Carnell Nutmeg: an MVB, a “minimum viable boat”

[NeilMB]

Wow, hooray for a flat iron, that got boat shaped really fast.

I screwed and glued the stem to one of the plywood sides.

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Then following a tip from the Weekend Skiff book, I held the frames up to their station lines, marked the outline and then the screw locations.

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Do that for every frame and the transom and drill the pilot holes in the plywood and then it’s time to stand it up…

[NeilMB]

Clamping the frames to both sides at the same time and carefully positioning them at the chine line and the station line, I drill through the holes in the plywood to get the matching pilot holes in the frames.

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Then screw them AND DONT GLUE THEM because the boat needs to be taken out of the basement in pieces to be glued in the garage once it warms up this spring.

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And soon you have something that looks like a big boat in the middle of the basement!

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[NeilMB]

The bevel on the transom doesn’t seem right so I’m going to try the weekend skiff suggestion of temporarily mounting, using the bevel gauge to take the angle and planing it to match.

Next steps are to make the gunwales and chine logs. I have a circular saw and I’m building Dave Carnell's ripping guide that he designed for this project. It bolts on the bottom of the saw and supposedly let’s you rip off a 3/4” piece from 2x stock. I should be able to get some pictures of that when I test it out before screwing up my 2x10x18’.

[dbp1]

And soon you have something that looks like a big boat in the middle of the basement!

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Certainly is looking boatlike... but are you _really_ not going to plane down that stem?

[NeilMB]

Certainly is looking boatlike... but are you _really_ not going to plane down that stem?

Carnell says in the build instructions “The side planks fastened to it won’t mind that one side is longer than the other.” And who am I to argue with Phil Bolger?

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[NeilMB]

I had a mis-cut with the circular saw and one of my gunwales ended up too skinny.

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I as going to go with it until I realized that now it was too shallow to bury the screws I have for it.

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I was a bit fed up with my power tool struggles and decided to fall back on the hand tools that had been working for me. But I needed a saw bench to support the 18’ board. So I had to stop and build that first before I could get back to that gunwale.

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I marked out the width I wanted and got it ready to go.

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Not quite halfway done before I got called away. (That might be my favorite part of hand tool woodworking in the basement, that it’s quick and easy to pick up and put down. That matters a lot to me with a family of five.)

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[NeilMB]

The second wale came out okay on the hand sawing, but farther into the board was where the knots started. There were these two about two feet apart.

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Maybe I could have filled them with Bondo after screwing it on, but maybe I needed to learn to scarf anyway, so I decided to cut that chunk out and scarf it back together. No pics of that process, sorry, but I followed Jim Michalak’s instructions for an 8:1 scarf and cut it with a saw and cleaned it up with a hand plane.

[NeilMB]

Once the two wales were made, now it was time to start screwing them on. The weekend skiff book is a very similar boat and gave a suggested screw spacing of 6 inches while the Nutmeg plans are silent on the matter, so I made a block of wood the desired size and penciled in the screw locations.

Then, like the rest of the boat, I through-drilled the plywood in the screw locations.

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Then it’s just a matter of clamping the wales in their location and drilling the pilot holes in the right places.

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I did a couple on each side and then put the screws in them, moved the clamps back a few feet, drilled the next few on each side and put screws in them. I didn’t get far tonight, but it looks like the process will work fine.

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The wales fit tight to the plywood without gaps between the screws, so apparently the 6” spacing was more than enough. Once the screws are in all along, I’ll back them out, butter both sides with glue and wrestle the long piece back onto the tips of the screws. I think I learned here that if you leave the screw points sticking out of the plywood when gluing up, then they’ll find their way back into the pilot holes and help everything line up.

I am gluing the wales and chine logs onto the sides here in the basement, hoping that when I take the sides off the frames to get it out of the basement, they will handle the moving and reassembly no problem. I think that the mathematician in me prefers gluing them with the curvature laminated rather than gluing them flat and bending the completed sides around the frames at assembly time when it warms up.

