Finally Logged More Sail Time

I spent somewhere between 150 and 300 hours building the boat, but until this week I only had her under sail twice. I have had her out rowing quite a bit, mostly at night, but sailing is a daytime activity requiring certain weather conditions and a certain amount of energy on my part to take everything out of the boat house, rig and un-rig. This week I am free from the exhaustion of my regular routine.


Yesterday I took a friend of mine and his dog out in the boat. I had my qualms about the dog. I left my own dog on shore, but Middy the Blue Heeler did alright. It did prevent my human passenger from reaching his full first mate and ballast potential. I think our center of gravity was too far forward, but couldn't be altered much because of the dog placement. We got into some weird wind situations. There was a dead zone near my part of the shore and the wind around it blew away from the shore, it took us an hour of tacking back and forth to get home, and we eventually broke out the oars as dinner time approached. No rain was in the forecast, so I left the mast up.


Today, I looked out on a perfect glass lake. It was dead calm. Leaving the mast up seemed to be a guaranteed method of wind reduction. The day wore on and around 2:30 in the afternoon, I saw tiny waves on the lake. The wind was picking up. I watched the wind and debated rigging the boat for about half an hour, then finally decided to go for it. I hauled the yard, the sails, the boom, rudder, the dagger board, and the ropes out of the boat house and down to the shore. I hoisted the sails, and tied the dozen or so knots.

The wind died again of course, as soon as I tied the last knot. My ability to control the weather though irony was not a comfort. At this point though I was determined. The lake wasn't completely glass like it had been earlier, even though there was no noticable wind. I put the oars in the boat and decided to try. If I ended up drifing around the middle of the lake and looking stupid, so be it.




This was my first solo trip sailing the PMD. Launching was a pain. I have no dock, so I have to puch to boat out, get in the boat, deploy the dagger board, and push down the rudder while managing the ropes. I pretty much immediately eneded up in my neighbor's cattails, but I pused myself out of them with an oar and into the open, but more or less still water, but then miracle of miracles, the boat was actually moving. The performance of the boat in light (almost non-existent) wind with just me and no passenger was amazing. It was actually moving, at maybe one or two knots, but still, given that there was no percievable wind to a dry human being, and that the tell tales were limp, I was just amazed. As I got out into the deeper waters of the middle of the lake the wind picked up just a little, and the manueverability was incredible. People are ok and all (sometimes) but 200lbs less ballast in your small wooden sail boat is a nice thing.

Sail

sail
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

I finally got the sails on the boat a couple weeks ago. I have a harrowing tail of maritime adventure that involves turnbuckles, and some strange stories about the dagger board. I am way too tired from rigging the boat, sailing the boat, unrigging the boat and building another large wooden thing in my garage to elaborate on those things tonight.

Sea Trials

me_rowing
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

I got the boat in the water tonight.

Don't Buy Foam Brushes at Walmart!

I bring you this warning as a public service. Not all disposable foam brushes are created equal, and the foam brushes from Walmart are absoulte crap. I put on my first coat of varnish yesterday with my last two foam brushes from Home Depot. That evening, I went to my local Walmart store and I bought 8 foam brushes, which I thought would get me through the next two coats and then some. That was incredibly optomistic.

The heads start to fall off the sticks after you cover about two square feet of surface. I was able to extend the life of them a little by almost ignoring the stick entirely and gripping the foam protion in my fingers. Even the foam would start to break down eventually. I went through all eight brushes for one coat.

Tonight I went to the Home Depot and stocked up. I think their foam brushes are a whopping 5 cents more than the ones at Walmart. It is typical of Walmart to provide the absolute cheapest product in every way, in the form of the lowest price and the lowest quality. I feel a full blown 1,000 word anti-Walmart rant coming on, so I will stop now.

Sanding and Varnish

Pre-Varnish_Interior
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

Sanding the interior before the first coat of varnish was a lot of work. I put in about 6 hours of sanding today, and that was with the seats, bulkheads and most of the strakes already sanded. The bottom was messy, even worse than the exterior. I definitely didn't get it perfect. If I had gone after every little imperfection, I would have really ate into to the fiber glass. My fiber glassing skills need improvement. After all that sanding, I took a nap.

After I woke up in the late afternoon, I called my Dad to help me take the boat outside to hose off all the epoxy dust. That wasn't too difficult.

