I started the galley cabinets

Now that the window frames are ready for windows, the next big wood working project is the galley cabinets. I have quite a few more cabinets to build on board, but the galley is the heart of the salon and a good place to start.

 

 

 

 

The galley layout is basically a "U" shape. On the bulkhead wall that separates the raised pilot house from the salon is where the refrigerator will reside next to the engine room exhaust/intake chimney. Above the refrigerator is a 30" wall cabinet that will house a microwave oven. Next to the microwave oven will be a 36" double door wall cabinet with shelves. Below the 36" wall cabinet is a 15" base cabinet with a drawer and door. On the port wall of the layout is where the LP range will reside. I built a cabinet for the range to sit upon, and also notched out the back of the cabinet so my 6" air conditioning duct for the wheel house can sneak past. I was also able to get two small shelves in the range cabinet that will have a  single door front over. Because of needing space to get the fridge in and out of the galley, I  had to build two 7" fillers along each side of the range. Along with the range and the two 7" filler pieces, the width of the galley from the fridge to the other cabinets is 32".  Im going to build two drawers on their side in those fillers ( 4" drawers) for a spice rack on one side and hanging utensils on the other. Ill get in to more detail once I start finishing the cabinets. Continuing around the "U", is where the sink base will reside. I built a 36" sink base to accommodate a home size double bowl sink. It was important to us to have a large sink and its a detail all will appreciate. Next to the sink base is an 18" base cabinet with three large drawers.

 

 

 

All the cabinets and wood work on board the boat is American Black Cherry. Trees for the lumber were cut off of my property, and milled by neighbor Carl Claypool and his dog peckerwood.

My method of building the galley cabinets are to build a box, attach a face frame, then build style and rail raised panel doors. On other parts of the boat, I saved time,  money, and space by making some of the cabinets "built in" which  utilizes part of the hull as the cabinet "box". Because the wheel house and salon are still sitting in my barn, building cabinets as boxes is the only practical method.

Each box is built from 3/4" birch plywood. There is only one place where the side of any cabinet will be visible, and that side was made with 3/4" cherry plywood. The backs of the all the cabinets are 1/4 plywood, and I added a 3/4" rail to the top of the base units back, and to the top and bottom of the wall units back. The extra rail is to give me something more substantial than 1/4" material for mounting the units. The tops and bottoms of any cabinet is also 3/4" plywood let into a dado in the sides. The wall units have a top and a bottom, the base units only have a bottom as the counter will make the top.  I rabbeted the sides to accept the 1/4" back.

The face frames are solid cherry and have a width of 2". All the face frames were built using the Kreg pocket screw gizmo. I cant say enough good things about this method of building face frames, and its become my number one choice when applicable.

The doors are the style and rail method and because I want a nice looking job, I decided to use a raised panel. I went with a traditional raised panel which is a 15 degree angle. I have an ogee cutter for my shaper, but I wanted something more in tune with what one would find on an older boat, and the 15 degree raised panel suited my thought. I cut the style, rails, and raised panels on my old Delta shaper.  Ive posted about the shaper before, and Ill again say that caution is for sure the preferred attitude to have when using this tool. When the panel raising bit that weighs about a pound  is spinning at 10,000 rpm, and you need  hearing protection from the noise it make, a serious amount of respect quickly builds. When raising the panels, I use the table saw and remove a lot of the waste before starting with the shaper. I take light cuts, and always do the end grain first. The end grain is the hardest material to cut, and in case I have some chipping or a minor blow out, the next cut going with the grain will usually fix any end grain issues. The cutter is carbide, and sharpened to 600 grit so its nice and sharp. The shaper has a great device to raise and lower the bit, and along with the micro adjustments on the fence, the level of precision is fantastic. When finished with shaping the panel, I sand it to 220, and give it a light coat of Cherry stain. Having some color on the panel before assembly will help prevent seeing a line at the style and rail joint once the panel starts moving with seasonal humidity and the wood naturally darkens.  I expect the Cherry wood to darken five or ten shades once it starts seeing some sun. The natural darkening is one reason I like Cherry.

