Brendan has been busy building corner posts and installing them onto the bulkheads which will be receiving more lateral force then the rest. Also, he's built up a mast step for both the main and mizzen masts out of Locust, an extremely strong and tight grained wood. Brendan said that a stone would wear away before this wood. But it is also very heavy, so it is used sparingly, perfect for mast steps where a lot of load will be.
-Week 27 Write Up- Fitting the bulkheads before varnish, on go corner posts and mast steps
This week was great. We glued the last piece of trim on, and sanded the last bulkhead before fitting. Now, it all depends on setting up our trusty jig to get a correct measurement of the location of the stringers to which the bulkheads "clip" into. Then, we lay the jig on the bulkhead, adjust the old mylar lines, cut them out, and see how it fits. It usually fits pretty well the first go, but does require a little bit of sanding here and there to get our 90 degree plum edge and a tight fit. Then, we screw an oak block to each stringer which the bulkhead butts up to. A hole is then bored through the bulkhead and the block where a bolt with a nut will eventually secure the bulkhead to the block. Once this is all finished, the bulkhead is essentially ready to be installed for good, but first, they will get sealed with penetrating epoxy and get 4-5 coats of varnish. Out of the finishing shed, they will just plop into place and get secured.
-Week 27 Photos- Final fitting of bulkheads, corner posts, mast steps and varnish
Here is a sanded bulkhead ready for its final fitting inside the boat.
The jig that we use to find the stringer locations. This is it in is final form, which works very well.
Meg is busy varnishing the deck beams.
Meg's shed, full of panels, bulkheads, deck beams, and deck stringers to varnish.
Gluing up the trim on the last bulkhead!
Brendan's got the corner posts gluing up. Solid Butternut with a plywood core.
Oliver and I fitting in one of the bulkheads. Not much light coming in between the bulkhead and stringers, a good fit.
Drew puts the finishing touches on the last bulkhead to receive a thorough sanding.
Brendan shows us where to screw through the bulkheads into the blocking on the other side. A bolt will go through this to secure it to the block which is fastened to the stringer.
A beautiful corner post attached with fastenings onto a bulkhead.
The Last Shot Of The Week. The first bulkheads to get splashed with varnish!
-Week 26 Write Up- Continuing with Bulkheads, Getting Ready To Install
Sorry for the lack of pictures this week. My trusty camera has gone missing along with all the photos I have taken over the last week. Hopefully it will be found soon, and the pictures will be uploaded.
In other news, this past week has been a little more of the same. After weeks of fiddling with the bulkheads, I feel we have finally found the correct method of going about it. We have learned to fit the plywood bulkheads into the stringers after cutting the notches from the locations found with the jig. Fitting the bulkhead, leveling it, and pluming it to 90 degrees before even cutting the trim saves us a lot of sanding and tweaking later on. When the bulkhead fits perfectly and we are satisfied, we then fit the trim, and cut accordingly. Then, when the trim is glued on, there is no time spent on trying to sneak up on the correct locations and bevels. A lot of time is saved. Too bad we didn't come to this conclusion five bulkheads ago. Those done previously to discovering this new method, will be a bit tricky fitting into place.
Brendan installed some beautiful and large bronze scuppers in the cockpit and Drew has been sanding bulkheads like crazy.
In the finishing shed, Meg has every saw horse and staging plank set up supporting all the panels as the varnish dries to a beautiful finish.
Please expect a time lapse clip at the end of the month. Once we being installing bulkheads and panels, the time lapse clips will continue to be updated weekly.
-Week 25 Write Up- bulkheads, cabin sole, and engine installation
This week we had three new projects going on. Drew, Oliver, and I worked on fitting, cutting, gluing trim to, and sanding the bulkheads, Brendan built the cabin sole and sides, and Dave completed the installation of the engine.
Now that the panels are done, Drew, Oliver, and myself have delved into the world of bulkheads. I am glad we started with the panels, because our confidence level going into the much more difficult bulkheads is high. To begin with, we must go inside the boat, and use a jig to find out exactly where the bulkhead will fit onto the stringers before we actually cut the notches into the bulkhead and trim. This can be done with two people and requires a little bit of tinkering here and there. We gather the bevels coming off each stringer and note whether the aft or foreward side is long. Then we take all this information upstairs with us to the bulkhead and layout where the stringers are. In most cases, they line up fairly closely to where the Mylars had put them, but some of them wander off close to half an inch. Then we measure the distance between each bevel and give ourselves that much space extra when we jig saw out the notches for the stringers. Once the notches are cut, we layout all the trim pieces that were cut almost a month ago, clamp them in place, and trace where the stringer notches will be. Then we take into account the bevel, give ourselves the extra space, and cut those out on the ban saw. Then we come back and layout the trim again, making sure everything is in the right spot, and begin the arduous process of gluing and clamping. I will describe this more in detail next week when I have pictures to show for it.