Then I started applying the varnish. I poured some varnish into a plastic cup grabbed my foam brush, and got to work. At first it was peaceful, calm, and controlled. I started at the back of the boat. I set the cup of varnish down on the back seat. I leaned over to work on the bottom and then disaster struck. The boat tilted and the cup of varnish spilled. I grabbed a towel and started mopping it up. Then I quickly tried to spread out what was left over with my foam brush. I got varnish all over my hands and my quick, brutal brushing took a toll on the brush. After I recovered from a varnishing the boat perspective, I tried to get the stuff off of my hands. Latex gloves would have been in order for varnishing.

After scrubbing the varnish and a few layers of skin off of my hands, I finished the varnishing. The insident through me off though, and I was hurried and frustrated. It was also getting dark. After I was done, I noticed I missed a few spots. Fortunately it is one coat of many.

Paint

I have two coats of paint on now in addition to the primer. I bought two one quart cans of Interlux white paint, but I have only used one of them. I have been considering a 3rd and/or 4th coat or saving that can and seeing how it holds up then using it for a minor refinishing if needed. I hate to waste anything that costs $34 a quart. Maybe I will split the difference and just give the bottom panels an extra coat, since they will be getting the most wear and tear.

Primer

Primer
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

Today I put the last coat of epoxy on the rails, did a little sanding on the interior. After the epoxy was touch dry, I enlisted my Dad to flip the boat. Then my troubles began. Sanding the bottom panel, the one that was glassed was miserable. I had globbed the epoxy on to fill in the weave of the fiber glass, and it was down right lumpy. I spent a solid 3 hours sanding. At first I thought it would just be impossible. I did a pass on the entire bottom panel, then many, many more. I found this helped my sanity and prevented me from sanding through the fiber glass which might have happened if I had obsessed over one small area at a time. It took about half an hour after I stopped sanding to get the feeling back in my right hand.

The primer tacks up quickly. That's probably due in no small part to the Florida tempratures in the garage. I did the priming at about 8:30 PM, when the weather outside was probably a pleasant 80 degrees, but in the garage with the 500 watt work lights and the heat spilling in from the attic, it was probably in the upper 80s. This could complicate things when I put on the actual paint tomorrow. I will have to be pretty quick to apply the paint with the roller and tip it out with a foam brush. I will have to do small sections at a time, I think, or possibly enlist my Dad. I had some near splatter and and drip incidents too. I think I will give all the parts that are going to be varnished a newspaper skirt in addition to the blue painter's tape.

New Sander

Some guys at work recommended these little mouse sanders that look like a tiny iron. I was skeptical. They were small, light, and cheap feeling. None of the cool power tool companies made them. I thought they wouldn't have the power to sand epoxy.

Then I was faced with sanding all the nooks and cranies of the boat. As I started sanding the interior with tiny sanding blocks and my bare hands, the gravity of the situation became apparent. I needed to pursue whatever help technology had to offer. I needed to try one of those little plasticy sanders.

They're cheap, about $40, which made me all the more suspicious of them. The triangular pads aren't cheap at all though. Home deport has them for $4.77 for a pack of 5 which is almost $1 per pad. I already went through over 75 sanding disks for my random orbital sander, but those are available in bulk online. I bought the Black and Decker "Mouse" sander and one pack each of 120 and 220 grit pads. The box looked like a box for a toy. I wish I had taken a picture of it.

I got it home, took it out of the toy box, plugged it in, and shockingly, it works pretty darn well. I'm actually incredibly impressed. It will never have the special place in my heart that my that my DeWalt 5" orbiting sander has, but it will really help out.

I also found 10 yard rolls of sandpaper with velcro on the back at my favorite Internet sandpaper supply company for only $17 from which I can probably cut my own little triangular pads. I ordered a couple rolls. Hopefully they will arrive in time for me to use them.

CLAMPS!

So the last post brings us to the rub rails, which is what I am currently working on. I thought I had a ridiculous amount of clamps, enough to glue both sides on at once, but as it turns out it takes a ridiculous number of clamps. You can watch the rub rail action below.

If I had it to do over again, I would have bought more C clamps and less of the green spring clamps. I was attracted to the little spring clamps because they were only pp cents at Home Depot, but I think I could have used a smaller number of C claps instead of all the spring clamps. You have total control of the pressure you apply with a C clamp. You can do a lot more than a C clamp than you can with a spring clamp in my opinion, so they would have more uses in the future other than gluing rub rails on a boat. That being said, the little green spring clamps are great for 99 cents, and they are useful. I would have gone with a different spring clamp to C clamp ration.