Ive been mocking up some of the structure in the salon. For the galley, I mocked up the bulkhead wall, and the engine room chimney. I also mocked up the ceiling above the fridge. The finished ceiling is going to be a bead board which is 5/8" thick. Using 1/4" plywood for the ceiling is not ideal and makes it hard to get a good scribe joint against the face frame. I left an inch of material to scribe for final fit against the real ceiling.  Im being pretty accurate, but Im also giving myself lots of wiggle room in regard to extending face frames past the cabinet boxes in critical areas for plenty of room to scribe and fit to the finished wall and ceiling material once those are installed.  Mocking up is not something Ive done in the past, but Its the only way I can do this job. Ive found a few issues during the mock up and was able to easily change some things that would have been a pain to do later down the road.

I could have purchased a set of rub collars for the shaper and made the raised panels fit the curve of the ceiling. Im going to deal with the curved ceiling regarding the door fit by making the top rail of the doors fit the ceiling curve. Ill make the upper rail four inches vs my standard two inches and scribe it to fit the ceiling. The other option is to leave the door square and live with the stepped look of the square door against the camber of the ceiling. The different thickness of the curved top rail vs the square lower rail might make it look odd, but I think the overall look will be ok. Well see how it looks in about a week.  The three doors you see in the picture above are two for the sink base, and one for the 15" base cabinet next to the fridge.

There is much more to post about the cabinet build, and as I get further along Ill add more detail.

Cheers

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Work has started on the super structure

The axle work continues, just not by me. Due to me being busy with work and not wanting to mess with re building the dually axle I procured, I happily delivered it to JCM Equipment so they could put bearings in the axle. This axle has turned in to a loosing deal, but Im too far in to it to call it quits at this point. The easiest way to explain the dual wheeled axle I got for free is that this has been  the most expensive "free"  Ive ever found. I should probably end this thought with a Gumpism and say that "this is all I have to say about this right  now"

So, while I wait for the axle to  be picked up from JCM, I started work on the wheel house and salon, which I will now call the super structure. All the parts for the super structure were scattered around the barn years ago, and it took me half a Saturday to round them up and inventory everything I actually  had some of the long frame pieces stashed away in the roof trusss. I found everything, and checking my stash against the working drawings, every piece is accounted for.

After inventorying all the parts, the first order of business was to drill all the frames for the bolts that would be used to fasten the framing timber with. One of the mistakes I made on building the hull was to not drill all t he frames before I erected them. Drilling on the drill press will save me hours of work. Using 1/4" bolt is what I plan on doing, so I drilled all the holes to 5/16. The overage gives me plenty of room for paint and will help prevent skinning up the hole when I drill for the timber. After I drilled all the holes, I used a counter sink to ease the edge and give me a more paint friendly hole.

When you break the super structure down in to its most simple form, its basically a box. Four sides with a roof. Because of having to build the boat in two pieces, it also made the most sense to build the super structure as panels. Assembling the panels went very quick. Because all the parts were cut on a CNC machine, the accuracy of the parts is amazing. The really nice thing about having the metal cut via CNC is that the designer also had all the layout lines burned in to the metal. My appreciation to Bruce Roberts and Hal Whitacre on their attention to detail. A nice surprise I discovered while assembling these four panels is that the designer gave each panel a slight outbound crown. The crown is slight enough, about an inch over the length of the 16 salon panel  you see hanging from my skid steer loader, but not so severe as to interfere with the window installation. I dont know the reason for giving these panels a slight crown, but my guess is that the crown puts some tension on the metal and will help it to fair up much nicer.

The salon skin showed up at the shop with the window openings already cut out. The wheel house has the window rough openings burned in to the metal, and only the door openings are cut out. Im going to wait until I have the panel welded in place before I cut out the windows.  I already have the windows on site, I just want to wait  until the panel is in place as this will be help keep the panel shape as per design.

