Boat Plans Bateau | Falling down below

Boat Plans Bateau

THE ESTEEMED early-20th-century boat designer William Atkin once designed for himself a 29-foot wooden sloop that was remarkable in my eyes for one particular thing — she had no companionway steps.

“If you drop down into the cabin of Ben Bow (and you will have to drop down because there is no companion ladder) you will find the bunks aft, then the galley, then two pipe berths, with a water closet near the foot of the mast,” Atkin wrote in his book Of Yachts and Men.

“As I have just mentioned, in Ben Bow we do not have a companion ladder. Sort of a man’s boat she is. We are not yet so old or stiff as to be unequal to scrambling in or out her cabin.

“Just two steps does it, one being a projection shod with a bit of brass on the bulkhead, the second being a corner of the starboard locker top. And so we are rid of a ladder, a piece of furniture which is always, I feel, too much in the way.

“The ladies? Well, God bless ’em, we might lower them away on the end of a rope. Somehow women generally do not love boats. Think they are a little jealous of them, just a little. Or perhaps their natures are too much alike . . . uncertain sort’a, and feminine, and — well I suppose I shall have to admit it — lovely.

“The cabin has among other features, one wide berth on the port side set high from the floor and with large lockers underneath. Even our old friend Abel Brown, who tells racy tales about berths, cannot quarrel much with the dimensions of this one; ‘big enough for perfect comfort under any situation,’ he might have remarked.”

It was surely a strange aberration that made Atkin omit a companionway ladder on his own boat. It wasn’t something he normally did on the hundreds of other boats he designed. It’s true that the darned ladder does take up precious space on a small boat, but if you’re a man who wants to share the pleasure of sailing with a wife or lady friend it is surely an act of gallantry to provide decent access from the cabin to the cockpit. Sort of like flinging your cloak into a puddle, so Her Majesty can keep her dainty slippers dry. Only more permanent. And a definite investment in marital bliss.

Today’s Thought

The hardest step is that over the threshold.

— James Howell,  Proverbs. No. 7

Tailpiece

Groucho Marx once opened a drawer by mistake in a friend’s home. He found a Colt automatic pistol surrounded by several small pearl-handled revolvers.

“My God,” he said, “This gat has had gittens.”

Do you find information about Boat Plans Bateau are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Bateau. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Building | The truth about offshore sailing

Boat Plans Building

IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN to a landlubber what offshore sailing is all about. But William G. Homewood found a way to do it, after he had raced from Newport, Rhode Island, to Bermuda and back in a Ranger 26.

This is his description, as recorded in Richard Henderson’s book, Choice Yacht Designs:

“First, at home, you should go into the bedroom fully dressed and pour a bucket of water over your head. Put on your foul-weather gear and harness.  Prop up one side of the bed to an angle of 20 degrees, then pour a bucket of water over the pillow and bedding.

“Engage the services of a fork-lift (and operator) who will lift one corner of your house up into the air six feet and then let it drop down with a bang.  He should do this all night long, intermittently, without warning. Now, go to bed.

“After one hour of sleep it will be time to get out of bed, open the sliding door to the balcony, and peer out (checking the sails). At this moment a friend, well hidden, should throw a bucket of water onto the back of your head. Your jacket hood must be in the off position, as this will allow the water to run down your neck. . . .  As  you turn to go back into the bedroom, another well-hidden friend should club you over the head with a two-by-four. This simulates head blows from the  bulkheads. . . .”

There’s more that a landlubber needs to know, of course. You should fill your rubber boots with water and you should remember to throw up only on the lee side of the cockpit. You should preferably practice walking with one leg shorter than the other so as to remain upright on the slanted deck and you should develop arms like a gorilla’s so you can hang on to the handholds when a wave tries to wash you overboard.

You should also practice holding your bladder for at least eight hours because it’s impossible to get a hand on the outlet from your urinary tract when you’ve got a whole bunch of layers of clothing and waterproof pants on.

As for cheerful, sustaining hot meals — um, well, sorry feller. Ain’t gonna happen.

Today’s Thought

We have all sinned and come short of the glory of making ourselves as comfortable as we easily might have done.

— Samuel Butler the Younger, The Way of All Flesh

Tailpiece

Adolescence is a period of rapid change. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for instance, a parent can age as much as 20 years.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Do you find information about Boat Plans Building are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Building. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans And Kits | Cross beams

Boat Plans And Kits

This was an exciting day because for the first time, the boat was one piece.  Not just a pile of lumber.  Not just a bunch of stringers.  But one single solid piece that was even boat shaped.  More or less.

Earlier when we were making the pieces for the stringers we trimmed a bunch of edges off of 2x4s.  Now we got to use the table saw to make some really weird-shaped boards.

We cut an edge off here, and a corner here.  There was a beam on either side of the bottom, a beam on either side of the top (the one near the ground since the hull is being built upside down), and a porch beam  that supported the edge of each of the two porches, for a total of six beams that hold the boat together latitudinally.

We epoxied and screwed these beams into place, making the boat a single piece.  We were so stoked that we pretty much took a photo from every possible angle.

There is an additional bonus beam not pictured here that we totally forgot until later.  It is clearly indicated in the plans, has notches in the stringers and so on.  I just overlooked it when we were makin stuff.  It is the motorwell mount.  It goes across the raked end of the bow, uh stern.  We realized it was missing after we finished the beams and so notched the stringers and installed it.  So imagine that in the photo below.

