Building of a Fenwick Williams Catboat

The Big Flip - January '10

2010-01-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

After a few weeks off for winter break, the boatshop is humming once again. Unfortunately the once plentiful red cedar planking stock has run out, so there are still a few more planks to hang. But with more red cedar on the way, there's plenty of other work to be done.

In the picture below you can see the sheer clamp almost fully installed. The sheer clamp is a structural piece of the boat that will strengthen the hull and help to define the shape of the hull at the sheer. On the catboat the sheer clamp is yellow cedar, an excellent choice because of it's clear, even grain. The sheer clamp helps define the shape of the hull, so while you want a strong wood, you also want a wood that will bend easily and evenly to create a nice fair sheer.

You might also notice in the picture a large box-like structure balanced on the keel. We'll see more of that later when we get ready to flip the hull.

Here's a good shot of the sheer clamp looking forward.

The sheer clamps meet at the stem where they are fastened to the cheek blocks. Getting the clamps to bend in to meet the stem can be a bit difficult. Steaming the clamp would do the trick, but the aft end of the clamp is already fastened, so removing them and putting them in the steam box would be time consuming.

A quicker solution is to "steam" the clamps in place. By wrapping the pieces in rags and dousing them in hot water you can achieve much the same result as putting them in a steam box. This is a good solution when putting a piece in the steam box just isn't an option.

You can see here that we've wrapped the clamps at the point where we need a little extra bend.

Before dousing the wood in hot water, you want to be ready to bend it. We're in a bit of an awkward spot here, so we've decided to use a Spanish windlass to draw the two clamps in. We'll see how it works in a minute, but start by tying a loop around the two pieces you want to draw together. The tighter the better.

Now, just add hot water.

After letting the wood soak, we're ready to bend the pieces into place. By inserting a piece of wood in the loop we created and twisting, we can draw our pieces together. There are a few varieties of the Spanish windlass and most work well, just make sure you're using a strong enough rope.

Once the pieces are bent, we can trim them a little and tighten the windlass. We'll do the final fitting of the clamps to the cheek blocks before fastening them in place.

Not a bad fit so far.

Since we're going to be flipping the hull over, the last thing we want is for our rope to break and the clamps to come springing out, so we're doubling up our windlass with a second line. I think this is a custom knot Tim's working on, so sorry folks, you won't find this one in your knot books.

With the clamps bent and secured we can move on to the real business of the day: flipping the boat. The box-like structure that we saw earlier is going to be a cradle for the hull to sit in once it's flipped.

You could just flip the boat and block it up on the floor, but by building a cradle that fits the hull as it is on the building jig, you can minimize the amount of distortion you get in your hull shape. We are after all trying to reproduce that same shape we lofted all those months ago.

Before we flip the boat, we've also got to free up the building jig. We'll be flipping the boat in place, so we've got to make sure that once it's flipped we've got someplace to put it down again, that means moving the building jig out of the way. For the most part it's an easy job, but these blocks we glue to the floor with 5200 are pretty tenacious.

With the new cradle complete and the hull ready to be flipped, we're ready to move the hoist into position. We'll use a sling between two winches to take the weight of the hull, then with many hands to assist, we'll flip her over.

Here's a little time-lapse of all the last minute preparations: loosening the hull from the building jig, moving the hoist into position, etc.

And now, the big flip. Insert drum roll here.

In case to missed anything, here's the operation. Step one, the hull is lifted off the building jig using the two winches in unison, and a lot of people to help stabilize. Two, the building jig is slid out from under the boat. Three, the hull is lowered to the floor. Four, straps are repositioned for the flip. We have two winches so when we're flipping the boat one will be raising and the other lowering to create the rolling action. Five, hull is raised just high enough to facilitate flipping. Six, winches begin rolling action. Seven, rolling is completed by hand, sliding the hull in the straps. Eight, hull (now right-side up) is lowered to the floor. Nine, straps are repositioned again to raised the hull high enough to slide the cradle underneath. Ten, hull is raised, cradle is positioned underneath, and hull is lowered into position.

It's as easy as that.

With the hull now right-side up, it's quite a different view. And it's the first time we've gotten this view of the stem since we were assembling the backbone. Impressive.

And she certainly has grown since then. Wow.

With a successful flip behind us, the boatshop was full of smiles and congratulations. And a few sighs of relief too.

Right-side up it's almost as if you're seeing the hull for the first time. The plank lines we spent so much time on look great, and the planking job Jonas and Matt have done is topnotch. Great job guys!

Speaking of the builders, here's one for the catboat family album.

The building jig is looking a little empty now...

With all the attention on the new cradle.

The guys did a great job fitting it to the shape of the hull.

And these stout legs make it a sturdy work platform.

Yes, I did say work platform. There is a little more of that to go. Flipping the hull is a great way to end the week, but it's back to work on Monday. There are bent frames to install, the final planks to hang, deck beams to fit...and the list goes on.

But that can wait till Monday. For now there's just the wind in our hair and the sound of lapping water against the hull...

Planking Nearly Complete - December '09

2009-12-29T11:15:00.000-08:00

As winter quarter 2009 drew to a close I stopped by the Wood Construction Center to pay a visit to our little catboat, and she looks quite different from when we last saw her. Planking has continued this quarter after a break over the summer. As you may remember, Tim and I graduated at the end of spring quarter, so Jonas is the only member remaining from the original crew, but he's enlisted the help of Matt, another student who has just started in the wooden boat shop this quarter.

Jonas and Matt have each been working on one side of the catboat this quarter. In a production boatshop the planks would be done two at a time, one for each side from the same spile or pattern, since in theory the two sides of the boat are identical, but in a school setting spiling and fitting each plank individually gives you a lot of valuable experience. The trick though, when working each side independently, is making sure all your plank lines line up. Especially at the stem, where any inaccuracy is particularly noticeable.

Looks like the guys are doing a great job.

When we started planking, one of the hardest areas to fit was at the rabbet. Thankfully as the rabbet moves up the stem the planks get a bit easier to spile, fit, and hang.

The port side planking is a little further ahead of the starboard. Over on the port side the sheer strake is the last one left to do. Here on the starboard we're at the turn of the bilge, where the bottom planking transitions into the topsides. Since the topside planks are the most visible, it's nice to have all that planking practice behind you, so that these look perfect.

The plank lines overall look pretty sweet. When lining out the planking we spent a lot of time fretting over the smallest adjustments, but this extra attention to detail pays off when you see the planks on the boat.

Back aft, the planks are left long and trimmed later. By leaving a little extra material past the transom, you reduce the likelihood that the last row of fasteners will split the plank. You can also be assured that all the planks will line up evenly since they'll be trimmed all at the same time.

Below we see the final topside plank ready to be installed on the port side. Just the sheer strake left after that.

Behind the catboat, you can see the planked hull of the Trap Skiff another of the ongoing projects in the shop. This skiff is the same length as the catboat, but in beam there's no comparison. On first walking into the shop that's what struck me the most: the sheer scale of the catboat's hull. When we were lining out the planks with battens we could get an idea of the eventual size of the finished hull, but it's not until the planks are hung that it's really evident.

Jonas and Matt have a few more planks to hang before the catboat's ready to be flipped and moved out of the boatshop, but when that happens there'll be a big hole to fill in the shop.

End of the quarter - Week 11

2009-06-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

Much of this last week was taken up with celebrating the end of the quarter, and for many, the end of their time at the Wood Construction Center. At the end of each quarter we have a student recognition ceremony where all the students who are graduating from the three programs (boatbuilding, carpentry & cabinet making) are honored. We also have a celebration at the end of the week to mark the end of the quarter. But even though there was a lot going on, we still did manage to do a little work on the catboat.

If you remember, at the end of last week we steamed the first broad strake for the starboard side. As a bit of an insurance policy, we also backed up the end with a bit of carbon fiber to prevent our nib from breaking off. The carbon fiber worked out well on the garboard, so we thought we'd use it again for the broad since it also has a lot of shape to it. You can see the carbon fiber at the end of the plank in the following picture where Tim is backing-out the plank at station two. Because there is a lot of shape across the width of the plank here, it would be nearly impossible to bend the plank to fit the frame, so instead we fit the plank to the frame by carving out the backside of the plank, making it concave. This is what's called backing-out a plank.

With the plank backed-out, the fit is already looking pretty good. Now there's just some final fitting to be done.

Back aft, the fit is looking great.