You can see on this picture below how the wheel house sheathing arrived at my place. The precision of the CNC plasma cutting is amazing. As you can see from this picture, the wheel house side is in three pieces. All I have to do is grind a bevel in the outside joints that will be ground flush. Turn the pieces over, kick them together so they line up, and tack them. The next step is to put the longitudinal stringers on the layout lines that were laser burned in to the metal and tack them in place. Making sure the sheathing is tight to the longitudinal stringers assures the panel will take the shape the of the design. Once all the longs are tacked in place the frames are fit over  the longs and tacked in place. The frames have all the notches cut in them including the mouse holes so no water can get trapped and start a crevice corrosion situation. The longitudinal stringers were also cut by the CNC machine so the designed shape is formed by the longs.  On this size project, with all the framing I had to do, I have yet had an situation where no part fit any less than perfect. 

All the panels are assembled and stacked against the barn wall while I begin taking the boat off of the building cradle and sitting her on the axles. JCM has told me the axle will be ready for me to pick up mid to week. I have to make a trip to the steel yard and pick up some square tube to build stanchions for helping support the boat on the axles. I hope to have her sitting on the axles after this coming weekend.

Im feeling pretty good about finally being able to assemble the super structure. Its a big piece of structure, but I feel as if it will go together quickly and without any major hiccups. I am pretty sure I have a plan that will allow me to do some good layout and build the super structure so that it will mate with the hull in a good way.

Cheers

Cheers

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My flats boatbuilding story from 1982 through how Hells Bay Boatworks started

I wrote the story of how I got started in the flats boat world 5 years ago. I did this for two reasons. The first was that my daughters wanted me to tell, explain my side of the story as so much miss information and tales were being told that were not near the truth. Of course I want all of you to know that this is my version of what I incountered. I have kept records of most all the boats that I have built and most all information. In regards to my time at HBBWs I have every fax and piece of correspondence from my time working with Hal and Jamie Chittum along with Flip Pallot. In essence I have documentation of my intire time at HBBWs from before it started through the buyout of my shares of HB. This was before emails.

I have a very extensive photo and paper trail to corroborate my side of the story. Iam publishing this in detail as so many skiff owners would really like to know the true history of their skiff. 

The second reason I have put my tale to print is to show the public that a great vison can start and come to fruition with a very simple idea. I want to show you here that that in my career I have done well in my way by working very hard and having good common sense to look at projects with eyes wide open holding no prejudices towards the vision. By this I mean that I love all types of boats and have used this observational and real practical use to help me in thinking and creating outside the box.

This is the story of a high school dropouts journey in the flats boat world up to designing and building the Whipray flats skiff.

I have added photos to this post now as when I first published it I had not been able to get these pictures online. 

This story starts in 1982 on the island of Islamorada in the Florida Keys.  It was at Bayside Inn Marine where I met Hal Chittum who led me into this interesting niche of the boating market. First, in order to properly understand how this story came to be I must start at the beginning of my life on the sea.

Here I am building the tiki hut at what was Bayside Inn Marina in 1982.

I dont know if World Wide Sportman tore this down when they built Bass World there.

Go back to 1973 and you will find me at age 14. My parents have sold all of their possessions, have purchased a 36’ wooden Gaff Rigged Ketch and have the idea of sailing to Florida from San Diego, California. 

Our familys ketch sailing in the San Blas islands in Panama enroute to Florida in 1976

A few years later we arrived in Tarpon Springs. Go to 1976, Stamas Boats hired me to work in Research and Development. I was to be the helper of two old Florida boat builders in building all the plugs, molds and patterns for the line of Stamas Boats. I was 18 at the time and fell into an apprenticeship that would guide me throughout my boatbuilding career.

Kenny Karnu and Richard Stauffer took me under their wings and taught me how to channel my perfectionist nature into honing my skills at being a plug and mold builder. The most important lesson that they taught me was that with a clear vision of the finished product the process of building a mold could become very efficient. In the process of creating a concept it is crucial to keep things simple for if you add in too many designers and idea guys the process can easily become disjointed and go off in too many directions. Thanks to good fortune I have had the opportunity to put this into practice as I worked on many projects for many interesting people.

After a year in service to Stamas Boats, I left on my 18 foot, 10 year old plywood sloop passing through the Keys and then on to the Bahamas. It was 8:00 at night on December 3, 1977 when returning to the Bahamas my little sloop, Bilbo Baggins struck something as I neared the halfway mark in the Gulf Stream. Within minutes my sloop had sunk leaving me swimming, alone, without a dinghy only one fin, and a spear to defend myself. I swam for 20 hours and ended up 45 miles up the coast in Biscayne Bay as the sun set. The only person I knew in Florida to call at the time was living Key Largo which is how I ended up, within a week of losing everything I owned, working at Glander Boats, located in Key Largo. This job led to many others.

