Constructing the centercase

The centercase is going to be the new home for my centerplate. The sides are made out of 1/2" marine plywood. (I laminated two layers of 1/4" plywood with epoxy.) The lumber is white oak, glued and screwed from the inside to the plywood. The slot in the centercase is 3/4" wide, plenty of room for the 5/16" thick centerplate.



The pic shows the centerplate and centercase side-by-side. In this pic, the centercase sides are glued up, but the sides are just temporarily screwed together. I'm going to take it apart and fiberglass the inside of it for more abrasion resistance, then put it back together with glue and install it in the boat.

Shaping the frame

I'm in the process of shaping the chines, keelson, and stem so that the plywood planking will fit up nicely. I'm using a hand plane and belt sander. Also, I'm grinding off a lot of unwanted glue blobs with a dremel.





I'm also getting ready to put on the transom ply.

Chines and Stringers

The second layer of chines and gunwales and the smaller stringers have been installed. All of these are attached with bronze screws and thickened epoxy.

The boat may look like this for awhile. Next I have to shape the frame so that the pieces of plywood planking will fit up nicely. But before the planking, I'm going to make the centercase (or centerplate trunk) and maybe install it. And I have to sand all the unwanted epoxy lumps off.

Garage Sealed and Heated

The garage has been getting too cold to epoxy. The temperature needs to be at least 55F for a few days at a time for my epoxy to set properly. So I either have to wait until spring or come up with a way to heat the garage. I was thinking about buying a heater and garage door insulation, but all of that costs a lot of money. I found a way to satisfactorily heat the garage without spending any money at all.

The most important thing was to stop all the cold air from coming in. Stopping all the drafts must be done before insulation is added. I temporarily decommissioned my garage door and covered it with a large plastic sheet and 2x4s that I had laying around, being careful to seal it as best as possible around the edges and bottom. I patched up some holes in the drywall and taped the cracks around the attic hatches. By leaving the door to the house open, the garage becomes part of the heated space of the house. I didn't need to install a duct feeding the garage, because the furnace naturally sucks warm air from the house into the garage when its running. It's not the most efficient or safe setup ... but it's definitely the most cost effective solution for one or two winter seasons. It's not efficient because the garage space isn't completely insulated and also the furnace is now sucking warm air out of the house and releasing it out the roof vent. Nonetheless, I now have a heated garage and only marginally more expensive heating bills.



The garage is at a cozy 62F when its in the 40's outside and 68F inside the house. It could be warmer if I added insulation but that costs money. The coldest surface inside the garage is probably the concrete floor ... and I'm never going to try to insulate that.

One problem is that my garage isn't long enough to plane long pieces of lumber with the garage door closed ... so I stick the ends of the lumber through the open living room door to feed them into the planer! (I have a very understanding wife ... as long as I have a curtain up to keep the sawdust out of the house).



The garage door probably won't be opened until the flipping.

Chines being installed

The first layer of the chines and gunwales has been installed. When I was installing them, none broke and only one sprung back and hit me in the head! Success. I started by cutting a bevel in the front to fit up to the stem. I attached each of them to the stem, then glued and screwed to the frames. A pretty simple process as long as the pieces of wood don't break.



I decided not to screw them into the foremost frame (frame #1), because I was worried that the screw hole could cause the piece to crack in this high stress area. This worked fine, except the force of the bent gunwale pushed this frame aft slightly. Some temporary wedges and clamps are used to hold everything in position until the glue sets.

I'm back

OK I'm done with that silly test and now I can work on the boat more. I actually have been working on it a little, but I haven't had time to update the blog.

I've installed (epoxied and screwed) the keelson and the stem (the main backbone members). The keelson is two layers of lumber, since one layer would be difficult to bend into position. The image below shows the second layer being dry fitted before gluing. I learned quickly that I need to screw everything together, take it apart, then glue and screw it together.



Here is a pic of the stem and keelson after the glue set. All that excess glue will be sanded off.



This step took awhile, because I had to make sure all the frames were square and just right before permanently gluing everything together. Measure 100 times, epoxy once ... that's been my strategy so far.

I decided to buy a cheap ($200) bench planer. Unless the boat design uses all standard lumber sizes, I don't see how it would be possible to build a boat without one. My boat requires a lot of 5/8" thick lumber. I was considering going to my friendly boat shop and using their planer, but transporting the lumber back and forth wouldn't be practical. I've been making the chines, gunwales and stringers using a table saw and planer. I also scarfed pieces together with epoxy, since I only have 12ft long lumber and the boat is 14ft long. They are almost ready to be bent onto the frames. I'm just waiting a few days for the scarf joints to cure completely so they don't break when I try to bend them.

Minor delay

I have to use my free time to study for a test. My next blog will be at the end of October, after the test. Then I'll make some significant progress on the boat.

Trailer ALMOST done

The trailer is almost put back together. I installed the LED lights and wiring.

I also put the axle, hubs and wheels together. It was my first time packing bearings, so I made a big greasy mess.

I just need to install the fenders and touch up the paint, then I'll be done with the trailer for now. After I finish the boat, I will have to adjust the roller and bunk positions ... but that's going to be in awhile.

I didn't get a chance to work on the boat at all this week. Next week for sure.