It will be a little more fitting before we see a broad strake on the starboard side, but Tim's pattern looks like it fit nicely.

Over on the port side, we're ready to try fastening our garboard again. If you remember last week, we had the plank crack as we were fastening it down so we had to do a little repair. With the fix in place, we've re-applied the bedding compound...

And we're ready for a second try.

Unfortunately this piece of red cedar just didn't want to be a garboard on our catboat. We had it crack again as we were clamping it into position. We won't try fixing this plank a second time, instead will cut our losses, literally, and scarf a new end onto this plank.

To scarf on a new piece, we'll first cut off the cracked end, then we'll plane the end to a wedge. The new piece we're scarfing on will have the same wedge so that they'll fit perfectly. For a scarf like this the ratio of length to thickness is usually around 8:1, so for our 3/4" planking, the scarf is about 6" long.

Before we scarf on the new end, we'll steam it and fit it. Here we've got the piece clamped into position after an hour in the steambox.

Lots of clamps help hold it tight to the back rabbet.

It's a good idea to leave the steamed piece clamped into position for a while so that it retains most of it's shape when the clamps are removed. In our case we've decided to leave it there for three months or so. It wasn't really much of a decision, since we've reached the end of week 11. We'd love to keep right on working, but we've run out of time, so we'll leave it for fall quarter.

And when work does resume on the catboat there should be a few new faces about. Jonas will be back in the fall to see his catboat through planking and beyond, but for Tim and & I the end of this quarter means graduation. For Tim, graduation means starting full-time at SAFE Boats International where he's been working part-time during school. And for me, it means a summer (and maybe more) at The Center For Wooden Boats on Seattle's Lake Union.

Thank you to all of you who've been following along with our project. It's been an amazing experience.

And check back this fall when (fingers crossed) Jonas will be taking up the reins of this blog and bringing all the rest of us along to completion. I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't wait.

Planking in full swing - Week 10

2009-06-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

We were right back into planking this week. The repair we made on the starboard side garboard last week turned out great. From the outside, you can't tell that anything was even done.

The view from the inside reveals our carbon fiber backing on the plank. This should prevent the plank from splitting again as we fasten it into place.

Speaking of fastening, with the plank repaired, it's time to do just that. Clamping the plank into place, we can lay out all our fasteners.

Then it's time to start drilling.

You can see here in this picture why it's important to lay out the fasteners accurately. We want to make sure our fasteners are as close to center as possible. We definitely don't want to split any of our frames at this point by putting a fastener too close to the edge.

With our plank removed we'll apply some bedding compound to the cheek pieces, then it'll be time to hang the plank.

The fasteners are countersunk into the plank. Once the holes are all plugged, the fasteners will virtually disappear leaving only a nice fair plank.

Note how the fasteners are staggered along the cheek (left side of plank in below picture). You want to do this so that all your fasteners aren't in the same grain line which could cause the plank to split at that grain line.

Once the bedding compound was applied, we clamped the plank back into place and fastened it on. Removing the clamps is a tense moment, but we didn't have any cracking, and the hood end that we repaired had no problems. We all breathed a sigh of relief after it was all done.

And with that we'd hung our first plank.

And it looks great.

With the starboard side fastened, work begins on the port side. With a few modifications we were able to reuse the starboard side pattern. Once the slight discrepancies in the hull girth are made up in the garboard and broad strakes, our port and starboard planks should be almost identical, so we'll be able to make two planks from each pattern and speed up the process considerably.

For the garboard though we've got a little fitting to do.

And just like the starboard side, most of the fitting necessary is right at the forefoot.

Once the pattern is refit to the port side, we cut out the plank. Now, we'll put the plank in the steambox for an hour so that we can twist it into place at the forefoot.

A little steam and a few clamps and the plank lays down nicely.

Once the plank cools, we'll be able to do the necessary final fitting.

The fitting goes pretty quickly, but clamping the plank in place between each fittings takes time. You quickly learn that it pays to make accurate notations on the plank so that you don't have to take the plank on and off the boat too many times.

Back aft the fitting is easier than at the forefoot, but you still need to clamp it into place to verify that it's laying down the same as it will when it's fastened.

With the rabbet edge fit, we once again use a batten to scribe the top edge of the plank.

With the plank fit and the top edge trimmed, we'll clamp it back into place to drill for our fasteners.

One last look at the forefoot fit...

And it's time to lay out our fasteners.

When drilling, we're relying on our layout, so it pays to take your time and be accurate.

It also doesn't hurt to have someone sight for you as your drill, just to make sure you're centered on those frames.

The yellow cedar cheeks are easy enough to drill, but the purpleheart frames put up a little more of a fight.

With the fasteners drilled, it's time again for the bedding compound.

Then all that's left to do is fasten it in place. Almost. As we were clamping the plank in place it started to crack at one of our fastened holes, which meant we had to abort hanging the plank. Similarly to the other garboard we're opting to try a repair on the plank rather than scraping it and starting again.

Simaltaniously as the garboard was being fit on the port side, we were also working on the first broad strake over on the starboard side. Here you can see the beginnings of the pattern for the first broad. Unlike the sheer strake where we had to fit to the rabbet, the remainder of the planks are fit to the edge of the previous plank.

Here Tim uses a scribe block to pattern the bottom edge of the plank.

For most of the plank's length this method works well...

But at the stem, the pattern gets a bit more complex. Here we'll make a full pattern so that we can be ensured a perfect fit.

The pattern at the hood end also takes into account the nib that we cut out of the garboard as you can see in this picture.

With the pattern complete for the first broad, the lines are transfered to our planking stock.

The full pattern at the hood end is simply traced onto the planking stock. The rest of the plank is drawn using the same scribe block with which we made the pattern.

Here you can see Tim transfering the line he scribed off the boat onto the planking stock. As long as you use the same scribe block, this method produces excellent results.

For the top edge of the plank, we're again using a batten to draw a fair line between the plank line marks we picked up off the boat.

With our plank laid out on the stock, it's cut out and planed to the line.

We'll leave it proud along the upper edge so we have some room for fitting, and also at the end of the plank. I liked Tim's note here at the end of the plank, "cut proud 1/16". I think that's a bit more than a 1/16", but better safe than sorry.

After trimming the plank end a bit closer to our line, we put it in the steambox. After a good steaming, we clamped it into place.

We'll leave it clamped to the boat over the weekend, then when we come in on Monday, it'll be ready for final fitting and fastening.

It's definitely fun to be hanging planks on the catboat at long last. Unfortunately the end of the quarter is also fast approaching.

Hanging the garboard, almost - Week 9

2009-06-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

As week nine gets underway, we've got a few details to finish up before we can focus our attention solely on hanging planks.

Last week we fastened the starboard side engine bed, now this week we'll do the same with the port side. Here Jonas is drilling for the bolts that will fasten the engine bed to the auxiliary floor timbers.

And here we see the engine beds installed.

They turned out really nice. And everything looks like it lines up.

Fairing continues over on the port side.

Tim is finishing up the aft end.

And putting the finishing touches on the transom.

While Jonas works up forward.

In addition to finishing the forefoot fairing (say that three times fast), Jonas is also transferring the plank lines to the port side of the stem. Doing this is a lot more straight forward that you might think. Simply hold a pencil on the existing plank line on the starboard side, then using another pencil, line it up on the port side and make your mark.

It seems too easy to actually work, but it really does. And it's surprisingly accurate. This is a great example of when trusting your eye can yield amazing results.

And then there's that garboard plank we steamed at the end of last week. We left it clamped in position over the weekend so that it would hold it's shape. You can see in the following picture that when the clamps came off on Monday it sprung back a little, but kept the shape pretty well.

With the plank steamed into shape, we can start doing the final fitting. It can be hard to see how the plank is fitting down at the bottom of the rabbet, so it helps if you have a flashlight handy.

After a bit of fitting and a bit of checking, and a bit more fitting, it's starting to look good. Just like when we were making the pattern, the trickiest section to fit is at the forefoot. Even though we steamed the plank into shape, you still need a lot of clamps to hold the plank in position when you're checking the fit.

As the plank runs aft it lays into position a lot easier and the fitting goes quicker.

Once we're satisfied with the fit we're getting, it's time to put on the caulking bevel. The caulking bevel is put onto the edge of the plank to allow room for the caulking (cotton in traditional boatbuilding like this) and seam compound. Typically the depth of the caulking bevel is 2/3 the thickness of the planking.