My 18 plywood sloop Billbo Baggins sailing off the Berry Islands in the Bahamas

Painting the bottom on the tide in Pipe Creek in the Exumas

By 1982 I was married to Lawanda Lillis and living aboard our own built sloop in “Little Basin” in Islamorada. This area is now owned by the World Wide Sportsman Company. We both worked at Bayside Inn Marina for Ray Dye, lawanda in the office and the yard,with me fixing,painting and repairing all that came through the place. Try to picture Islamorada in the early eighties. The Lorralie Restaurant had two sailboats anchored off it, Little Basin had a small dock and the number of fishing guides could be counted on your fingers.

Building our sloop "Shellan" next to what was then called the Sea Lark building in Islamorada. I built the hull when working for Glander boats after my little sloop sank.

Lawanda at the helm as we sail out to Florida Bay from Lews Marina which was next to Maxs Marina 

In Islamorada. 

Fitting deck beams to a 32 cutter that I was helping to build as project leader working for Dave Calvert in the Sea Lark Building.

Some statistics;

From 1977 to 1982 I had built for myself and others a total of 17 boats from 16 feet to 60 feet and I had logged 10,400 ocean sea miles under sail on my own boats.

Building a rowing dory in the evenings in what is now the main check out place in World Wide.

I love to sail, cruise, explore and fish. My passion was and is all kinds of boats from sail to power. At that time I knew of Flats Fishing but had no desire to own or build a skiff when I could have a great time sailing off to anchor and go fishing in my dinghy.

The only fishing guide I knew at that time was Tony Lay who kept his side console Hewse Bonefisher without a tower at Bayside Inn.

This all changed when Ray Dye introduced me to Hal Chittum. Hal had a project for me to do. He and Eddie Whiteman had purchased two Mako 18 foot flats boat hulls with bait boxes on the transoms and had tried to get a custom builder in Miami to build the interiors and finish them out. The boats had the 17 Mako sheer cut down to Flats boat height with flush decks and simple drain  channels but had ¼ inch copper tubing for the drains. The boat amenities consisted of a forward hatch, main hatch bait well and a sump hatch. Cockpits were self bailing.

Eddie Whitman finished his skiff himself. The hull was solid glass and everything else was glassed over plywood with decks and hatches plywood cored. The finish was raw, the boat was a wreck and it weighed a “ton”. Hal was a busy guide so he gave me the project to finish. My quote to him was within an hour’s time of completion. Ray Dye rigged the boat.

Hals mako ready to paint the insides

This project got me talking with Hal about the guiding industry. Being a sailor, getting about on engineless sail boats and having designed and built some small rowing and sailing boats I told Hal in one of which has turned into one long discussion of what if, what about. I told Hal that in the sailing world where races are won by seconds that the state of the art is in building in foam core in construction with better quality materials. I said I could build the same skiff weighing ? less than his present skiff. He then could use a smaller engine, save on fuel, and would be easier to pole. It would float higher of course in shallow water but at that time it did not seem to be such a big deal. Hal asked if I would be interested in doing this.

“yes of course” what a challenge!

Two days later he came back with 3 clients for me to talk to; Charles Causey, Bert Sherb and Dick Negly.

Within the month Lawanda and I had quit our jobs, rented a commercial house next to Campbell’s Marina in Tavernier in Key Largo from Stu Marr and opened shop as BACK BAY BOATS. This was 1982, I was 25 and Hal was 31 years old.

My observations at the time of the skiffs that were about;

Shy Poke:

A grey coloured, deep vee skiff, heavy, no dry lockers but had a good ride. Billy Knowles had one.

Hewes Bonefisher:

Obviously it was a knock off of a lapstrake ski boat. The bottom had a built-in trim tab hook. The boats were built with solid glass hulls and the decks were cored with plywood.They had wooden carpet covered floors and wood glassed over stringers. No dry lockers and were heavy. Tony Lay had one.