Next steps are to finish drilling and screwing and then do some gluing and give it plenty of time to dry. Next big hurdle after that for me will be making the 3/4” square beveled chine logs.

[NeilMB]

Finally got back to work on the chine logs, the next part after the gunwales. These were ripped off of the 2x10 that makes up the solid lumber for the whole boat, the I scarfed out a couple of knots, then I sawed it down the middle, but at the 15 degree bevel angle that the flat sides make. The rough sawn face ends up facing the plywood bottom.

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Then it’s more of the same, clamp, drill, screw, un-screw, butter everything with glue, then re-drive the screws back in their holes.

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Maybe it’s just me, and I’ve already demonstrated how low my standards are, but I think those curves look pretty good for something that is topologically the same as a packing crate.

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Next up is planing the sides and chines to be flat and level and then tracing and cutting the bottom sheets.

[Etdbob]

Glad to see the boat under construction!

I loved mine, just wish I'd spent more than 12 bucks on the plywood...

You got the same type of ply that I'm using form my Dart build. I set a few scraps of it simmering on my wood stove out in my shop all day long yesterday, and it passed the "boil" test just fine. I'm liking this Chilean plywood.

If you have any questions or want a pattern for a 75 or 100 sq. ft. lug sail, or a 69 sq. ft. lanteen sail for it, let me know.


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Under one reef, chasing down a Bolger Dovekie

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[Etdbob]

Then screw them AND DONT GLUE THEM because the boat needs to be taken out of the basement in pieces to be glued in the garage once it warms up this spring.

Wait, what??

I don't think this is wise. Titebond III is good to go down to 40 degrees. I'm sure you could stick a portable electric heater next to the boat and it would be fine.

Then it’s more of the same, clamp, drill, screw, un-screw, butter everything with glue, then re-drive the screws back in their holes.

I guess this works but you are making extra work for yourself.

I clamped the wales on first to make sure they would take the bends. If that worked I unclamped it, slathered on lots of glue on both surfaces, and clamped it back on starting in the middle. Then I went along and drilled little pilot holes and went back down the line starting galvanized roofing nails into the holes, then went back down the line again with a hammer in one hand, a sledge in the other to back it and sank 'em.

Then back along the boat again with a damp rag to wipe off all the glue squeezed out!

I did 6" spacing too.

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I guess the way you did it uses less clamps?

[Etdbob]

I am gluing the wales and chine logs onto the sides here in the basement, hoping that when I take the sides off the frames to get it out of the basement, they will handle the moving and reassembly no problem. I think that the mathematician in me prefers gluing them with the curvature laminated rather than gluing them flat and bending the completed sides around the frames at assembly time when it warms up.

Oh good God yes, if you glue on the wales while the sides were flat the sides would never take the bend around the molds!

So I gather you have to take the boat apart to get it out of the basement????
Transom, stem, frames and all? Oh my!

Do yourself a favor and get it out to the garage now, before you put the bottom on!

What glue are you using? With Titebond III you can work easily enough in the garage in winter with a portable electric heater. Keep the glue inside the house until you need it! You can bring the frames inside overnight too, to warm the wood. Then just glue up a joint and keep the heater on it for half an hour. Keep the heater on whenever you are working out there and it'll be fine.

[NeilMB]

It’s going to be a straight Sunfish rig to start with. I saw this hull out behind a neighbor’s barn and I called up to see if he wanted to get rid of it and he even hauled it over here in the back of his pickup. It’s in amazing condition for a 1975 boat, but it has a monstrous crack/hole in the bottom of the hull. But all I really wanted it for was the rig.

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The look on that little guy’s face when we started driveway sailing was worth every penny. This sail is pretty shot, but I had already bought a used one online when I decided what I was going to build. I’ll tie on the fresh sail and drop it right into the mast step like Carnell designed it. Eventually I’d like to rig the lateen more like Mik Storers lug sail tips but for now, this should move.

