Prior to Christmas, three sheets of Oakume Plywood arrived. Luckily Atlantic Hardwood is right in town and they shipped me up a few sheets no problem. $315 later I had what is probably the nicest sheet good I'll ever work with in the back of the truck. If you've never worked with a quality BS1088 grade plywood it's an absolute treat. I went right to work cutting out gussets for the frames which were glued up in the basement.
Rather than try to cut out four identical gussets on the band saw I made one decent one in each shape, and cut the remainder in one shot with a pattern bit on the router table. I'd like to say this went smoothly, but a few orientations really grabbed the bit as if I were milling end grain and the tiny pieces left much to be desired from a safety stand point. But hey, no blood and all finger nails still accounted for.
Then all these beautiful parts sat on bench for about a month. Fast forward to the basement where a quick batch of G-flex was mixed up, and out came the clamps. Lots of clamps. Luckily I buy them by the dozen when they're on sale.
Later that day after cleaning up six inches of fresh snow I laid out the stem piece. On top is the original which was pretty obviously non-salvageable. I'll cut a new one out of the white oak below.
I let all the epoxy cure for a good week in the basement before I got around trimming up the frames. Once this was done I pulled out the strongback and started getting things mounted.
Since I'm pretty short on space I put the strongback on wheels. All I have to do each time I move it around is level the port and starboard rails and I'm good to go. Here I started attaching the frames to the strong back. I had a ton of the cheap 1/4" luan left, so that got used quite a bit for braces. This went quickly. I had attached the vertical braces centered and square to each frame, so I could plumb those, and run a center-line. This would guarantee everything goes together in-line.
Since I am building this by myself and the dog isn't much help I have to get creative when tasks need an extra set of hands. To get some temporary braces on the frames I cut spacers the width I needed to keep stations 30" on-center. This was much faster than struggling with a tape measure, screw gun, and wobbly frames.
Once I got some diagonals on the frames things stiffened up. Here's where it sat by the end of the day. It was almost 20 degrees out so I decided to call it quits before heat stroke set in.
Next I'll have to fair all the edges so the planking sits nice and flush. That'll be for another post another time.
A bunch of silicon bronze hardware is on its way from West Marine. Between screws and the marine grade plywood the major cost should be out of the way. The only thing I plan on buying from this point on is epoxy, paint, and new running rigging in the spring.
Total Cost: $518.51
Total Time: 28.5
No comments:
Post a Comment