Cuda Craft:

A very shallow soft vee at the stern with conventional chines. A simple glass interior. I was told they slid in a turn. A basic, plain skiff with classic looks.

Dolphin Skiff - Dave Exley:

This boat hull developed by Exley was at the time a crude open skiff built in Homestead. It was very heavy with a rough finish, had no dry storage and a deep draft. It was a good camp rough and ready skiff at that time. They ran great but were tippy.They made no noise,but nobody was thinking of that then.Except Steve Huff and Harry Spear.

Fiber Craft:

A long, lean but massively layed-up hull. This very heavy skiff had a rounded bow and a very narrow spray rail at mid point of topsides but not big enough to really work. I kept in mind some of these points to my future designs. Davie Wilson built his own Fiber Craft skiff.

Sidewinder Skiff - Bass Boat Type:

I made a custom deck for Carl Naverrae with a side console. Deep vee.Similar to a Shypoke

Willy Roberts

Willy and I became friends while I had  my shop in Tavernier. It was my dream to have a shop equal to his. He was building fiberglass boats at this time molded from his plywood designs.I do not remember if he used foam core at this time or balsa core. At the time they were a classic.

Maverick - Lenny Berg:

The 18 ft was a big deep vee boat with a good conventional flats boat deck and interior. I was told it had a great ride, was wet, poled like a tank and made lots of noise. Hank Brown used to hang a piece of carpet over the bow to stop the noise.

Challenger:

These little skiffs were custom made from existing hulls that were originally little play boats. They had a very flat run that flowed into a rounded bow shape. It was originally designed to sit in and sport around in with a wheel forward.To make the boats work for fishing. The owner’s fitted spray rails low aft, near the water and high in the bow. The boats were heavy and tippy. I think of them like bass lures with metal cheeks wobbling along. They have a loyal following. I learned from this design and incorporated much of what I learned into my future designs. They had an offshoot of this called the WIND RIVER SKIFF.

Action Craft:

It had sloping outboard side decks and a very sharp angular look with a moderate vee bottom. To me it was very ugly.Action Craft started their company in 1983 with this boat using a foam in its deck core.

Mako 18 Experimental:

As explained earlier the 18 was a cut down 17 Mako on the sheer, with bait boxes added. The Mako construction had wood stringers, plywood or balsa cored, foam filled with chop and roving construction. This was a very heavy way to build yet standard practice at the time. The boat slid in a turn.

John Boats:

Well, there is nothing more classic and simple than this flat bottom skiff in wood or aluminum or glass. The boats would still rule if everybody was not in a such a great big fucking rush.

This is my opinion from my perspective at that time. There were a sprinkling of other one off boats as well. Billy Pate had a monster built from the Shypoke hull style. There were little cold mold

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Ive started painting the super structure

The interior of the super structure is painted and once again Ive discovered the hard way just how big a boat this is.

To begin, I am changing the paint schedule. After speaking with a commercial boat yard, they have me convinced to  only prime the interior of the super structure. The interior metal will get covered with closed cell spray foam then the liner will go over that. There is nothing such as UV or physical abuse that is going to break the primer down, so a top coat of paint is really not needed. I gave the interior a thorough blasting and applied three coats of epoxy primer.

Because I  have to weld the super structure to the hull, I taped off the the bottom edge of the metal so I will not have to grind away the primer later. Having the prime being burnt off by the welding is not only nasty, it can lead to the  primer gas mixing with the weld shielding gas and cause a defect in the weld. Porosity of the weld would be one example of a defect of this nature. Taping the joint is a heck of a lot faster and easier vs grinding.

Because paint over spray is not an issue with the interior, I decided to do this area first. Acting on the advice of some experienced paint people, I have taken a different approach to painting this part of the boat vs the hull. When I painted the hull, I blasted then primed, then started doing my fairing and filler work. The paint guys talked me into blasting the joints I want to do filler work, applying the filler, then blasting the rest of the metal then priming. Doing the work in this order will save me time as I will avoid some scuffing. This order of work will save me the most time on the roof. I  have a few areas I want to do some filler work on so I blasted those areas clean, and applied some filler. The filler work Im doing on the roof is more for function than for aesthetics. Ill sand those areas smooth, blast the rest of the roof, apply two coats of primer, and within the 72 hour chemical bond able time limit, Ill top coat the roof. No scuffing will be needed, and the more reliable chemical connection between primer and top coat is achieved.