The width of the bevel has to be great enough to allow the caulking iron to drive in the cotton. If it's too tight caulking the seams will be difficult without damaging the plank. For our caulking bevel we settled on 3/32". 1/16" seemed too small and 1/8" too big. In the next picture you can see the caulking bevel drawn on the edge of the garboard. The caulking bevel is only put on one edge of each plank while the other edge is left square. This makes fitting the next plank easier.

With the caulking bevel drawn, we remove the material between the lines with a block plane, and we've got our finished caulking bevel.

The caulking bevel also allows you to see how the plank is fitting at the base of the rabbet. Since 2/3 of the planks edge is removed for the bevel, it's important that the remaining 1/3 makes good contact with the rabbet.

After a bit more fitting, our plank is almost ready to be installed.

Our caulking bevel is nice and consistent the whole length of the rabbet. This will make caulking the seam easier.

Now all that's missing are a few dozen fasteners to hold it in place.

First though there are a few things we need to finish up. Our plank is ready to go, but the rest of the boat still has a few loose ends.

The bolt holes on those floor timbers need to be plugged.

And while we're doing that, we're also taking the opportunity of rounding over the bottom edges of all the floor timbers. Once the planking goes on, this job gets a whole lot harder, so why not do it now while everything is accessible?

With all the details taken care off, we're ready to hang our first plank.

It all goes great as we start clamping the plank into position, but...

Alas our red cedar cries mercy. As disappointing as this is, it's a reality of wooden boatbuiding. When you bend wood, sometimes it breaks. And when you're in boatbuilding school even a disappointment is an opportunity for learning.

Our plank may have cracked, but all is not lost. On the advice of our instructors, we've decided to try to salvage this plank by repairing the crack. Since the crack doesn't extend very far, a little epoxy and a bit of carbon fiber backing may be all that it needs to be as good as new. And even if the fix proves ineffective, and we have to cut out a new garboard, we'll still be able to salvage most of this red cedar for a later plank.

I'll end this week with our garboard wrapped and bandaged. We'll have to wait and see next week if our patient pulls through.

Planking begins - Week 8

2009-05-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

With Memorial Day this week, we were down to three days. Last week we drilled the hole for the propeller shaft, so this week we fit the motor mounts that will hold the engine in place. The first step is to make up a plywood "engine" the same dimensions as the real one. You can see ours in the photo below. This plywood template is a whole lot easier to move in and out of the boat than the real thing. In the picture the template is clamped to a wooden shaft and lined up just like the real one will be.

Here you see one of the engine beds being fit. The auxilliary floor timbers were cut away and beveled to fit the bottom (top in the picture) of the engine beds. The top edge is cut at an angle to match the orientation of the engine.

One of the reasons we're installing these engine beds now is because they are going to be bolted through the floor timbers. If we don't get them installed now, we'll have to drill through the planking, and the fewer holes through the planking the better.

Here you see the starboard side engine bed fit.

And the port side one is waiting for final fitting. Once it's fit, we can bolt them in and we'll be ready to fasten our garboard planks.

Fairing is continuing over on the port side.

Most of the material has been removed here at the forefoot, so we're getting really close.

And back aft, we've just got the inner keel and the adjacent floor timbers and sawn frames left to finalize.

Over on the starboard side we've had to fit a few patches where the rabbet ended up a little deeper than we wanted. It's important to have good contact between the back rabbet and the plank, so we're epoxying in a few pieces to fill these potential voids.

Once the epoxy has cured, we can plane down these pieces to match the surrounding rabbet. And with that complete, we're ready to begin planking.

There are a couple of steps before we're actually hanging planks. Since our first plank (the garboard) is defined along one edge by the rabbet, it's a good idea to make a pattern for that entire edge of the plank. Patterning a plank is what's know as spiling.

It takes a little time to make a full pattern for the rabbet edge, but a good fit will be worth the extra effort here. The trickiest section of the plank to pattern is here at the forefoot, where the plank is twisting into the rabbet. As mentioned last week, here the horizontal rabbet of the keel transitions into the vertical rabbet of the stem. We'll be asking the plank to take quite a twist as it bends. But we ask our 1/4" plywood pattern to do it first.

Not only does the garboard need to fit into the rabbet, but it also needs to fit against the cheek piece. After a little fitting, you can see here that the pattern fits tightly against the cheek piece. Hopefully the finished plank will do the same.

As we move aft, lets take a look at how we make our pattern. We start with a spiling batten, usually a piece of thin plywood.

There are may ways of scribing when making a pattern. The method we'll use here is called a compass scribe. Where the name comes from is pretty obvious from the next picture. To pattern the line (in this case the rabbet) use the compass to draw an arc on the spiling batten. The radius of the arc doesn't matter, so long as the arc fits on your batten and isn't so small that it becomes difficult to draw. One important thing to remember is not to change the radius on your compass while making your pattern. The reason for this will become evident in a minute.

Once you have arc every few inches defining the line your scribing, transfer the spiling batten to your stock. In most cases you'd go from the spiling batten directly to your planking stock, but since we're making a full pattern, we're still using patterning stock. With the point of the compass now on the arc drawn on the batten, make an arc on the pattern stock.

Now set the point of the compass at another point along the same arc on the spiling batten, and make another arc on your pattern, crossing the first. The point where these two arcs intersect is the point along the rabbet we scribed originally. Unless the radius on your compass has changed. Then who knows what you'll get.

Once this point is established, drive a nail and move on to the next point.

Once points have been establish the entire length of the rabbet, we use a batten to connect them and draw our line.

And now we have our rabbet line scribed onto our pattern. Now we just have to cut along the line and finish it off with a little planing.

Once the pattern is complete, it's time to make our plank. After milling the planking stock to the correct thickness, we lay the pattern on and transfer our lines. Since we took the time to make a full pattern along the rabbet, the bottom edge of the plank is easy enough to draw. We're simply tracing our pattern.

For the top edge of the plank, we established the edge of the plank at each of frames based on the plank lines we drew last week. So for the top edge, we'll use a batten to connect these point to get our line.

Once we've got the plank drawn, we cut it out and finish the edges with a plane.

And there you have it: our garboard plank. See what I mean about the shape of the plank? The far end which looked straight on the boat now has a definite curve to it.

With the plank ready for some final fitting, we first have to bend it to that shape at the forefoot. So it's off to the steam box for our plank. Thankfully the twist is only at the forward end of the plank, because as it turns out, our steam box isn't quite long enough for the whole plank.

After an hour of steaming, the plank took the bend without much difficulty. We've got it bent into position here and we didn't hear any of the telltale sounds of it breaking. We backed up the plank with a piece of thin plywood to help prevent the plank from splitting out and also to protect the soft red cedar from the clamps.

Underneath it looks pretty good.

Not too bad back aft either.

We'll leave the plank clamped like this over the weekend, so when we come back on Monday the plank will maintain the twist when we remove the clamps. We'll still have some fitting left to do, but we should have this one ready to fasten on before long.

It's only the first of the twenty planks we'll be hanging before the hull is complete, but it's still quite exciting to see it on the boat.

Lining out the planks - Week 7

2009-05-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

To start off the week we decided to take a break from fairing and bore the hole for the propeller shaft. The hole will go from the aft face of the sternpost through the deadwood and come out through the inner keel just forward of the floor timber at station 16. It's only about 24", but if you remember from a few weeks ago when we were assembling the backbone, there are two bolts through the deadwood that we'll have to avoid. When drilling for these bolts, we angled them so that we would leave enough room to bore the shaft between them. Now we'll find out if we left ourselves enough room.

To start we lay out where the shaft is going to go. Here we've drawn the centerline of the shaft on the side of the deadwood and marked where the shaft will exit through the sternpost.

Using a guide block similar to the ones we used when drilling for our keel bolts, we'll bore our hole using a barefoot auger that should make a nice straight hole.

The end of our guide block is cut to match the angle of the shaft. You can see that the centerline of the shaft matches perfectly with the centerline of the guide block lead hole. Once the guide is securely clamped to the sternpost, we're ready to go.

Even though we've taken our time making sure all our marks line up, it doesn't hurt to sight down the auger just to make sure everything looks as it should.

Now there's nothing left to do but start drilling.

Even though the hole is only about two feet long, it still takes a while since we're going through the end grain of the deadwood.