Almost two months later...

Yeah, yeah, so I didn't really update the boatbuilding blog. Since the last update I Installed the transoms...

Installed the bulk heads, flipped the boat over and sealed all the strakes...

Pulled all the wires...

Glassed the exterior bottom...

Glassed the interior, that was kind of a pain getting the glass fabric flat...

Built the center bulkhead/center seat/dagger board assembley...

Installed the bulkheads and seats, my fillets look pretty bad in some places...

Cut the dagger board slot on the bottom...

Installed the skeg and skids on the bottom, which was easier than I thought it would be...

That covers most of the major things. There was a lot of epoxy and sanding interspersed. It all took almost two months of nights and weekends. You spend a lot of time waiting for things to dry.

All 4 strakes installed!

All_4_strakes_installed
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

I intended to only get the second set on today, but I got all four done. I have more to say about it, but I am too tired from doing it.

Progress

The second coat of epoxy is on all major parts now except the transoms, which have one coat. I will have the table space tomorrow to start stitching, which I am pretty excited about. I already drilled the wire holes in the #1 strakes today.

So Much Sanding

I made this video which shows just a breif exerpt from my sanding marathon today. I finally finished all the strakes and planned on putting epoxy on everything else that needed epoxy tonight. I was delayed running some other errands so I got a late start. I also had to use the router on some of the parts I planned to coat, so I did that first. Then I decided it would be a good idea to glue the doublers to the transoms, and that pretty much wore me out. I also mixed way too much thickened epoxy to glue them and it went hot, which was a little freaky. The cup got so hot I started to worry it would burst into flames.

I almost gave up and nearly resolved to drink a beer and go to bed early, but being full of true grit, and since I hadn't showered yet, I returned to the garage and put the first coat on the bow and stern seats and the center bulkhead. I am now very tired.

Still Pre-treating

There is not that much to report. I am still in the pre-treating phase with another week of that ahead of me. I made some progress on one of the side projects spawned by the boat building. I got two thirds of my garage windows screened in.

My methods were crud but effective. The frame is held together with friction, hopefully the wood doesn't shrink. I also tried making an epoxy stiring device with a dowl, a little piece of wood, and a cordless screw driver, but it ended up being more awkward to use than just stirring by hand.

Home Depot Spree

I went on a $240 binge at Home Depot today . I bought a Porter Cable router, two bits, a roll of screen, and a few more clamps. My Dad, who I dragged along with me bought me the lights in the picture as well.

I was going to borrow a router. A buddy of mine had recently been given a router, but he has been working and living in New York most of the time, and he was also so particular about how I had to take such special care of it, as if I was going to leave it outside, or try to cut marble with it, that it seemed easier to buy my own router.

Well that's a partial lie. I wanted to own yet another power tool.

The roll of screen is for the garage windows, all of which currently do not have screens. I sanded quite a few dead bugs out of the epoxy on the first batch of strakes, so I figured it was time to make some screens.

I already had some C clamps of varying sizes and a bunch of those small $1 spring clamps with the green handle. So I bought some of the big spring clamps to add to the collection. I think I will be buying a couple clamps every time I go to the Depot. I didn't want to buy $70 in clamps all at once, because I figured my clamping needs would evolve with the project and I am not sure what combination of clamps I will need in the end.

A lighting solution was another thing I had been looking for at the Depot. I am doing most of the work on this project in the evening, and the single bulb in the garage wasn't cutting it. By the time I got to the lighting aisle, my walet was sheeding tears over the other stuff, so Dear Old Dad offered to buy the lights. I am a little disappointed that the tripod doesn't have another foot or two of height, but they seem to work pretty well for my purposes. I point them at the wall and use the reflected light.

I got more sanding and epoxy work done on the strakes this evening. It would all go so much faster if I had twice the table space.

Epoxy on the strakes

009
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

I have one coat of epoxy on some of the strakes now. I also almost glued my sock to my leg. Apparently I dribbled a bunch of epoxy onto my leg and sock and didn't notice it for about an hour. Fortunately I noticed it before it set, and I won't have to wear the same sock for the rest of my life.