The sides of the super structure is the area that everyone is going to see. For the sides, Im blasting all the joints and welds I want to fill over, then Im applying filler. Ill sand the filler smooth, blast the rest of the sides clean, and two coats of epoxy primer. While the primer is still hot, Ill apply two coats of sand able high build primer and long board that coat smooth. I know Ill be doing some more filler work on top of the high build, but thats  to be expected to get a nice finish. Once Im good with the high build surface ( my version of good is different than a professional body mans version). Ill spray another coat of primer to seal the high build, then top coat with my off white Acrylic Urethane. At this point the paint will be finished, and the list will be that much smaller.

Ill be posting updates as I work through the roof and sides.

The move to the launch site continues to get pushed back further. October seems doable, but early November seems more realistic. Once the paint work is finished, there is still work to be done here in the shop that will make the launch site assembly go faster. There is really no reason to slow things down by getting in a hurry. This is a big ass ed job, for one man to do by himself, and the time it takes is going to be the time it takes. I can only hope that the crap weather holds off until I have her dried in at the launch site, but Ive worked my whole life out in crap weather, so Im not to worried about me. I just dont want to compromises any work on the boat nor cost myself extra money.

Ill have the roof blasted and primed this weekend, and if all goes well, well have a off white roof to look at come Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

 

Cheers

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Didi 950 Build Started

Michael Vermeersch of Ohio commissioned the Didi 950 design and has now started construction of his boat. He is building from a pre-cut plywood kit that was supplied by Chesapeake Light Craft in Annapolis. The kit arrived as 61 sheets of plywood with all components accurately cut by CNC router and packed on 2 pallets.

Michael reports that he is progressing well with the assembly of the backbone and bulkheads and that everything is fitting together beautifully. A few more bulkheads to go, then he will be ready to start setting up on the building stocks.

Michael with wife Pat & daughter Catherine.

Since adding this design to our stock design list, another three boats have been started. They are in Australia, Greece and Latvia.

The Didi 950 is drawn to the Class 950 Rule and detailed for building by the radius chine plywood construction method. It can be built from plans only or from a kit. Kits are currently available in USA but can be supplied by most of our international kit suppliers as well. Enquire with the supplier in your area and I will send the files to them for pricing. Note that for USA you must order from us, you cannot order it directly from Chesapeake Light Craft.

For our full range of designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/.

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Ive started to finish

The last few weeks have found me rushing around to get the boat weather tight, and starting to organize my thoughts on  how best to manage the build to the finish. Like most things on this project, a lot of work needs to be done in a certain order before progress becomes visible.

With winter sneaking up on us, I had to get the barn put back together. The  mornings are getting colder and with the heavy dew making its way in to the barn, some of my tools are showing signs of rust. It took me a weekend to frame the opening back in, find the correct insulation, and trim the door opening to be ready for the crew who were re installing the door. I have to be able to fabricate much of the wood work for the interior in the barn, so having it weather tight and able to be heated is a big deal to keep the boat build moving. As I write this post, the barn is now back together, and while its still a mess, it sure feels good to have all the space back.

The dry exhaust stack for the engine room is one of those deals that not much else can be started  until this part is finished. Getting this finished turned out to be a bit of a pain as some poor measuring on my part  had me doing a few  things over. I framed access panels  on both the port and starboard side of the stack. The port side panel is larger as to allow me to install the exhaust pipe through the panel. I also had to configure the panel opening to work around the microwave cabinet so I dont have to remove the cabinet to replace the exhaust pipe.

The  exhaust stack was the last big welding job I  have to do inside the boat, and it feels good to be able to take the big generator out of the back of my truck and leave it in the shop.

