050580 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
And like allways it needs loads of clamps.
That build was a good excuse to stock up.

P1050582 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
As temeratures were lousy 8 degree C.
I wrapped up the jig in plastic sheeting and plankets with two 60 W lightbulps inside.
After 30 minutes i had allready 15 degrees inside.

P1050586 by capitan max, on Flickr

[Max F]

Something I started to like is this washing liquide bottle with a special screw tap.
A perfekt Dispense for epoxy resin.
No more drops that run down at the outside of the bottle to make a total gungy mess

P1050587 by capitan max, on Flickr.

Today and the next days I´ll use the warmer temperatures and scarf the panels for the bulkheads.

P1050594 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
I wish I had a handheld circular saw with a 100mm deep cut. To speed this up.
I´m not thad skillfull with elektric planes. So I rough it up with These and do a lot planing with my handplanes.
With Bruynzeel Sapelle Ply the edges dull very quickly though.

[Rigadog]

Hi, what are the dimensions of your shed? BTW, I love the design (boat and shed)

[Redeye]

I've noticed those new bottles, also. I thought they were great. Even better to put epoxy in them for dispensing. Excellent!

Just don't drop them. The deckel is a little brittle.

[capefox]

I've started using large catheter-type syringes and epoxy and hardener in separate screw-top containers. Mixing by volume on smaller batches seems to be more accurate than by weight.

[Redeye]

I use syringes only for very small volumes. I have a good supply of graduated syringes down to 0.5mL so accuracy is quite high. Anythign above 25g and my scales are accurate enough. I'd like some more accurate scales but i didn't want to fork out 300 CHF for them!

[Max F]

Yes syringes are handy for small volumes.
I bought a kitchen scale and testet it´s accuracy with dry wall screws.
You don´t get half gramms but it´s precise to the gramm.
@Rigadog It´s 8.5x 5 m, The boat will be 6.4x 2.4m. so I have enough space to work around the hull.

[Max F]

And still scarfing and glueing

P1050609 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
The cabinet scraper makes this job clean and quick

P1050611 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
My electric scarf planing improved a lot with this gadget

P1050614 by capitan max, on Flickbr />


Other than the original one layer of 10mm ply I will glue 3 layers to get a stiffer backbone. This will help when I torture the garboard in place.
I use 2 drill bits as index pieces, so that the layers won´t slip with all that slippery epoxy on them while clamping

P1050619 by capitan max,
on Flickbr /> P1050620 by capitan max, on Flickr

[Moritz]

I´ve to come along and visit again... There there is always some fine work in progress!

[Redeye]

Hi Max,

I just ask, and you may have said this on the shed thread, but did you need a permit for your bow shed? I guess it could be different in Baden-Würtenberg but it could also be similar. This might prove to be a good solution for me... BM is quite close and I want to do most of my build in the EU, and not in CH for MWST reasons... ie, I don't want to have to import my own boat into EU when I'm finished!!

Good to see some more progress, btw. I made myself a scarf planing attachment out of plywood to help with scarfs. It makes a great job!

[boat fan]

Looking forward to this build.

Great looking boat.

Now this is a great little gadget , I could have used that a few months ago and saved quite some mess !



Thank you for sharing this with us .

[Max F]

Anytime Moritz. I still have hollydays this week.
@Redeye
As it is no permanent building, more a garden-greenhouse, I had no issues with a permit. But I checked this before to stay out of trouble .
You should check this for your building place as it depends surely on where you live.
I live in a very small place in a rural area.
Mostly farms around.
I´m curious about your scarfing guide. Do you have a Picture?

[JimD]

Its a beauty of a design. Will be keeping an eye on your thread.

[Redeye]

Hi Max
I attach 3 pictures of the device. it's basically a piece of plywood the same thickness as the base plate on my plane. I removed the fixed base plate and screwed this plywood on instead (mine wasn't wide enough so I made it wider with some extra ply) . I then added plywood spacers/guides each side, the same thickness as the piece of plywood i want to plane, and 2x the hobelbreite apart. I change the guides for different plywood. My plance is set at a slight angle to make it plane a little better.
Then I set it up as in the sketch.



Two thickness of plywood, with a little bit of bench sticking out. All aligned nice and straight.
the guides are spaced 2x the Hobelbreite.

As you plane each swipe, the outside edge of the whole lot sits lower and lower until the outside guide is running along on the top edge of the bench. It stops you planing any more off the working piece of plywood.

I copied it from a device I saw on the web, but can't remember the name of the guy. You can actually buy the device. But I just made my own.

[Max F]

Thanks man. Smart indeed. Gave me some nice input.
Max

[Max F]

No epic progress has been made so fabr /> I took me loads of time to transfer the lines to the bulkheads.
I found the best tool to get the vertical centerline to a precise right angle is this compass, I made for this purpose.
It was a joy to work with it.

P1050632 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
Other than that, I cut out the sides of the centerboard case and glassed it with 4 layers of biaxial glass to add streng and protection against chafe.
I really like that biax stuff. it saturates much easier than woven fabric.

P1050627 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050629 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
Too I build me a nice cart for my reel of glas to ease dispension. Works nice. Better than rolling around that 50kg reel all the time.

P1050626 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
Temperatures are getting to cold now to use epoxy and Long John Silver is waiting for his anual maintainance, so the building will unfortunately slow down a little.