You can see some of that mess on the puzzle joints in the photo. On the reverse side of these strakes which I did last night, that wasn't noticible after the epoxy dried. I am hoping that remains the case.

Don't be sloppy with your epoxy

I glued the bottom pieces and started sanding. I am lamenting some of my work on the puzzle joints. Apparently there were a few unseen globs of thickened epoxy that I got on the wax paper which ended up on the underside of the strakes and the bottom pieces when I glued them. I didn't glue anything to the table or anything like that, but I made a lot more sanding for myself.

More on Puzzle Joints

I have all my strakes done now. I had some sort of puzzle joint epiphany halfway through and the last couple were perfect. The first ones I did came out like this though.

You can see a little bit of a gap there, especially if you look at a larger version of the picture. Hopefully it doesn't completely undermine the structural integrity of the boat. On the first couple I couldn't quite get them to slide together smothly and I tried putting one down on top of the other and kind of popping them together like you would an actual puzzle piece. By the third set I did, I figured out how to push them together perfectly. I kept both pieces flat and just pushed them together. That sounds simple and obvious, but there was something about the angle at which you apply the force.

Further Realization of Garage Smallness and Some Work Done

I had every intention of photographing every step I took and logging every little bit of work along with all my witty insights along the way. It turns out it is difficult to take pictures when you are wearing latex gloves covered in epoxy, and the actual work required to build the boat is almost enough to do at one time. I'm also not bremming over with fascinating reflections on the process. I'm still going to do the best I can. I took a couple pictures this morning, and you're going to have to settle for some rather dull observations instead of witty insights.

When I built that 16' table, I thought "this is huge; there will be plenty of room." That opinion changed when the kit actually arrived and I opened the boxes. I know I mentioned that the day the boxes showed up, but it bares repeating. The garage is pretty small, even without cars in it. It is also a big mess.

I brought a folding banquet table into the garage to have another surface area on which to stack things. I need to take an axe to some of that stuff in the garage and throw it out. Maybe I will work more on garage organization today.

I have done some actual work. I glued the rub rails and the #1 strakes. I am not sure why the rub rails are the first thing in the instructions. It seems like it leaves you with some really long pieces of wood that you don't do much with until much later in the build. Maybe it makes sense to do them while you have your big long table set up. The strakes are still curing. Maybe I should have done another set of them last night, but I ran out of steam. Since it is summer in Florida, I am doing most of my work at night.

I was expecting scarf jounts on the strakes, but apparently there's been a change in the 2008 model of the PMD. They now have puzzel joints.

I can see how the puzzle joints are a little more idiot proof than scarf joints. The rub rails had scarf joints and I somehow got them a little more crooked than they could have been. It wasn't a disaster, just not quite perfect. I worry about how noticible the puzzle joints will be when varnished. I am sure I will have bigger concerns though before I get anywhere near varnishing.

Boat Kit Arrives

Boat Kit Arrives
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

The boat kit arrived today. The shipping company tried to deliver it yesterday when I wasn't home to receive it. Even after I called them twice and they told me it wouldn't arrive until today and that they would call me before they delivered it. All in all it wasn't too much trouble though.

The garage and the 16' table started to look a lot smaller after I opened those boxes. I am going to have to make even more room. Unfortunately today rapidly became a busy work day, so I didn't have time to do much.

Keeping the dog out of the garage for the next few months will be annoying.

The Boat Table

Boat table 1
Originally uploaded by dylanbright

The kit has been ordered and will be here next Wednesday. I had ordered the instruction booklet a few weeks ago, and some of the first steps are ideally performed with an enormous plywood table. I built this with 2 sheets of 4x8' plywood with my saw horses on the ends and some upside down "U" shaped contraptions I made from scrap wood in the middle to brace it. It is all screwed together with left over deck screws and seems pretty sturdy.

Brief Background

A month or two ago, I saw a sailboat on my lake and was overcome with jealousy. I started looking at boats in the Internet and I saw some little wooden sailboats that could be sailed or rowed. You could even mount a little motor on some of them.

I couldn't find anything like them for sale. Apparently if you wanted one, you had to build it yourself, so that is what I have set out to do. I ordered the Passagemaker Dingy kit from Chesapeake Light Craft. I chose it because it seemed to be so well supported online with other people's blogs and a forum for boat builders, it has the payload capacity to accommodate me and one or two of my heavier friends, and it has a lot of sail and is very light weight.