Now that the foam is all finished, I wanted to get the ceiling in the master cabin, and get that room pretty much wrapped up. The ceiling is 3 1/4" pine bead board painted an off white. To make things easy on myself, I primed and painted one coat of top coat paint on the boards to prevent bare wood from showing once things start moving around. The ceiling  job was pretty straight forward, and the only tricky part was building the removable access panel on either side of the center beam. The access panel is for throttle and engine controls, hydraulic lines for the anchor winch, hydraulic lines for the steering system, and some conduit. The center beam is about 3/8" lower than the ceiling, and instead of wrapping it in bead board, I decided to wrap it in Cherry. I needed a board over 10 long, and instead of joining two together to get the length, I found a long one on the bottom of my now air dried stack of lumber. The longest boards I have also  happen to be the widest boards. As you can see from this picture, this particular board is over 19" wide and dried pretty darn straight. After I finish milling the faux beam, Ill install it in a day or so, and the master cabin will have a finished ceiling in it.After the master cabin ceiling is finished, another day of work should have the guest cabin dressing room ceiling completed which will also mean all the ceilings below will be finished.

Another small detail I needed to get squared away was building a proper set of steps to get in to the boat. Ive been using a ladder, and given the amount of trips and quantity of material I have to get on the boat, the ladder was the old accident waiting to happen. I  also have a lot of people who like to stop by, and any thing I can do to prevent them or me from getting hurt helps everyone in the long run. I also want to do right by the boat yard, and keep my operation in such a way as to minimize any exposure.

The tooling I need to finish the job is also getting to the point where Im comfortable. I wish I would have built all the engine room cabinets before we move her, as it would be nice to be able to start organizing the floating shop. Once in a while I do find myself borrowing a tool off of my truck, but for the most part the boat is now tooled up.

Boat building and schedules dont seem to get along in Conallville, but I"m going to take another stab at it. My plan is to have the bulk of the wood work finished by sometime in January. Once the wood work is finished and coated with urethane, I can focus on getting the needed systems up and running for our May/June launch. Without going into a bunch of detail, the systems Im talking about are AC/DC electric, hydraulic, and engine controls.

Cheers

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I started the super structure interior

Because I am swamped with paying work, Ive taken a few days off of the build. Hurricane Sandy has changed that, and caused  major slow down in my work, so Im back to the important things in life... the boat build. I have to say that while we are four or five hundred miles from Sandy, we had 25 mile per hour winds sustained last night while  she came ashore.

To begin the interior, bolting lumber to the metal frames is the first order of work. To make it seem like I was getting something done, the first attachment I made was to bolt lumber to the ceiling frames. Because of the camber of the ceiling frames and not wanting to piece things together, I had to use a 2x6 for the ceilings. It seems like a lot of waste, but all the off fall was ripped again for the side wall frames.

The barn is about as full as it can get and the only place to set up my table saw is under the roof of the aft deck. I had to position the saw so I can make long rips through the door of the salon.

The basic method of getting the ceiling beams done was to clamp the 2x6 to each end of the frame. I then used a scribe set for the gap between the 2x6 and the frame at the center of the frame and scribed the top ( roof  ) side of the cut. Because the frames are so long, and the curve not that radical, I was able to use a circular saw to cut shy of the line. The cut put the saw in a bit of a bind, but it was not too hatefull, and thats what tools are for. Once the roof side was cut to shape, I re clamped the board to the frame, set the scribe for 5/16", and scribed the interior side of the cut. Once again, I used the circular saw ( vs the band saw ) and made the cut. All the boards are being held proud of the steel frame about 5/16" so foam remains on the frame flange after the foam is trimmed. With the board now cut to fit, I applied a bead of polyurethane adhesive and re clamped the board. I then use my right angle air drill, and drill through the existing holes in the steel frames. Next I use a hammer to drive the 1/4"x2" carriage bolts home, followed by a flat washer and a nylock nut, then tighten all the bolts using a 3/8" air ratchet

Gluing the lumber to the frames in addition to bolting might seem like over kill, but bolts have a funny way of working loose in lumber, and since the adhesive is not that expensive, I think it to be good insurance to prevent a squeak.

As I type this post on this rainy Tuesday, I have all the ceiling beams finished in the wheel house, salon, and aft deck. I also have the wheel house walls and windows complete, and am getting ready to start on the salon. Another full day, and I should be finished bolting all the lumber in place.