After we're about ten inches into the keel, we can remove the guide block. The hole we've got in the keel is more than enough to guide the auger the rest of the way.

On the inside of the boat, the auger came out right where we wanted it. But what about those bolts you ask? Well we did end up nicking them with the auger, but only very slightly. In the end we've got a nice clean hole through the bottom of our boat. It may sound counter intuitive, but we couldn't be more pleased.

With the shaft drilled, it's back to fairing. We're working on the port side cheek blocks now. To begin with we're concentrating on fairing the cheeks at each of the frames.

Once we can see that the plank will lay flat at the frames as in the picture below, we'll fair the cheeks between the frames and adjust our rabbet if necessary.

While we've still got some fairing to do over on the port side, the starboard side is ready for us to start lining out our planking. Regardless of whether you're building a carvel (like our catboat) or a lapstrake hull, before you can start planking you first have to line out all the planks. Lining out the planking means literally marking the top of each plank at the stem, the transom, and every frame between. To ensure a fair line we use battens so that we can easily see the plank lines.

The first batten is the top of the sheer strake. The sheer is one of the lofted lines of the boat, so we marked it on each of the frames back when we were assembling them. With a batten we connect these marks to verify that we have a nice fair line for our sheer.

Once the sheer has been established and we're satisfied that it's fair, we measure the girth at each of our stations. This is the distance from the rabbet to the sheer. Since the girth is greater at the middle of the hull than it is at either the transom or the stem, the planks will be widest at the middle and taper at both ends. Once you know the girth at each of the stations, it's possible to establish the taper based on these ratios, and the number of planks.

The second batten will mimic the sheer, tapering at each end. This batten is important because it establishes the lines of the topside planking (the next four or five planks most visible above the waterline).

With the sheer strake established with these two battens, we step back to see how it looks. Measuring the girth at each of the frames, we found that there wasn't much difference between the biggest and smallest, so the sheer plank could have been a uniform width over it's whole length, but we opted to taper it at each end. Why? Because it looks good. Sometimes it's as simple as that.

Each of the next planks parallels the bottom of the sheer, though these topside planks are a little narrower than the sheer strake. This is because the top of the sheer strake will be covered by a guard 1 1/2" wide. Once the guard is attached all these planks should look uniform.

While the planks taper at the ends, we kept the taper to a minimum to ensure that we would have room for fasteners. At the stem this is especially important since the planks will be under some pressure from the bend they're taking.

Similarly, the planks at the transom have a bit of twist to them, so maintaining enough room for fasteners is important here too.

As more battens go on, the shape of the hull starts to emerge. I think we were all a little surprised at just how shapely our little catboat is.

Once we have all the battens on, it's time to step back and make sure everything looks right.

At this point we're considering the shape of each of the planks, especially the garboard and broad strakes. The garboard is the plank next to the keel and the broads are the next two. In order for the topside planks to look uniform, the difference in girth is made up in these planks. In the case of the catboat, these planks are also forming the forefoot where the horizontal line of the keel rabbet meets the vertical line of the stem rabbet. These planks must be carefully lined out to create that transition. Remember that we've using 3/4" planking, and even with steaming there's only so much twist the red cedar will take before breaking.

At this stage we spend a lot of time looking at the plank lines and making small adjustments.

We look at the hull from every angle...

Visualizing the shape of the planks.

With a crowded shop it can be difficult to step back far enough to see the whole boat, so you improvise.

See what I mean about a shapely hull.

Too bad all that shape is going to be below the waterline.

It's important to remember too that we're building the hull upside down. So what will it look like right side up?

In the end you just have to stand back and say, "good enough." You could literally spend weeks lining out the planking if you kept fretting over little adjustments that in the end won't make any real difference. It's better to get things looking good, and call it. Otherwise you'll never get to hanging the planks.

Once we were pleased with the lines, we marked them on each of the frames, the stem, and the transom. While we've got the battens attached, we also marked with chalk anywhere on the frames that might need a little more beveling.

It's certainly been an exciting week, seeing the shape of the hull emerging. The only thing more exciting will be hanging that first plank.

Fairing continues - Week 6

2009-05-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

Fairing continues on the frames, cheeks, and transom as week six picks up right where we left off at the end of week five. The process of fairing has proven to be a great deal more time consuming than I think any one of us anticipated. This is perhaps not surprising since we're all fledgling boatbuilders, and therefore apprehensive about going too fast and making unnecessary mistakes. Part of learning a craft is finding that delicate balance between caution and speed. Right now, we tend towards caution, but speed (at least efficiency) is always at the back of our minds.

We pick up this week with Tim fairing the starboard side cheek pieces at the stem.

When we made these cheek pieces we left them quite proud, so here at the stem where the planks are coming in at a much greater angle there's a lot of material to remove. By using a batten the same thickness as the final planking (in our case 3/4") you're able to gauge the angle of the cheek piece more accurately than with a thinner, more flexible batten. In the picture below you can see that there is still more than a 1/4" to remove at the outside edge of the cheek.

Here Tim uses a rabbet plane to shape the cheek. As the name suggests, a rabbet plane is designed to carve a rabbet, so the iron (or blade) extends the full width of the plane. This means that the plane is perfect for creating the 90 degree corner we want where our planks intersect with the stem and keel.

When the batten sticks in the rabbet, you know you're getting close.

Fairing continues on the frames as well. We've got the starboard side pretty well faired, so we've moved on to the port side.

Just like we did on the other side, we're stringing battens between the frames every few inches and beveling those spots. Once we've gone over the whole frame, we'll fair between these spots.

To hold the battens in place, we're using a simple but effective method. Since we're checking the angles on the frames frequently, these plywood pieces are great. They hold the batten securely and they're so much quicker than clamping the batten in place each time.

Just like we did on the stem, we use a batten the same thickness as our planking for the final fairing. In the photo below, you can see the thicker batten on the right being use to fair the stem, while on the left a thinner batten is used for the initial fairing of the frames and stem.

Moving aft, we finish by fairing in the transom.

The angle looks pretty good. Just a little more material to remove to get to the final line we picked up off the lofting floor.

With the frames mostly complete over on the starboard side, we're fairing in the cheek pieces over the length of the keel.

Here Jonas demonstrates how the planks will lie against the frame and cheek.

Using the planking sample (or fid) we bevel the cheek at each of the frames, then fair between them.

Looks pretty fair from here. You can almost see that garboard plank already.

In between fairing, we also started making up our transom logs. A transom log is fastened along the inside edge of the transom to give the planks something to fastened into.

Looking from the outside, you get a better idea of why the logs are necessary. At the turn of the bilge (where the clamp is in the picture) any fastening into the transom would go directly into the end grain of the wood. End grain doesn't hold fasteners well, so we use a transom log. Along the rest of the transom the fasteners can go directly into the transom itself, since it is plenty thick and end grain isn't an issue.

It was a long week of fairing but I think the end is finally in sight. It's a good thing too, since we just passed the halfway mark in the quarter.

The fairing begins - Week 5

2009-05-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

At the end of last week we had the keel fit on the frames, which means this week we got to take it back off again, before putting it on once more. In boatbuilding this is pretty much the rule: put it together to make sure everything fits right, then take it all apart again, apply some goop (epoxy, 5200, Dolphinite, etc), then put it all together again for good. This makes a lot of sense 'cause if you've got a piece covered in epoxy that doesn't fit, you've got a mess on your hands, literally.

While we had the keel off, we took the liberty of trimming all those plugs in the cheeks and giving them a once over with the sander.

Sanding the cheeks now is a whole lot easier than when the boat is all put together. You'd spend many an hour crawling around the bilge sanding in every little nook and cranny, so why not spend fifteen minutes with a power sander now instead?

We also took the time to sand the inside face of the stem for the same reason.

A little bedding compound on all the floor timbers and frame ends and we're ready for final assembly.

With the keel back in position, we drive the bolts home, and fasten it all together.

We can also secure the stem in position. The jig that Tim built last week has been secured to the floor, and the two blocks can now be fastened down to hold the stem plumb during planking. The two pieces running alongside the stem are there to help us see if the stem is moving as we're hanging the planks.

With the keel now fastened to the floor timbers, we can also replace all the temporary floor timbers with the final ones. In the photo below we've removed one of the temporary floor timbers using a clamp to keep the inner keel securely in position.

We've already got our guide hole through the keel...

So we can just clamp on the floor timber and drill down through for the bolt.

