Frame No 4

Assembled and glued, just without the mahogany dashboard, which will come later. At this point I also need to order mahogany for keel, chines, sheers, batens and motor stringers. I will also order pine for the building form. Each panel 100g of epoxy.

Frame No 1

Assembled and glued today. Even it was not the first one nor the most complex one, it took me a lot of time to do this one. The next is to get ready for F4 with the mahogany dashboard.

Transom

So the transom is assembled and glued. It will dry over night and than just to cut off the excess plywood and fair to final shape. I have forgot to cut out the notches for the keel and battens, so I will have to do it with router later.. Edit: you can see a plywood piece at the back of the frame. This is acutally not needed if you plan later to plank it from the back.

I have made simple comb stand to accomodate the frames as it started to take the space in the shop.

The best tool that is helping me is Narex steel plane. The project is very easy on tools I have very few professional tools. And as you work with epoxy, you need to be quick. The progress is very motivating. 

Narex steel plane. Similar to Stanley, but local and cheaper.

Frame No 5

Yesterday assembled and glued. Epoxy 1200 is king. Today I have faired off excess plywood gussets from Frame No 5 and 3. The next in the row is Transom. Gussets shall be next time from wood in design places (typically cockpit frame). The same goes for the sides and dashboard.

Frame No 3

Vacation. Finally. Frame no 3 assembled with 3 kids. Who says that boats can not be built with them :-)? The plan is to do one frame a day during the Xmas time. It is not much, but when you cook, play with kids and do everything else, it is OK. CHS Epoxy 1200, 70g/frame.

It takes 4 people to assemble Frame No3 :-) The youngest is <2 y.o. and helps driving screws!

I have also tested the okoume plywood by boiling a piece in water for 1 hour. And both the wood and the glue survived. It is just exterior B class, which I intend to use only on the inside parts of the boat: gussets, bulkheads etc. But also outside planking if I do not get marine AA in the lumberyard.

Plywood after 1 hour in boiling water

Testing fiberglass and epoxy

Today the testing fiberglassing set has arrived. I have selected Havel composites as they supply the producers of laminates and they have wide variety of epoxies. The choice is UV stable and completely transparent epoxy and hardener so that the woodwork will be well visible. The glass, epoxy, hardener, some cups, rollers and some other stuff. I will test the process as well as the components if they are good for the project.

Frame members are cut to size

Today all frame members but dashboard are cut to size. It took me almost full day.

I have first transferred all plans to Google Sketch up to identify measurements that were missing in the original plans and used it also for automatic conversion from inches to mm. Those extra measurements were very valuable when I was transferring the lines to lumber.

Now the next phase will be to complete the frames with the plywood laminations and gussets. I must say that Okume (Gabon) is very nice to work with, light, yet strong enough and very easy to fair and cut. I have decided to cut from 30mm thick lumber, a bit more than suggested in the original plans (1inch). I will also not laminate the plywood to the members, I will use the gussets technology instead.

Patterns on the cardboard

Lumber ordered. 3 pcs of Okume 40mm 22 board meters, and two plywood sheets. There is a need also to take 2 motor stringers from mahogany, delivery expected by the year end.

Lumber in the house

I have just got the lumber and some of the plywood under the roof. This evening I have spent on redrawing the plans to the plywood to later facilitate the assembly.

Plans

Plans arrived. Every autumn for the last 3 years I had a "boat building fever" which needed a cure. After a carefull thought on what I want, size of the shop, this is it. It is also a test project as the original intent was to build cabin cruiser Islander. But I decided to learn the building processes first on a smaller scale project. It is Ski King, 1950 designed by Glen-L, US.