Sheer genius?

Unfortunately, I am stuck waiting for my local West Marine to get the biaxial I need to fillet and tape the chines, etc. So in the mean time I've been working on the materials for the sheer clamp (for the uninitiated, the part that joins the hull to the deck). In short, I took a piece of 1x2 poplar and cut it on a diagonal from corner-to-corner. I took this approach so I can get a nice soft curve at the hull-deck joint. To cut the 1x2 on a diagonal on the table saw, I created a simple jig to get a straight edge close enough the blade.



To scarf the pieces of the sheer clamp together, I created another simple jig to allow me to cut a 80 degree bevel on the pieces since my table saw could not do better than 45 degrees.



I epoxied the pieces together, so we'll find out tomorrow how well this worked...

I also fixed a little problem with the forward butt joint in the side panels. When I butted the panel pieces together, I kept the backer piece short from the sheer and the chine so that filleting and taping would be easier. However, I discovered that with the twist that is put on panel during stitching the hull together the forward butt joint was tearing apart. To remedy this I unstitched the front ~3' of the hull and placed a layer of glass tape over the portion of the point that had no backing. Seems to have worked quite well and after re-stitching it seems vey solid. I would recommend doing this from the get-go.

Shape up!

Last night I scarfed the hull panels together, and tonight after work (with surprisingly no cursing and spitting!) Traci and I stitched the hull sides to the bottom. Damn, this thing actually looks like it could one day be a boat. And that forklift driver was skeptical...

We started out by drilling holes for the zip ties the entire length on one side of the chine and "loading up" the zip ties. That allowed us to get a good two-person system going drilling a couple of holes at a time the bottom side and cinching down the ties starting at the stern and working forward. This worked out great and we had the shape of the hull in a couple of hours.

I also laminated up the transom, so that will be stitched in tomorrow. We'll also do a little more work on the cradle so that the hull bottom is where it ought to be before we fillet and tape the chines and center line.

Priorities

"Will the cockpit be big enough for me to lay out and get sun on the way to the race course?"

"Yes, dear. Now help me finish unloading the trailer."

My lovely assistant, Traci takes a break.

Morning Wood

The kit arrived late last night and this morning I picked it up at the shipping terminal here in Madison. The forklift driver looked more than a little shocked when I told him there was a sailboat inside the 48"x96"x10" package.

Only another hour here at work until I can go home and unwrap this puppy!

Let the games begin!

From cradle to grave

I got word from Tim Reiter that the kit shipped on Wednesday. Using the tracking number I determined that the kit arrived in Kansas City yesterday. Getting close now. Scheduled delivery in Madison is for Tuesday of this week.


While I have been waiting for the kit to arrive, I constructed the cradle for the boat. Construction of the cradle was very simple (~1hr) and the materials cost less than $100. (Note: Much of the lumber could be scavenged---the most expensive parts are the casters ($9 ea. at Home Depot). In short, I screwed and glued together two 2"x4"x12' s to two 2"x4"x4' s to make a large rectangluar frame. I then cut a 2'x2' piece of 1/4" doug fir plywood from corner to corner to create four triangles to place in the corners of the frame to keep it from racking. The triangles of plywood were screwed down using 3" deck screws and the locking casters (3" wheel dia.) were fastened to the frame using the same 3" screws.

I basically setup the cradle to carry the load of the boat from between frame 18 and frame 53.5 and frame 169.5. Two more cross pieces were added at the locations for frames 89 and 124. During initial constuction I suppose I can support the bow and stern with blocking as needed.

The last step in constuction of the cradle will be to fasten the plywood cutouts (i.e. the negatives of the frames) provided with the kit which match the shape of the hull.

After flipping the cradle over, there semmed to be quite a bit of flex over the 12' length of the cradle so added a couple of additional casters to coincide with frame 89.

Here are a couple of pictures of the progress so far:

The waiting is the hardest part...

Boy, did Tom Petty have it right.

Shipment of my kit has been a bit delayed---largely due to my work travel schedule. The fact is I'd rather the kit not sit in a shipping terminal in Madison for several days until I can pick it up. Tim at Watershed Boats has been very accomodating throughout, but I'm sure he wants the space in his shop back.

The good news is that it looks as though the kit will ship on Sept. 16 for delivery in Madison at the end of that week or the beginning of the next. I will have to get busy before it gets cold, although I will likely figure out someway to heat my garage since I think it is insulated (it's a rental, so what do I know?!).

On a side note, I got the chance to visit the builder of Pipedream (Kevin). His boat is coming along really well. Seeing his boat got me even more fired up about getting started. Kevin was able to give me some really good tips on some of the build steps---invaluable stuff. Thanks man!