With all the auxiliary floor timbers in position you can see the structure of the boat here is pretty stout. This makes perfect sense when you consider that these floor timbers are the supports for the engine.

The transom is also fastened to the sternpost at this point. Just as the stem is being held plumb, the sternpost will also be held plumb by the transom, thus correcting for the slight twist in our keel.

The transom is first clamped in position, then we drill for the bolts that will hold it to the sternpost.

Once the holes are drilled, it's just a matter of driving in the bolts...

And fastening it together.

And a nice result. When we plug these holes, we'll be careful to match the grain of the wood, so they'll be almost invisible. You can't, after all, have a lot of obvious plugs in your varnished transom.

Once the transom is fastened on, we can finish the last piece of our back rabbet. As you can see in the picture below, the inner keel ends at the stern post, so there's no landing for the planks aft of the inner keel.

Just like we did forward of the inner keel, we'll attach a cheek block here to create the back rabbet that the planks will fasten into. This cheek block is a lot smaller than the other ones, but it serves the same purpose. Note also the curve of the cheek block. This mimics the curve of the knee at the sternpost, adding a little style to our functional little piece.

As we've seen, most of our floor timbers are secured using bolts through the keel, but along the centerboard slot, this isn't feasible since the floor timbers would have to be cut away to make room for the centerboard. At these frames, the floor timbers are secured using brackets.

You'll probably notice a couple things about these brackets. First of all, yes they're carbon-fiber. We laid-up these brackets as a single long angle, then cut out the brackets. The choice of carbon-fiber was for two reasons: one, it's incredibly strong, and two, they'll last forever. And for all you traditionalists out there, not to worry, they'll be hidden away down in the bilge, so no one will be the wiser. You might also notice that the brackets extend up past the top of the keel. This wasn't an oversight, but rather intentional, since the centerboard trunk will sit atop the keel here and then the brackets can be secured into that as well.

With all those little tasks now complete, we're ready to start fairing the frames for the planking. In a carvel planked boat, that is a boat where the planks are butted up against one another creating a smooth hull, the planks must all lay flat against the frames. Since the hull is curved, the frames must each be beveled to match the angle of the planking.

You may have noticed already that our frames are all square at the ends. Typically the rolling (changing) bevel on each of the frames would be cut into the frames so that they were already beveled when they went onto the building jig. In our case, after picking up all the bevels off the loft, we opted to leave the frames square and fair in the bevels later so that we could verify with a batten that they were correct. In retrospect this may have been a bit too cautious since so far we haven't had any glaring inaccuracies in any of the parts we patterned off the loft (knock on wood), but better safe than sorry, especially the first time out.

Now to get these square frames beveled.

To begin with, we measure the amount of bevel at each frame using a batten. We'll string these battens across the length of the hull every few inches, making marks to indicate how much material we need to remove.

In the following picture you can see that in order for the batten to lay flat, the frame needs to be beveled towards the left.

In the next picture you can see a few of the marks that we've made to let us rough in the bevel. Similar to when we were carving the rabbet, we'll bevel the frames at these marks and then fair between them.

The auxiliary floor timbers we installed were left proud, so they also need to be faired in. Here Jonas is using a short batten to eye the bevel on the floor timbers.

Where there's a lot of material to be removed, it's best to remove it as quickly as possible. On these floor timbers a power plane works great.

The amount of bevel varies quite a bit over the length of the hull. Here at station 14 there's not much material at all that needs to be removed, and at the boats widest point the frames are left almost square. In contrast, as we saw in some earlier photos, the frames towards the bow will have quite a dramatic bevel as the planks curve in to the stem.

Once we get down close to our mark, we want to re-check the bevel with a batten. Here we're getting pretty close. Just a bit more to take off.

We're checking the bevel periodically, but for the most part, fairing the frames is a whole lot of planing...

And planing....

And planing...

Luckily a finely honed plane is a wonderful tool to use. Even on this purple heart which has an annoying tendency towards tearing out.

The frames on the starboard side are getting pretty close now. Once they're done, we'll have the port side to do, and the cheeks and rabbet to fair in as well.

But it isn't too hard to imagine that we'll be hanging our first planks before long.

Here comes the keel - Week 4

2009-05-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

As the fourth week of the quarter gets underway, we're bound and determined to see the keel on the building jig by the end of the week. Throughout the project we've been setting goals for ourselves, but more often than not, things have taken longer than we anticipate. Most of that stems from being students of boatbuilding and not seasoned shipwrights. We're constantly discovering additional things that need to be completed before something else can happen. But that's all part of the learning process. Still, a goal is a goal, so let's see how far we get this week...

Our first priority this week is finishing the rabbet. We left off last week having finished the rabbet on the starboard side and most of the port side. We've only got a few more pockets to carve at the stem...

And then fair them all together.

That's one thing to scratch from the to-do list.

Another of the things we want to accomplish before setting the keel on the building jig is fitting the bronze straps at the stern. As we said last week, these straps help to secure the deadwood, stern post, and keel together. Last week, we tapered this section of the keel, and now Tim is fitting the straps.

To minimize drag through the water, the straps are countersunk into the side of the keel, so that they're flush with the surrounding wood. In the above picture you can see the template Tim is using to route out the pockets for the straps.

And the result.

Not a bad fit at all.

With the pockets complete, the straps can be installed with a little bedding compound underneath.

It's almost a shame that we'll be covering these straps with bottom paint.

We're also installing our stopwaters this week. The set-up is pretty much the same as when we were drilling for our keel bolts. Here again we're using a boring block to ensure that we get a nice straight hole.

After our holes are drilled, we drive in our stopwaters. Stopwaters, for those of you not familiar, are softwood dowels (in this case red cedar) used anywhere there is a seam in the keel that could potentially allow water into the boat. In the photo below we have two stopwaters, one on each of the seams along the stem knee. If they weren't there water could potentially work its way along the seam between the stem and the keel and eventually make it's way behind the planking and into the boat. With a stopwater in place, any water that makes it that far, will cause the stopwater to swell and thus stop the leak.

With our rabbet finished, we can also install the rest of our cheek pieces. We start with the long piece that runs most of the length of the keel from the inner keel to the stem knee. This piece has already been fit, so it's just a matter of beveling the lower edge and installing it.

Our stem pieces still need a little work though. If you remember, these pieces have already been roughly fit to the bearding line, but they still need some final fitting and the bevel on the leading edge needs to be cut. Along the stem knee we're also cutting a curve into the inside edge. You can see the curve laid out in the picture below.

And here the curve is cut and faired through the two pieces. You can also see the bevel on the outside edge of these first two pieces. The bevel is left proud for now. Once we have the keel and the frames connected, we'll fair the cheeks between the frames and the rabbet to create our finished back rabbet.

Once all the pieces are fit, it's just a matter of pre-drilling for all the fasteners...

And putting it all together. Even though we're using some stout fasteners (#10, 2") we're still clamping everything together before fastening it. This is good practice, versus using the fasteners themselves to draw the pieces together. In our case, fastening together yellow cedar, which is relatively soft, you're likely to strip out your lead holes long before you've drawn the pieces together as tightly as you want. Remember, you're also working against the bedding compound, which has to squeeze out before the pieces come together.

And the results speak for themselves.

On the starboard side, we've already fastened on our long cheek piece, so it's just the stem pieces that need to be attached.

And here they are fit, faired, and fastened.

We also wanted to get the rest of the holes drilled for our remaining floor timber bolts. This is a lot easier to do when the keel is on the ground rather than suspended on the building jig. Just like with the others, we start by making a boring block, cut to the angle we want our hole. Then we lay out our hole and fasten the block in position.

Once we've got our block positioned correctly, we can bore our hole.

With all that completed there's not much left to do before hoisting the keel onto the jig. Does it look heavy to you?

Here's a little video to commemorate the occasion. By the way, this marks day 47 of our catboat project.

And it's on!

Well, not quite. Before the keel could slide into position, we had to trim a few of the frames and floor timbers where things were just a bit too tight. And in all the excitement we forgot we had to remove two of our temporary floor timbers because the real floor timbers were already on the frames. So we had to pause for a moment and pull a few bolts.

Now that looks better.

With the keel now on the building jig, we've got a few things to do before we can fasten it to the floor timbers and the frames.

