Setting Up Shop

Here is a picture of my garage today. I got it all cleaned out and organized. I built the strongback during the July 4th weekend. The strongback is basically a flat and level frame on which to build the hull. The hull will be built upside-down and then later flipped over. I built the strongback out of scrap 2X3 that I got from the free scrapwood pile at my job.


I aquired a free (though cheap) table saw from my coworker/friend. (Thanks Mike!) So far I have spent about $150 on saw blades, small tools and other supplies from a discount tool store. One item most homeowners don't have enough of for boat building is CLAMPS ... I bought lots of them!

For the last few weeks I've been reading online forums and a few books about building small boats. I've learned of a few necessary jigs I need to make. I made a scarfing jig today.


It's basically just an angled aluminum plate attached to wedges on a piece of plywood. This allows me to use my belt sander to scarf lumber. The photo shows the jig with short test scrap pieces. Scarfing is used to make a long piece of lumber out of two shorter pieces. I roughly angle cut both pieces on the table saw (8:1 slope), precisely finish them using the jig and belt sander, then glue them together with epoxy. If done correctly the joint produced is much stronger than the wood itself. I hear this is done quite often in boat building. I already know I need to scarf pieces together to make the mast, since I can't find lumber that long! Books I've read say to use a large hand plane or some other tool that is either expensive or time consuming. Since I already have a cheap belt sander, I'm going to try to scarf with it. The photo below shows my two pieces ready for gluing. Looks like my jig works good enough.


Also, a few weeks ago, I made a cross-cut sled for my little table saw, based on some plans online I found. The sled has oak strips on the bottom that fit into the guides on the saw. It'll increase my chances of finishing the boat with all my digits intact! I've already used this handy little jig lots of times.


So the next step is to buy wood, epoxy, and fasteners. I'm going to do that next week, except I'm still trying to figure out what kind of wood and how much to buy. Then I can start building!