The basement is a bit of a necessity right now. Things are going to slow down mightily when it has to move out to the garage, so I’d like to get the parts fabricated while it’s still in the basement. Carnell’s recommended stainless wood screws make it very easy to get the bottom off and then the sides off the frames. Then all of that can go out the window of the basement and be re-assembled with glue in the garage. Doesn’t seem like a big deal to me, but there’s always a decently large chance that I’m missing something.

[Etdbob]

Heh, I bet you could glass up the bottom of the Sunfish easily enough!
Ya gotta watch out, boats seem to multiply....

New Sunfish sails are quite cheap, that's not a bad way to go.

By the way, I'm very impressed you ripped an 18' board with a hand saw. You da man!

[NeilMB]

Lots f family work this maple syrup season, so not much time for boat work, but I grab 5 or 10 minutes in the basement when I can. That’s one reason it’s nice not to have to go out to the garage to work on the boat.

Planing the chine logs and the plywood sides flat to take the bottom.

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I enlisted my daughter to do some important design work, figuring out what color to paint it!

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Early returns are pointing towards a teal hull, lavender gunwales, and probably a light gray interior.

[Etdbob]

Looks good!

Heh, you probably shouldn't show your daughter pictures of ​Hello Kitty, which is a fancy version of the same boat.
Wait, you did say teal and lavender!





Or this one too -

[NeilMB]

Hello Kitty, the Bolger Featherwind from the plywood boat festival looks just about right. Looks like tons of flotation under the fore and aft decks.

Finally got the transom trimmed so that the bottom can lay flat. Just put a whole sheet of plywood on, clamp it down and trace around to find out where to cut it out.

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Then, go underneath and trace there to find out where the glue will go and where to drill the pilot holes.

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Its fun to try to flip the mental perspective upside down and imagine what it might feel like to be riding inside on the sole of this boat.

Next up is cutting out the bottom and drilling a million pilot holes. I also have to make the timber butt strap that connects this sheet to the one in front of it.

It snowed again last night, but it’s getting closer to time to bring it out to the garage and get everything glued together.

-Neil

[Etdbob]

Looking good! I bet you can't wait to get it out on the water.

[NeilMB]

I forget what I’ve taken pictures of and posted about here. I finished screwing on the first half of the bottom, fabricating the butt block and prepping the second half of the bottom. I decided I’m going to join the two bottom halves right on the boat once the first bottom piece is glued and dried.

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Now I’m working on fabricating the mast partner and its support cleats. It’s about time to pull this thing apart and take it out the basement window and put it back together with glue out in the garage. Then it’s fill, sand, seal, and paint time.

I had to make a new todo list because my original one got all done up. There are lots of fiddly sailing bits on the new list, including a giant leeboard and a rudder.

I had hoped to be in the water by the end of May, but with the free time I have left before then, it seems unlikely that I’ll make it in time. But much progress has been made and more is on the way.

[NeilMB]

Finished making the mast partner from plywood and beveling the edges for hopefully a tight fit.

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the cleats that support the plywood were my first opportunity to make a compound cut with the bevel gauge. I was happy enough with how they turned out. They have the same 15 degree angle on the top face as the sides have so that the thwart sits down flat.

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I made them over-long so I could trim them to match the seat, but now I’m baffled on which angle to match when I cut them off. Square across the cleat will leave a little corner sticking out past the thwart (unless I cut them shorter to account for that). Flat across in the vertical plane of the thwart’s aft edge, maybe? What do real boat builders do with situations like this?

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[NeilMB]

One of the interesting pieces on the plans is this spacer for the leeboard’s pivot bolt. The leeboard is supported on the gunwale, the external chine and then this piece surrounding the pivot bolt. They are all nominally 3/4” thick, but I’m sure it’ll take some fine-tuning on thickness to get all three pieces to lie in one plane.

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I cut a piece of scrap to the length given on the plans, sawed off the square corners and then rounded the remaining corners off with a pocket knife. Then I drilled a 3/8” hole through freehand. Hopefully it’s perpendicular enough.