I have an insulator  showing up in the morning to give me a price on foaming the interior. Im going to foam the interior down to within a couple of inches of the weld zones.

While I still have the boat in the shop, Im going to also install the Cherry plywood at the window opening so I dont have to deal with that at the cold boat yard. Im  using a clamp ring for the window installation, so I have to have the finished wood in place in order to install the windows. The window installation is also complicated by the fact that  the maximum wall thickness at the window is 2 1/4", while the frame thickness of the boat is 3 7/8". Its kind of a strange deal to describe, but on the salon windows and the side windows of the wheel house, the windows will be set in by the difference. The front wheel house windows will be flush with the  interior as I was able to make the tabs work out to 2 1/4" wall thickness.  It will look OK as Im going to spend a righteous amount of time getting the trim right, but it does add a whole bunch of work to the window trim job. Im not quite sure how the finish window trim will look, but Im going to use each clamp ring as a template before I install and make a pattern out of paper board for future fabrication of wooden trims for the windows.

The weather had for sure turned  here, but I have plenty to keep me busy getting the super structure in a more finished state. Taking the super structure as far as installing the windows before shes landed and welded in place has entered my mind, but I think it too risky. I can install lots of the trim, some of the ceilings along with some wiring and a host of other items before I have to commit to taking her out of the barn. While Im aching to have her assembled at the boat yard, all of this work goes much faster while shes in the barn.

Cheers 

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Started ballast

Anyone whos thinking about building a boat, take some advice from me and dont wait until a few weeks before your anticipated launch to start pouring your ballast.

I dont think I could have picked a worse day to start pouring lead ingots. At noon today the temperature in the shade was 94, and the dew points seem to be in the 70s making for oppressive humidity. I consider myself a pretty tough guy regarding manual work as Im in decent shape, and Ive been doing physical work all my life. I have  no problem admitting that todays task of pouring lead ingots kicked  my ass.
 
The design of the boat calls for 4300 lbs of ballast  under the forward sole. For our ballast, Im using lead that came from the demolition of an MRI machine. The material is as clean as can be, and with each lead shingle weighing 30 lbs, its relatively easy to handle.  I must have messed up somewhere at some point, because I only have 3000 lbs of lead on my site. I could have sworn I had 4500 lbs, but I now know for a fact that Im going to be lite.

Having a skid steer loader at our place made this nasty job a wee bit easier. Moving the lead from the storage area to the melting area was made easier with the loader as was handling the fire wood and moving the freshly pour ingots in to the shop for cleaning up and weighing.

I made a melting pot out of a piece of 12" pipe and framed a stand for it to sit on giving me room for the fire. Lead melts fairly easily, but it helped immensely by using my back pack blower to force feed the fire. The melting pot comfortably handles 200 lbs of lead.  The pour spout is a 1" nipple welded into the melting pot with a 1" 90 and a short length of pipe to get the material to the molds. Before I pour, I have to use a propane torch to heat the pour spout so the lead from the previous pour can be melted in the spout.   I made two molds to try to  help speed things up. Each mold contains six ingots, and once the mold is full, it weighs about 100 lbs. After a pour is made and the lead has set up enough to pick up the mold, I drop the mold forcefully into a spare bucket for the loader to part the ingots from the mold. The problem is that if the lead doesnt part on the first throw, picking up the 100 lbs mold a few times gets tiresome.

Using a circular saw to cut the thin piece of lead between each ingot is how I process the ingots prior to weighing each ingot. I write the weight on each ingot so I can keep track of how much lead is going into each ballasts compartment.

I  now know Im going to be  lite on the ballast, so the question is how will this effect my launch. Out of the 4300 lbs designed, I think Im going to end up with 2700 - 3200 lbs installed for launch. Because the boat is going to spend the rest of the season on the Ohio River ( about as tame a mill pond as one can find), I think Im going to be OK. If I was launching at the Ocean or Gulf, Id feel a lot less comfortable being lite, and for sure would not try to go off shore without the designed ballast.  Im going to run this scenario past the naval architect and see what  he says.

For some reason, I thought Id get all this ballast poured in one day. Todays pour netted me 1300 lbs of ingots.  

Cheers

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