Since we're building the catboat with a timber keel, we've got to expect the wood to move a little as it dries. Since milling the keel, it's developed a slight twist. We've got to take this out now before we fasten it onto the floor timbers and start planking otherwise we're stuck with it. To hold the stem plumb, we're basically fastening it to the floor. In the picture below Tim is working on the jig that will secure the stem. At the stern, the transom will secure the stern post plumb as well, thus taking the twist out .

We've also got a few holes to plug in those cheek pieces.

Before fastening on the keel, it's important to verify that the rabbet is correct. The frames and the rabbet need to line up, otherwise we'll have a problem when we start planking. In the picture, Jonas is using a one of our planking fids to check the rabbet.

Once we've checked the rabbet at each of the frames and made sure that all the frames are still fair and plumb, we're ready to drill for the bolts. We'll drill through each of the floor timbers, using the existing hole in the keel as a guide.

It takes a pretty long auger to get through some of the floor timbers.

We had a great week and I'm happy to say that we met our goal of getting the keel up on the building jig. Next week we'll lift the keel off, trim our plugs, give the cheek pieces a quick sanding, slather on some bedding compound, and bolt the whole works together for good.

But for now, let's just enjoy the view.

Carving the rabbet - Week 3

2009-04-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

With the sternpost bolted to the rest of the backbone, we started week three by tapering the stern section of our now fully assembled keel. We mentioned last week that the bolts in this section had to be angled in towards centerline to allow for this tapering, but neglected to mention the reason behind it. This aftermost section is tapered to allow a clean flow of water to the prop. It also helps the rudder to be more efficient.

Once the taper is laid out on the keel, it's time to remove some material. A power plane is good for removing large amounts of material quickly.

And a smoothing plane is great for getting rid of the ridges left by the power plane and creating an event surface.

A little sanding to finish the job never hurts.

For the port side Tim, decided to do things the old fashioned way. There are few tools more rewarding to work with than a finely tuned hand plane. And just look at all those shavings.

Just a few more passed with the jointer plane to finish the job.

Nice.

Stepping back a little you get a nice look at what the finished taper looks like.

In addition to tapering the aft section of the keel, we're also working on laying out the rabbet. The rabbet is where the planking connects to the backbone. In a carved rabbet like the one we're doing on the catboat, a continuous notch is cut into the backbone to fit the planks where the two come together. Along it's entire length the rabbet is defined by two points: where the outside of the planking intersects the side of the keel (called the rabbet line) and the bearding line, where the inside of the planking and the side of the keel intersect. Before we can carve the rabbet, we must first have these two lines (rabbet & bearding) defined over the entire length of our backbone.

Luckily we already have the rabbet and bearding lines marked at numerous points along each of the individual pieces of the backbone. Now that they're all assembled, all we have to do is connect the points and check that everything's fair.

To get a fair line between all of our known points, we use a batten just like when we were working on the loft floor. But unlike in the loft we don't necessarily want to drive a lot of nails into the piece we're working on. We can eliminate most of the nails by using sticks to hold the batten at each of our points.

The sticks are cut to a point, so they work just like a nail would, defining the line at a single point. In a few spots we'll go ahead and use nails because we'll be carving away the material anyway.

The batten is carried all the way aft. In this picture we can see how the bearding line fairs in with the inner keel at the stern.

Because the rabbet determines where the planking falls on the backbone, we're careful to make sure that both sides are the same, especially at the stem where any irregularity will be especially noticeable.

Since we're aiming to have both sides be symmetrical, we're using a lot of points to define our curve at the stem.

The result? Looks fair from here.

As the lines run aft, it's just as important to make sure that they are hitting all the same points on both sides, but because the curve is much more graceful the batten doesn't need to be fixed in as many points.

Once our rabbet and bearding lines are laid out on the backbone, we're ready to start carving the rabbet. Rather than carving the rabbet continuously from stem to stern, we start by carving pockets every six to eight inches. The spacing of the pockets is closer together where the rabbet is changing a lot, and further apart where the rabbet is more constant. Once we've got pockets carved the entire length of the rabbet, we can go back and carve out the rest, fairing between the pockets. Here's a quick look at how it's done:

We start by defining our pocket. In order to keep a clean edge on the rabbet and limit tear-out, it pays to score the rabbet and bearding lines.

To determine the angle of our rabbet, we use a block that is the same thickness as our planking will be, known as a fid. While holding the inside edge of the fid on the bearding line (on the right in the picture), use another block, or any straight edge, to extend the outside edge of the fid to the rabbet line. Once the fid is angled so that the inside of the "plank" is on the bearding line and the outside is on the rabbet line, you've got the angle at which your planks will intersect the keel at that point.

Our pocket is then carved to allow the fid to be notched into the keel at the determined angle.

Once our pocket is carved, the outside face of the fid is touching the rabbet line and the inside face the bearding line. While the angle changes over the length of the backbone, determining that angle is done exactly the same.

Once the angle of the planking is determined using the above method, a bevel gauge can be used to "remember" the angle while carving as Tim is doing in the picture below.

Creating the rabbet is a little different at the inner keel. As you may remember an inner keel extends the back rabbet at the stern of our catboat. Along the rest of the length, we'll use cheek pieces to do the same thing. These cheek pieces will be installed after the rabbet is carved, but in the case of the inner keel, it has already been installed. To create the rabbet here, we use the same method to determine the angle of the planking, then using a rabbet plane, we can bevel our inner keel to match that angle.

Then using the inner keel as a guide, cut the rabbet.

There's still a little bit to go, but we'll wait till we've got the backbone on the building jig to finalize the rabbet.

When carving the rabbet, the first few pockets take a while...

But soon things go pretty quick.

Good thing too, 'cause there are a lot of them to do.

As we get most of the pockets carved, we can start fairing between them, and the rabbet starts to emerge.

For the most part we're not worried about the ends of our pockets tearing out, because the material's going to be carved out anyway, but at the top of the stem you definitely want a clean edge. This is where the top of the steer strake will come into the stem, so you don't want to see a lot of tear-out here.

Not too shabby.

As the rabbet runs up the stem it gets a lot deeper 'cause here the planks are coming in at a much steeper angle.

We've almost got the starboard side done all the way.

Here's a nice look at the rabbet running forward.

Once the rabbet is carved far enough, we can start installing the cheek pieces I mentioned earlier. These pieces will extend the back rabbet (the surface contacting the inside of the plank) providing a greater surface area for fasteners. We've already made up these cheek pieces, so they're ready to be fastened on.

The bottom edge that will form the back rabbet has been beveled to minimize the amount we'll have to do once we've got it on the building jig.

As with the other parts of the backbone, we're using bedding compound between the cheek and the keel.

A few adjustments here and there, and we fasten it on.

All that's left to do now is clean up the squeeze-out.

Looks pretty cheeky. (Sorry.)

With the rabbet carved to the top of the stem, all that's left to do is...

Flip it over and start on the other side.

It's the same operation as the other side, so things go pretty quickly.

And so our third week of the quarter draws to a close with the rabbet almost complete.

Carving the rabbet is a bit of a milestone in wooden boatbuilding, not to mention a lot of fun. And once the rabbet is carved, planking isn't far behind. But that's a story for another time. First, we've got to finish this rabbet.

Keel continues & setup begins - Week 2

2009-04-17T07:40:00.001-07:00

When we left off last week, we'd drilled for the first five bolts in the aft section of the keel timber. On Monday we began by drilling for the final bolts which proved to be the most challenging by far. These bolts couldn't simply be drilled straight down through the keel like the others because at this point the stern tube which houses the propeller shaft comes into play. At the top of the keel the bolts must be as far from centerline as possible so that they pass on either side of the shaft, but not so far that they interfere with the carved rabbet. And when they emerge through the bottom, they must be on centerline to allow the keel to be tapered. Also, because there are two bolts at each floor timber one must be angled slightly forward and the other back, so that they emerge one in front of the other rather than intersecting. If this all sounds a bit confusing, that's because it is. We spent far more time figuring out how to bore these holes than the other ones, but in the end they came out the bottom almost exactly as we'd hoped. We'll find out when we drill for the stern tube if we left enough clearance. But we'll save that excitement for another day. Now on to the rest of this week.

Once the final bolt holes were drilled, we were ready to assemble the after section of our backbone. After applying a little bedding compound to all the seams...

We could start driving in the bolts...

And don't forget a twist of cotton under each washer before driving them home.

We were debating whether or not to put the cotton in at this point since we're going to be removing these bolts when it comes time to bore through the real floor timbers, but we decided that it wouldn't hurt. And it would remind us to put the cotton back in the next time we're driving in these bolts.