[NeilMB]

He next thing on the to-do list just said “Disassemble” so I backed out the screws on the bottom and took it off, then did the same or the transom, the stem, and each of the frames. The bottom sheet fit up the basement stairs but the sides had to go out the basement window.

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I hypothesized that the gunwales and chines would instill their curvature into the plywood sides, but I was surprised how rigidly curve they were. There was very little spring back on the stem end and just a little more at the transom. That should make the re-assembly much easier.

Here’s the forlorn pile waiting in the garage for me to finish the last steps on preparing the frames.

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I waited to cut the limber holes in the corners of the frames so that I could use the corners to align the frames as they were attached to the sides. So now I have to cut those. The frames also haven’t been trimmed to height. I drew the outline of the sides and a yardstick across the gunwales on each frame. I think it will be easier to trim them to height now at the bench. I’ll also put a radius on the top corner and little chamfers on the inner edges to hopefully save my clumsy self some future bruises.

After that, the next thing on the list is “Buy glue”!

[NeilMB]

Well I finished trimming the frames last night and today I bought a gallon of glue. He limber holes are just made by cutting off the lower corners of the frames one inch back on each leg.

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Then I trimmed the top of the frames at a slope slightly greater than the flare so that they won’t catch on a roof rack. Then I rounded the inner corners with a chisel and chamfered the edges with a spokeshave.

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When I get a chunk of time, these are ready to be screwed back to the sides and bottom with some of that brand new glue. Also working on oarlock sockets andthinking about thole pins too.

[NeilMB]

I decided on these Bolger-inspired oarlock sockets and thole pins: http://www.tanzer22.org/2104/dinghy/michalak_oars/

The plates are aluminum, cut off the end of a scrap drywall ruler. That set the length dimension at 2” long, which is less than given on those plans. I just eyeballed the width and they ended up just shy of 1.25”.

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The hardware store had these 10-32 stainless bolts and the central hole is 1/2”. (I’ve never owned a 1/2” twist drill before!)

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They didn’t have nylons stainless nuts in that thread, so I got two nuts to lock them off. I’ll have to add a small pad on the outside of the wale to give enough width to inlay the top plate, but just 1/2” thick I think.

The stainless steel rod for the thole pins is on the way on the mail and I have to learn something about bedding. What do I put underneath these plates between bare wood and the aluminum plate. Is there something from the hardware store that does this job? Just a blob of paint? A little squeeze tube of caulk?

[NeilMB]

I am making good progress putting the pieces back together out in the garage using that good new glue. First the frames and the transom.

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Then the back half of the bottom gets glued and screwed (sorry no pics, I was hurrying to fit it in the available time). That dried last night and today I have been getting the front half of the bottom ready.

[NeilMB]

If I am going to get this launched soonest, then it will be as a rowboat, so I started work on the oars. Dave Carnell refers to this as the “$200 sailboat” and part of the economizing is that the oars come from the same two-by lumber as the rest of the boat. The looms are 1.5” square and seven feet long, ripped from the single long board that everything else came from.

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The blades are two feet long and slot a foot into the looms to make 8’ oars. They are from the same 1/4” plywood as the rest of the boat.

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I wasn’t having any luck trying to saw down a 12” long, 1/4” wide slot so I decided to chop it out like a very long mortise using a 1/4” wide bench chisel.

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I finished the first one and dry fit the blade, now I have to finish the second slot and then get to work on tapering and rounding the various sections of the looms.

[NeilMB]

The glue for the bottom dried over night and the hull is topologically complete.

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Of course now, as you all know and I am learning, the list of things that need to be attached to this basic structure feels endless. I started today with gluing in the mast partner, the only thwart in the boat. There’s a breast hook and two quarter knees of plywood that need to be glued and screwed on, the leeboard attachment, the mast step, and then the oarlock sockets.