Brendan completed the cockpit sole on Friday, and it really looks beautiful. I tried stopping in and peaking over his shoulder as much as possible to try and pick up and tips and techniques I could. Alfie has decided to glue in the teak boards instead of using fastenings with bungs. The benefit of this is that you will get more life out of the teak. Otherwise, after time the teak will wear down and expose the fastenings, maybe half way through the board if your lucky. By using glue, you can wear the teak down to almost nothing before it needs to be replaced. Although, replacing teak that is set in with G-flex would prove to be a huge bear.
Dave was busy with the engine all week, aside from working on the Pease's own work boat. He got the shaft aligned, leveled, and set. Then he cleaned up the slot it sticks through, applied a few coats of clear epoxy, and then bottom paint. He painted the portion of the shaft that will be underwater to protect it from growth, then hoisted the engine in the boat and connected it to the shaft.
I will post a timelapse clip once we get some more action inside the boat! all the magic is happening outside right now! stay tuned!
-Week 25 PHOTOS- Working on Bulkheads, Installing the engine, Building the cockpit sole
Meg's assembly line of varnished panels.
Brendan helps Drew, Oliver, and I work out the kinks in using the jig to find the stringer locations before we cut them into the bulkheads.
Our first completed bulkhead gets dry fit into its place before being handed over to meg and varnished.
Dave hoists the Yanmar saildrive into the boat.
He must check the height and level of the drive before fully securing it in.
The engine is attached to the shaft.
Here it is sticking out of the hole in the bottom of the keel.
Fully installed and painted with bottom paint to prevent rust/growth when underwater.
The beginnings of the cockpit sole
Brendan glues and clamps it together.
Brendan coats the teak sole beams with G-Flex.
No bungs here. The idea is to get more life out of your sole. Were there to be bungs, the sole would have to be replaced once the wood wore down to the fastenings. Now, you will be able to wear it down virtually to the glue holding it on.
He uses small spacer blocks to give an accurate distance between each board.
Spacer blocks screwed in place.
The Last Shot of The Week. Cockpit walls are added. Okume plywood with a inside veneer of mahogany.
-Week 24 Write Up- varnish and playing with the engine
Sorry for the late post. Last week (week 24) consisted of more panel trim gluing for Oliver, Drew, and I. by the end of the week, we started getting down to the last panel. As usual, Oliver and I would glue the trim on, hand the panel to Drew. Drew will sand it down to 120 grit, square up the edges and hand it off to Meg. Finally, Meg got to start sealing the edges, staining, and finally varnishing them. By the end of the week we had a dozen in her finishing shed. Now we get to step back for a moment at the end of a long day and go into the finishing shed to appreciate the beauty of the work we've been doing and get an idea of what the final product will be.
Meanwhile, Brendan is fully finished with the cabin sole. This took a little longer then expected, but the end result is something amazing. Its nice to have a floor down in the boat that we can walk around on now.
Dave was very busy all week fitting the sail drive engine shaft in its cubby hole in the bottom of the keel. The tight space had to be opened up, chiseled and rasped to accommodate the shaft. By Friday, he had the shaft fitting through, but just needed to neatened things and set in the engine bed.
No time lapse this week!
- Week 24 PHOTOS- panels get varnish, cabin sole finished
Finally, our panels are in the finishing stage. Here, meg sands with 220, stains and seals the edges before varnishing
A detail of meg finishing a small door.
Here, Meg lays down the varnish. These will get 5-6 coats.
Here is one of the larger panels with 3 coats of varnish.
Brendan lifts out one of the sole hatches that will be cut into smaller pieces.
Dave cuts, chisels, and rasps away the area where the saildrive prop will stick out of the boat at the aft end of the keelson.
The shaft end of the saildrive engine in the boat for measurements. This is not the engine but gets attached to the engine.
The Last Shot of The Week. Brendan vacuums the final sanding job on the cabin sole.
-Week 23 Write Up- Finishing the cabin sole and trim on panels
This week, we came to the end of a long process of cutting and fitting trim to panels and bulkheads, and began what will be another long process of gluing the trim onto each bulkhead and panel. I have talked a lot about the bulkheads and panels in these last posts, and now we are finished cutting them out, and cutting up trim, which is a very good thing because we started to get very low on solid Butternut Plywood and it got a little stressful near the end when we didn't know if we would have enough or not. We ended up having 1 small piece that wouldn't have been usable anyway because of all the knots.
The process of gluing trim on has gotten easier as we've figured out our method, but some of the larger panels and bulkheads will be difficult. Especially where the trim is in the middle where a clamp wont fit. In these cases, we use large Fir boards to lay across the whole panel and clamp it to the table. Even this bends the Fir and its hard to get uniform pressure down on the middle of the panel.
Meanwhile, Brendan nearly finished installing the cabin sole, as you will see in the photos. It looks really beautiful and when the bung tops are sliced, and it is sanded, it will look even better.
Meg joined the team this week and started varnishing our sanded panels with the trim on. She also faired out the two layers of Awlgrip primer that we put on the topsides, filled in any pin holes, and prepares for a final paint coat.
Dave helped out as well by working on the fiberglass engine mount, which will be fitted to the wooden engine bed that Brendan made. It needed to be cut down by about 4 inches in order to fit in the boat properly.
Here are the time lapse clips from the month of February:
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