[Fredostli]

Temperatures are getting to cold now to use epoxy

The one who develop epoxy for below zero degrees deserves a Nobels price!

[Max F]

Hi Folks

Slowly but surely work is in progress.
The stem is so far ready for beveling
.P1050633 by capitan max, on Flickbr /> I took me some time to transfer the lines from the mylar patterns carefull and exactly.
Then I cut the outlines of all bulkheads but leave the inner cuts for later.
I consider even to leave the inside cuts where possible and where it makes sense until i finish the planking.
That way I believe the bulkheads will stay more rigid while planking.
As the camber is also a segment of a circle I used a router like I did when I build the jig for the transom.
Worked very well and nice.

P1050645 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050646 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050649 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050653 by capitan max, on Flickr

[Max F]

At the stringers, I ´m going to change the designed positions off stringer 2-4 as seen on the following pictures.
That will give me more glueing surface at the lands.
I´m sure it will be strong enough as designed. This is more a personal preference.
Í´m not sure if these changes will result in a fair curve.
Instead of lofting, I´ll cut the notches after the bulkheads are errected.
Shouldn´t be to much trouble to use the router and jig then on the vertical after I checked and adjusted the positions with a batten.
The planking outline will not be affected by this change!

P1050656 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050661 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050662 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
Meanwhile the centerboard case is nearing comletition.
As it is to cold outside, I glue inside the house
After 4 layers of biaxial weave I sanded the surface, wich was quite some work, as I forgot to get me some peel ply and wanted to glass it anyway on that day.T
Then I coated it with 3 layers epoxy resin.
After that I alligned all dry and drilled holes for small nails, so that nothing would slip out of position after the epoxy aplied.
I took quite some effort to clean everything inside the case as good as possible with rags and alcohol to save some tough work later.

P1050664 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050669 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050671 by capitan max, on Flickr

[Max F]

After a long winter full off other thhings to do the building moves on again.
In the beginning of March I got a bad surprice.
The shed was pierced with 16 holes on two sides.
It turned out the 5 year old neighbours son played warrior and needet to test his spear.

P1050755 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
Some Siga tape will from now on add some colour to the shed...

During the last days I made some more cuts on the Frames and glued on the doublers for the deckbeams .
It´s good to be back at the build!
On the first evening I couldn´t use a tool or make a cut. I needet some time to get tuned in again.
So instead I cleaned up a Little , organised the working space and had a glas of wine with my mates.
Next day I was in business again.

P1050757 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050760 by capitan max, on Flickr

[andrewpatrol]

Good to see you back into it Max. I just have a question about you moving stringers. In the 2nd photo from #27 how much overlap have you left for outer plank, it appears from your drawing to be about half the width of a stringer? Have you checked with the designer ?

[Max F]

Andrew
I ´m not sure if I understand your question right.
My aim is to get more overlapp than original intended.
And no, I didn´t talked with dudley about this at all.
He get´s surely thousands off questions to anwer every day and I think this wasn´t a dramatical change.
With the changed stringer location the lower planks will too become a little broader and still cover the stingers 100%.
The overlapp from the outer planks will become more up the max 25mm ( 2.5x thickness of the Planks ).
Between garboard and the second plank the angle is quite steep, so here a fillet will be neccesary.

[andrewpatrol]

Max, in your pic 1050661 are your new stringers the green lines or pencil ones? If the pencil ones I see what you mean. I was assuming your new lines were the green ones. Carry on.

[Max F]

Aaah
Right, the pencil ones are the new ones.
I´m pretty curious how it will turn out after I laid a batten on them.
cheers Max

[Max F]

Nothing big happens at the moment. but I thought I might share some details with you guys that I find helpfull.

More cut out is done.
Here I screwed in a filling peace to keep it alligned when setting up.
I had planed to leave some meat at the end but was too eager when cuting.

Cut first and think later, or was it the other way round

P1050763 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
To keep the parts from moving while clamping when everything is lubricated with epoxy I use some wooden blocks.


P1050769 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
I even added some dots of hot clue to the sides of the little block to prevent unwanted movement.

P1050771 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
And here the doublers for the deck beams
Here too I nailed little blocks to the blocks at the bending jig to keep the strips from slipping everywhere.
These were other than the blocks at the Frame set one after the other while bending the doublers around the jig.

P1050773 by capitan max, on Flickbr />
P1050772 by capitan max, on Flickbr />

cheers Max

[simonmags]

Looks like this will be a good build to watch, we are just heading into the heart of Winter so things are pretty slow over here. Will be good to watch someone else's progress

[Max F]

Hey man look, a zebra- transom

P1050786 by capitan Max, on Flickbr />
I was pretty curious how much spring back I would get after releasing it from the mold after all these months.
It turned out that 25mm overbend was ok.
checking on the temporary frames that will hold them in shape until the Cockpit is done showed 5mm overbend.
Nothing I couldnt straighten out easily to fit them to these frames.
Next steps were to get the inside of the doublers into shape and bevel the outside.

first cleaning up the sqeeze out and a flush trim cutebr />
P1050790 by capitan Max, on Flickbr />
and rounding it over with the next bit

P1050793 by capitan Max, on Flickbr />
Beveling for the planking was good fun
First cutting parallel to the inside with the needet amount of beef for the bevels

P1050797 by capitan Max, on Flickbr />
When power plane and block plane

P1050802 by capitan Max, on Flickr