It most conventionally built wooden boats, the frames refer to what you might think of as the "ribs" of the boat running across ways (thats "athwartship," to you, matey!). In the Glen-L Waterlodge, the framing members run longitudinally and are called stringers.
So building the boat frame means assembling the individual stringers and then tying them together with various cross beams.
There were five stringers total. Two side stringers, one keel stringer in the middle, and two "skeg stringers" between the keel and the side stringers. While the plans are relatively straightforward about building the stringers, there are lots of pesky details to consider, notches for cross beams, plywood reinforcement, butt blocks to make sure the plywood on the side stringers didnt leak, and a subtle curve to the deck that will sit on top of the stringers.
The keel stringer used big pieces of plywood to structurally reinforce the member and did not have overlapping two-by pieces. The skeg stringers did have overlapping two-by pieces but no reinforcing plywood. The result will be two big storage bulkheads under the decks on either side of the boat.
The side stringers of course had plywood that covered the outside surface of the boat and no overlapping two-by pieces. Well talk about these and their butt blocks in the next build day entry.
The notches for the cross beams were easy, though we still forgot a few and had to cut them out of the already assembled stringers. The porch deck beam notches were not really dimensioned properly on the plans and so we had to do a little improvisation later.
We built the stringers on the asphalt floor of the barn. It was flatish and shaded, so we didnt bake as we fretted over the details of our new stringers.
One challenge we faced was making sure that each member we built matched all the others. The plans suggested literally building them one on top of another. This didnt seem that practical, so we hit on a solution: Using the plywood already cut to shape for the side stringers as a pattern for our other stringers. That way wed know that all the angles would be correct and all the pieces of each member would be in the right place.
We used what we called temporary butt blocks just to hold the side plywood in place while we were using it as a pattern.
So in these photos, you can see the side plywood under our stringers as a pattern.
So for each stringer, the process was more or less: Lay out the pieces for fit on our plywood pattern; put wax paper under anything we didnt want to be permanently adhered to anything below, temporarily screw down, as necessary; apply a thin coat of epoxy to both surfaces of every joint; apply a thickened coat of epoxy to one side of every joint; and finally fasten together all joints with stainless steel screws.
Exciting! It is looking more boat-like every day. These incremental changes are probably pretty minor looking to other folks, and the progress may seem pretty slow. But for us, it is crazy. Look we had a pile of lumber! Now we have this boat(ish) thing! Amazing!
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So building the boat frame means assembling the individual stringers and then tying them together with various cross beams.
There were five stringers total. Two side stringers, one keel stringer in the middle, and two "skeg stringers" between the keel and the side stringers. While the plans are relatively straightforward about building the stringers, there are lots of pesky details to consider, notches for cross beams, plywood reinforcement, butt blocks to make sure the plywood on the side stringers didnt leak, and a subtle curve to the deck that will sit on top of the stringers.
The keel stringer used big pieces of plywood to structurally reinforce the member and did not have overlapping two-by pieces. The skeg stringers did have overlapping two-by pieces but no reinforcing plywood. The result will be two big storage bulkheads under the decks on either side of the boat.
The side stringers of course had plywood that covered the outside surface of the boat and no overlapping two-by pieces. Well talk about these and their butt blocks in the next build day entry.
The notches for the cross beams were easy, though we still forgot a few and had to cut them out of the already assembled stringers. The porch deck beam notches were not really dimensioned properly on the plans and so we had to do a little improvisation later.
We built the stringers on the asphalt floor of the barn. It was flatish and shaded, so we didnt bake as we fretted over the details of our new stringers.
One challenge we faced was making sure that each member we built matched all the others. The plans suggested literally building them one on top of another. This didnt seem that practical, so we hit on a solution: Using the plywood already cut to shape for the side stringers as a pattern for our other stringers. That way wed know that all the angles would be correct and all the pieces of each member would be in the right place.We used what we called temporary butt blocks just to hold the side plywood in place while we were using it as a pattern.
So in these photos, you can see the side plywood under our stringers as a pattern.
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| From left to right: keel stringer, starboard skeg stringer, and port skeg stringer. |
After the epoxy on the stringers sets, we could put the stringers on the building form.
Exciting! It is looking more boat-like every day. These incremental changes are probably pretty minor looking to other folks, and the progress may seem pretty slow. But for us, it is crazy. Look we had a pile of lumber! Now we have this boat(ish) thing! Amazing!
ne sees on production trawlers, the engine sucks water in to the cooling system from outside the boat, cools the engine, then pumps the water overboard. The problem with this is that screens get plugged, impellers go bad, engines overheat ( this can kill an engine in a moment), and maintenance for sure increases. Overall, the reliability of such a system is not very high and detracts from the boat as a whole in my opinion. The last thing I want to be dealing with on a night time passage is an overheating engine due to a Walmart baggie being sucked into the engine intake screen, or worse, loosing an engine due to a baggie that costs 1/10 of one penny.
keel cooler work better but this was not a big deal. Because of the large volume of coolant I needed an expansion tank to give the coolant a place to go as things up to operating temperature. I also will use this expansion tank as the fill point to add coolant and a way to get the air out of the system. My engine modification was basically removing the fill cap from the engine heat exchanger and moving it to the expansion tank, then connecting the expansion tank back to the engine heat exchanger. The expansion tank is at a slightly higher elevation than the engines heat exchanger so getting the air out should be easier. Im using extended life coolant that is premixed using distilled water and coolant. Im also thi
nking of adding coolant filters as part of my system. Coolant filters need to be compatible with ones coolant ( either organic or non organic).
marine type air conditioner. While traveling down and aroun various harbors, Im amazed at the number of boaters that leave their air condtioners running while away from their boats for extended periods of time. I know of one boat that has been sunk due to the marine air conditioning unit failing and pumping water into the boat. While I dont think Ill leave the air conditioners runnig while Im not on the boat, with keel cooling I will have the ability to leave boat and not have to worry about the air conditioners. For the air conditoner coolers I used 2" sch. 40 pipe split in half and welded to the keel. Becuase the air conditioners will be used while the boat is sitting still I wanted to get the coolers as low in the water as I could. There is a cooler on each side of the hull for each air conditioner. The cooler for the forward cabins enters and leaves the hull amid ship, and the cooler for the upper areas of the boat enter and leave the hull more aft.