Maybe after that it’ll be time to start getting it ready for paint! Sheesh. I’m tempted to throw it in the pond right now to see if it floats, but the reason I don’t is that I don’t want to add “clean up the mud inside” to my list of things to do.

All that aside, super excited to be down to the fiddly bits.

[dbp1]

Looks like a boat! Home stretch — congrats!

[Breakaway]

A fine thing!


Kevin


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[NeilMB]

I was off work today while everyone else was still at school so I got to do lots of little tasks on the to-do list. First up we’re some extra pads along the gunwales to make room for the top-mounted “oarlock sockets” (thole pin holes?).

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They are four times as long as the metal plates of the oarlock sockets and taper over the last quarter of their length. Because there are plates on the top and bottom surface of the gunwale they can’t be let into the upper surface of the plywood side plank at all.

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Next up was the mount for the pivoting leeboard. It’s just in front of the middle frame and has a half-inch thick backer on the inside along with the Streamlined support block on the outside of the hull that halos span the gunwale and the chine.

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I used the 3/8” pivot bolt to clamp it on and since bolts are minimally threaded, I had to add the triangular scrap to take up the thickness of the leeboard.

[NeilMB]

Next up was the “breast hook” which is really just a piece of the same 1/4” ply that goes up near the stem. Since the sides and the gunwales flare out, I had to chisel out a flat for the plywood to land on. A recent thread on breasthooks gave me the idea to avoid the stem entirely and let water drain out when the boat is flipped upside down.

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I couldn’t find my bag of stainless screws for some reason, so I just glued and spring clamped it on.

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I worked on the stainless steel thole pins a bit, but I didn’t take any pictures. As much of a hack woodworker as I am, I’m three times as bad at metal work. I eventually managed to drill a small hole through each of two round rods to take a “hitch pin clip” (at least that’s what the drawer at the hardware store said on the outside).

I’m going to need the oars themselves before I can do too much more work on the pins.

[NeilMB]

And lastly for the day, after my son went to sleep I got a chance to work on the oars. I tapered the shafts according to the plans, marking the widths on two opposing faces and scrub planing down to the lines, then repeating for the other two faces.

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The next step is to octagonize the parts of the shaft that will be round, but I found that the spar gauge I had was a bit too big and so I made a new one according to some dimensions that Jim Michalak gave in his article on making oars.

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Apparently 23/32 is close to 1/sqrt(2), who knew?

Next on the list is octagonizing and then rounding the oar shafts, and on the hull, I need to install the mast step, but I haven’t figured out exactly how I am going to drill the hole in the step directly under the hole in the partner yet.

[NeilMB]

You can tell it’s been a while since you worked on your boat project when you have to go to page 3 to find your build thread. After a couple of very busy weeks at the end of the kids’ school year, I finally checked a few more things off the list.

First, the mast step was ready to attach to the bottom of the boat. Excuse the shadowy pic.

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It’s primarily screwed in from the bottom, but the strut from the top made me feel better for some reason.

Then the second “quarter knee”, it hardly deserves the name, just a piece of the plywood spanning the top of the rail and the transom. The 1/4” plywood is flexible enough across the grain of the outer faces that I didn’t have to flatten the angle on the top of the rail, I just shave a little curve into the transom and clamped it across.

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When I was doing the quarter knees, I noticed this. At first I thought that it was glue drips, but the line that it made was much too straight.

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Closer inspection showed that birds were perching on the transom of the boat as it stuck out of the garage door and doing their business. Apparently they have judged my craftsmanship as sh***y.

[NeilMB]

Latest pics from today are of installing the thole pin sockets. The top plate is recessed into the top face of the gunwale (plus an extension for width).

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Then the screw holes were drilled down and they mostly matched up with the bottom plate.

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Then the big 1/2” hole for the thole pin which is some stainless steel rod I found on eBay.

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Then the same on the other side.

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I cheaper out and went for the 8” long rod for two thole pins, now I have to finish rounding the looms of the oars and strapping them on before I can tell if these two are going to be long enough.

[Breakaway]

Nice progress!


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