For the holes we'd drilled on Monday, we still had to make up some temporary floor timbers for the bolts to land on. The holes through these floor timbers had to line up just right. The easiest way to do this is just to clamp the floor timbers on and bore up through the existing hole and through the floor timber. Perfect every time.

Here we have a couple bolts driven partway in to index the pieces. We were most worried about the smaller deadwood piece (small triangle with all the squeeze-out around it) moving when we started to bore, but having all the pieces indexed helps keep everything lined up the way you want it.

Here you can see the temporary floor timbers clamped to the inner keel waiting for the auger to do its work.

Here's a good look at the whole operation. You might also get a better idea of why those last few holes made us scratch our heads a bit. Not really a good time to just sight down the bit to get the hole you're after.

Here goes Tim on the auger.

This looks like an extreme operation, but the auger will follow the existing hole pretty much effortlessly, so as long as the floor timbers stay clamped on, there's now too much to worry about here.

Just don't hit the clamps on the other end with the auger...

Plenty of room.

Once we had the two remaining floor timbers bored it was just a matter of driving in the last of the bolts and tightening them all up. And a little clean-up too...

Not a bad result.

So far we've been doing all this fitting up on the loft floor, but now it's time we move down to the shop floor. Up until this point we've been hauling the pieces up the stairs, but that won't be feasible now that we've got everything bolted together. What we decide to do was cut away part of the loft railing and just ease it down to the shop floor. A simple operation but one that needs a bit of manpower. For this we enlisted our lofting class. Here in the boatbuilding department you begin your first quarter in the loft, so this is only the second week in the shop for these students. It was a good opportunity to get them involved in what's happening on the shop floor below and they were all happy to lend a hand.

So here we go...

Watch the ventilation, Jonas...

Ease it down...

Little more...

"Have you got it down there?"

And set it down gently...

Success! As I said, an easy task when you have enough people lending a hand. Thanks everyone!

With the backbone now safely down on the shop floor, Tim started on the stern post, which we hadn't fastened on in the loft. The sternpost is notched (as you see in the photo) to hold the transom.

The stern post is held on with a few different pieces of hardware. The rectangles drawn on the piece in this picture represent bronze straps that will be countersunk and fastened into the side of the deadwood/sternpost. These bronze straps may or may not be temporarily attached before we taper this section.

The sternpost will be primarily attached using two bolts. The upper bolt goes through the last floor timber and a knee before going through the stern post. At the top of the next picture you can see the knee in place behind the floor timber with the bolt hole drilled through it. You can also see towards the bottom a hole through the side of the deadwood. This is the second bolt, known as a pocket bolt. The blot will pass through the whole in the end, while the hole in the side allows you to get the nut onto it. Once the hole is plugged, you'll never know it's there.

While Tim worked on the sternpost, Jonas began the building jig which you can see the start of in the photo below. We'll see more of that later, but for now, we'll stay with the backbone and look at the cheek pieces that I've been working on. You can see the beginning of two of the pieces to the right in this picture.

Here they are with the pattern clamped on.

Do you recognize the pattern? Yes, it's same pattern that we used before for the keel. That's the great thing about saving your patterns. You can use the same pattern for different things and by using the same one rather than making a new one each time, you know that the pieces you're making will match. Not much room for error when you use the same pattern.

The cheek pieces that I'm making will be fastened to the side of the keel to extend the back rabbet. Just like we talked about with the inner keel at the stern, the cheek pieces create a larger surface into which to fasten the planking along the keel and stem. This will be clearer once we've carved the rabbet and you can see how it all comes together.

Here you see the two longest cheek pieces cut out. These will run from the inner keel to the stem knee. The cheek pieces will fair in with the inner keel to create a single fair curve.

Here you can start to get an idea of the graceful line of the planking as it sweeps aft.

With the two midships cheek pieces now fit, you get an idea of the true bulk of the backbone. And we thought it was heavy when we brought it down from the loft. Wait till we go to set it on the building jig!

Moving on to the stem cheeks, the first step was to lay out our waterlines on the stem so that we have a point of reference. With the waterlines as reference we go back to the loft to find the bearding line along the stem. The bearding line is the inside of the planking at the side of the stem, so this the line that the cheek pieces line up with.

To take the measurements for the bearding line you could use a tape measure, but an easier way is to use a tick stick, also called a story stick. With a tick stick you simply line up the stick along the line you're measuring, in the photo below it's the 30" waterline. Starting with the stick at the forward face of the stem, simply make a mark at the bearding line.

Then take your tick stick to the piece you're laying out and line it up along the same waterline, and make your mark. It couldn't be much easier, or more accurate than that.

With the bearding line layed out on the stem we can make some patterns for the stem cheek pieces. Here's the rough shape the cheek pieces will take.

Once the patterns are layed out use a batten to get a nice fair line. Since the final edge of the cheek piece will be based on the bearding line on the keel this cut will be left proud, but it should still be cut roughly to shape.

Here are the cheek piece patterns on the stem. The middle piece just needs to be faired in with the other two.

After milling the stock, it's just a matter of tracing the patterns and cutting out your pieces.

And the result.

The top edge along the knee will be faired into a curve later, but for fitting, keeping those edges straight makes things much easier.

Now what's Jonas been up to all this time. Lets take a look.

Here's the building jig that he's been constructing nearly complete with the sawn frames waiting to be set up.

And with the morning sun shining through the shop windows, the set up begins. When initially setting up the frames, your chief concern is getting them all lined up evenly fore and aft along the centerline. Here having our centerline marked on the cross-spalls really helps.

It's starting to come together. Here's station 2 set up. The cross-spall that I mentioned is the piece of pine that is resting on the top of the building jig between the two frames. These are all fastened to the frames at the same height so that when they're all set up on the building they'll be at the correct height to each other. The piece at the top, where the sawn frames come together, is the floor timber. These will be fastened to the keel to hold everything together.

The more stations that go onto the building frame the more the shape of the boat starts to emerge.

We're almost to the widest point in the boat. Only station 10 is wider. Did we mention that this is a beamy little boat?

Attaching the frames to the building jig is pretty straight forward, but getting everything just right takes a lot of checking and re-checking.

As the boat grows people can't help but smile when they see it. I think Jonas' smile is the biggest though. Dreams of gunkholing through the San Juans no doubt. Hopefully the boat will be right-side up then though.

With all the frames set up, she's already looking pretty fair.

Not much you can say. I mean, just look at it. Awesome.

Even the keel can't stop staring at those lovely frames.

It's been another good week. I can't wait to see what she looks like with the keel on top of those frames.

Backbone assembly begins - Week 1

2009-04-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

It was with a productive week that we kicked off this new quarter. When we left off before the break, we had completed nearly all the pieces that will come together to form the backbone of the catboat. We'd also assembled all the sawn frames that will give the boat its shape. Now it's time to put it all together. But first we've got to cut the centerboard slot through the keel. We considered a few different ways to do this, but decided on one that would allow us to use one of the cooler tools here at school: an 18" blade circular saw. Yeah, they don't come much bigger than that.

After laying out the centerboard slot on the keel, first we'll drill a whole at each end of the slot, then using the saw we'll simply cut between the two. Here's Jonas on the first of the holes.

To insure that the hole is at the right angle, we're using a guide block with a hole already drilled through it. The bottom edge of the guide block is cut to the correct angle that we want to bore. To keep the hole nice and straight we're using a "barefoot" auger, an auger with the lead ground off to prevent it from tracking off coarse as it bores through the timber.

And here I am drilling the hole at the other end.

With the holes drilled to define the ends of the centerboard slot, it's on to the fun part. We've clamped a piece of plywood to the side of the keel to line up where the slot is to be cut. The plywood serves as our guide as we make the plunge cut into the keel and it keeps the cut nice and straight.

As I said before the circular saw we're using has an 18" diameter blade, but even with such a large blade it only has a maximum depth of cut of about 6", so we'll have to cut it from both sides to get all the way through. But enough yapping, lets get to cutting.

Aside from the initial torque when you first pull the trigger, this saw is pretty smooth. And since we're cutting Alaskan yellow cedar, the saw plunged right in. The weight of the saw would make it a bit of a bear if you were using it all day long, but for what we were doing it wasn't bad at all.

With the saw plunged all the way into the keel, cutting straight through proved difficult, but we found that by plunging the saw as we went, the cut went easily enough.

A lot of saw dust though.

With one cut complete, it's on to the second. This time donning a dust mask so as to set a good example for all the kiddies out there.

Here's a good look at the whole keel while we wait for me to finish the cut.

Two cuts complete, we flip the keel and start from the other side. If everything lines up the way we planned these cuts will line up perfectly with the two we made from the other side and we'll have our centerboard slot.

Anytime you're wielding a saw like this one you're bound to draw a crowd, so by the last cut we had a few spectators. This final cut proved a little more difficult than the others as the piece we're cutting out was pinching the blade in the kerf. But we persevered.

And with the work of the circular saw complete all that's left to do is finish off the cuts the old fashioned way.

A little chisel work and a little sanding...

And we've got ourselves a centerboard slot. Not bad if I do say so myself.

After standing back to admire our handy work on the centerboard slot, we hauled the keel back up to the loft to begin assembly. We'll assemble all the pieces of the backbone right on the loft floor to ensure that everything lines up just right. We'll start with the stem. After a little final fitting, we drilled the holes for the bolts that will hold the stem to the knee and the knee to the keel, and thus the stem to the keel too. Did you follow that?

Here's the stem all fit and fastened.

Once we had everything dry fit just perfectly, we took it all apart again. After we have it together again the next time, it should never have to come apart again. For final assembly we use bedding compound...

And a twist of cotton under each of the washers.

Now that's a fine looking stem.

Moving aft, we had to remake the lower deadwood piece (the smaller triangle, slightly darker in color) 'cause the original was just little bit too small. Luckily we had a scrap that was about the right side. It's a good fit now.

Before we can bolt together the stern section of the backbone there are a few things we have to do. First, we have to nib in the inner keel. For most of the length of the keel there is a cheek piece attached to each side of the keel to extend the back rabbet, but at the deadwood, there is an inner keel that serves that purpose. The back rabbet is the surface of keel against which the inside face of the plank lies. The back rabbet is extended to provide more surface for fastening the planks to the backbone.

The inner keel is nibbed into the top of the keel rather than having it taper down to a feather edge which can be a bit fragile. After laying out the nib, we cut a series of saw kerfs. This allows the quick removal of the material with a slick.

See how quick that was...

And not a bad looking fit either.

You can see now where the inner keel will lay on top of the deadwood. We decided to add a knee between the inner keel and the stern post for a bit of added strength.

With the nib cut, we put the inner keel piece in the steam box for a few minutes, then bent it into place. It lay into place perfectly.

With the inner keel in place and everything lined up, we could start drilling the holes for the bolts that will hold it all together. First though we made up some temporary floor timber pieces to line up the auger and provide a flat surface for the bolts to land on. Notice that each of the temporary keel pieces is cut at a different angle to match the angle of the inner keel at their specific location.

Now we just need to bolt it all together. Once we have the keel on the building jig, we'll simply remove the temporary floor timbers one at a time and install the real ones which are already fastened to the frames.

And that ends our first week back in the boatshop. Definitely a productive start to the quarter.

In closing I leave you with this parting shot of the keel and stem assembly. This is the first time our little catboat got to sit on her keel.

First Day of Spring - Introductions

2009-04-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

It's the beginning of the new quarter, but the project to which this blog is dedicated is already well underway. We began lofting the catboat, midway through last quarter, so we've been at it for about six weeks. We're making good progress, but most of the project is ahead of us.

There are primarily three of us working on the project, but we'll have a few guest appearances from time to time. By way of introduction, here's a shot of two thirds of our crew:

Tim is on the left, Jonas on the right, and my name is Martin. I'm not in the picture 'cause I'm the one taking it, but there'll be pictures of me to come. We are all students in the boatbuilding program at Seattle Central Community College's Wood Construction Center. Check out their website for information on the school. Now, on to the project at hand.

Our project is an 18' Fenwick Williams Catboat. This is the lines drawing from the building plans which shows the shape of the hull in all three dimensions. For anyone not familiar with boat plans, what you're looking at are the profile (top left), half-breadth (bottom left), and body plan (right) views of the boat. These drawings let you visualize what the finished hull will look like. And yes, she will be a beamy girl. The process of lofting is taking these scaled down plans and drawing them out full size on the loft floor. This allows you to create patterns and ensure that the boat you build will be just as fair as the one the designer envisioned.

Here's another page from the building plans that lets you imagine what this little catboat will look like when she's plying the waters around the San Juan Islands:

Once the loft was complete, we started in on the patterns. All the pieces that will eventually come together on the building jig to form the structure of the boat are first patterned right off the loft floor including the sawn frames, stem, keel, stern post, deadwood, floor timbers, etc. By patterning the pieces off the loft which has already been proven fair, the lines of the boat in construction will also be fair. That's the theory at least.

The first pieces we patterned were the sawn frames. The sawn frames are spaced every two feet for the length of the boat and it is to these that the planks will be fastened. Oftentimes molds will be patterned off the loft, the planks fastened to these, and the frames steamed and bent in afterward. In this case, the sawn frames take the place of the molds and rather than being discarded when the boat is removed from the building jig, they will remain part of the boat. Once the shape of the hull has been established by the planking, steamed frames will be installed between the sawn ones to supplement them and give the hull added strength.

Here's a look at the making of a sawn frame:

While there are many ways to spile (make a pattern) this is the way we found to be the most effective. First, we tacked a batten along the line that we wanted to pattern. In the photo above we're looking at the outside edge of the hull at station 14.

Next, we scribe the line onto our patterning stock using a scribing block. Note that the scribe block has two "fingers" separated by a gap that allows it to straddle the pattern stock which is rough cut to the shape desired but necessarily left proud. Also note that the finger on top is longer than the bottom one. This is because the lofted lines are drawn to the outside of the planking. This isn't always the case and depends on the designers preference. Since the pattern we're making is for the sawn frame which is at the inside of the planking, the longer finger compensates for the thickness of the planking, in our case, 3/4".

Once the frames were patterned, it was on to production. Since the shape of the frames is sawn into them it isn't feasible to cut frames out of a single piece of wood. The piece required would have to have an extraordinary natural bend to match the shape of our little catboat, so rather than scour the forests of South America for the perfect piece of purple heart, we opted to just make two part frames and join them together. As with everything in boatbuilding, there are many ways of joining these frame parts. The way we chose was the one described on the plans, which is to join the two pieces with a gusset on either side. Here we see Tim fitting just such a gusset, for station 12 I believe.

And it's not just the frames that we're making patterns for. All the parts that will eventually be assembled on the building jig are first patterned off the loft. Here's a shot of me patterning the keel timber using the scribe back method:

And the completed keel pattern in all it's glory. Note all the assembled frames in the upper right. While at times it seemed like progress was slow, the pile of parts was growing steadily.

With all the frames assembled, it was time to fasten them together. Since the two frames pairs don't actually touch each other, they are held together at their base by the floor timber. The floor timber also holds the frame to the keel. In the photo below of station 6, you can see that the floor timber (with the blue tape labels) is also notched to fit over the keel. You also see the cross spawl, which at this point is helping hold the whole thing together, but will also help line everything up when it comes time to put it all together on the building jig.

Since each frame pair has a cross spale at the same height, it is easy to make sure the frames are all level. And with the aid of a centerline drawn on each of the spawls lining them up is fairly straight forward.I have to say that a great deal of time was spent making sure that each station (frame pair) was symmetrical, and that the spawls were level and at a uniform height, but the thoroughness will no doubt pay off when we get to assembly.

By the end of the quarter we had all our frames completed. Here are the forward frames:

And the after ones:

If you look back at the lines drawing at the beginning of this posting, I hope you find more than a passing resemblance between these stations and the ones drawn in the body plan.

Before the end of the quarter, we also finished patterning, cutting out, and fitting all the pieces of the "backbone" (i.e. stem, stem knee, keel, deadwood, stern post). Here we see Jonas fitting the stem to the keel. Like the frames, these parts are fit right on the loft. This helps make sure everything ends up just the way Mr. Fenwick Williams intended. If you look closely you can also see the knee that will connect the stem and the keel drawn in the loft.

And here are the pieces of the stern fit and ready for assembly. The aft face of the stern post is notch to hold the transom when everything is assembled. Funny, we didn't get any pictures of the transom, but rest assured we've got that ready to go on the building jig too.

And with that we're pretty much up to date. Let spring begin.