And then Kai took a nap.

Do you find information about Boat Plans And Kits are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans And Kits. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Plywood Boat Plans | Fiberglass Fill Coat

Plywood Boat Plans

At this point, we have the fiberglass bonded to the boat with a layer of epoxy.  The texture of the cloth is still quite visible, so we have to add enough epoxy that it is invisibly hidden.

Since by now we are grizzled veterans of fiberglassing, the work was not so stressful and only required a team of two -- one person to mix and deliver the epoxy to the other person who is applying it with a dense foam roller.

 We had to work quickly on a hot day to apply the epoxy before it kicked off. 

Then we went around and brushed over any drips or places where it was funky.  We had varying success preventing drips.  Later we noticed plenty of places where it required work with a sander to make sure the next coat was smooth.

Each day after we finished a fill or finish coat we were pretty sure our work was done and that the texture of the underlying cloth was invisible.

And each work day when we returned, we could still see the texture of the cloth through the previous coat.  So we were obligated to add another finish coat.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Do you find information about Plywood Boat Plans are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Plywood Boat Plans. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Bolger | Epoxy warfare on my deck

Boat Plans Bolger

AFTER PAINTING TWO BOATS with twin-pack polyurethane paint, I thought I knew all about polyester urethanes. I was wrong.

After I had finished the second boat, the surveyor came along. Tap, tap, tap, he went, all over the hull and decks of my sweet little 22-foot Santana.

He approached me with a long face. “Bad news,” he said, “your deck is delaminating.”

“What?” I cried. “Impossible. I’ve just been all over it. Sanded it. Painted it. There was nothing wrong with it.”

“Come and listen,” he said. He tapped the deck and it made that sickening dull thud, instead of a nice bright ring.

“Omigod,” I said.

There was no doubt about it. Something was badly amiss. We pondered it together, and eventually I decided there was nothing to lose.

I took a sharp knife and cut into the deck. I pulled back a strip. It was all paint. The deck underneath was as solid as ever.

“The paint hasn’t stuck,” the surveyor said. “How did you do this?”

I told him I’d sanded down the old deck paint. I applied a coat of Interlux epoxy primer. Then, having run out of that particular paint on the weekend, I grabbed some more epoxy primer from my nearest Ace Hardware store, and applied that. Before it cured, I sprinkled sand over it, 30-grit sand from a local builder’s yard. When the epoxy dried, I brushed off the excess sand lying on top with a soft brush.

Then I painted on two coats of Interlux twin-pack polyurethane. The result was magnificent. Better than new. Much better. Until the surveyor came along.

We poked around the deck some more and found that we could peel the new deck off by hand. Large chunks of  it came away as we togged. The epoxy and polyurethane and sand had formed a thick pliable skin — but it was not attached to the old deck. Underneath this skin, and on top of the old deck, was a sweet-smelling layer of some kind of liquid chemical.

“Aha,” said the surveyor, who was a smart man. “Incompatible epoxies.” He explained that the Interlux epoxy and the Ace Hardware epoxy had not liked each other. They had not got on well together at all. One of the other had revolted and formed this liquid layer that had prevented the top layers from sticking to the deck.

So I pulled off the new layer of deck paint like you’d peel the skin off a banana, scrubbed the whole deck down with acetone, and started again, this time with two epoxy coats from Interlux. And this time it worked. But it was a hard way to learn that different epoxies hate each other so much. I always thought epoxy was epoxy. Anyway, for someone who thought he knew all about twin-pack polyurethane, it was a humbling lesson.

Today’s Thought

Good painting is like good cooking: it can be tasted, but not explained.

— Vlaminck, On Painting

Tailpiece

“Johnny, who was the roundest knight at the Round Table of King Arthur?”

“Sir Cumference, sir.”

“Very good. And how did he achieve his great size?”

“From too much pi, sir.”

Do you find information about Boat Plans Bolger are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Bolger. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Dinghy Boat Plans | Hockey Puck Manufacture or Epoxy is Stressful II

Dinghy Boat Plans

Did I mention that epoxy is stressful?  To recap:  You have 15 to 30 minutes to get a bucket full of epoxy mixed, applied, and secured down before it turns into a rock-hard mistake that must be laboriously chipped, chiseled, and sanded off. 

Add to that, less than ideal conditions of 95°F days and adding a thickening filler that reduces the epoxy pot-life by a huge factor. 

During our days of mixing thickened epoxy (to adhere joints together and fill gaps), we inadvertently manufactured many hockey pucks in the bottom of our mixing containers. 

But by far the most interesting mistake I made was one one particularly hot day that I made a triple batch.  I broke the batch down into three containers, and successfully used the first batch before realizing that the other two batches had already begun to gel.  One of the three had kicked off dramatically and begun to melt through the plastic mixing container.  I set it out in the yard somewhere safe.

"Before Its Time"  2012.  Mixed Media: Plastic, epoxy resin, natural materials.

It formed an interesting, uh, sculpture as all the epoxy melting through the bottom oozed into and solidified around various bits of yard mulch.

Here is out collection of hockey pucks and sculptures weve created.  As we move to finishing the hull, well be mixing thin batches with no filler, so the likelihood of unexpected epoxy disasters decreases.

This is what a long day of working with epoxy does to me.


Do you find information about Dinghy Boat Plans are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Dinghy Boat Plans. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Uk | Epoxy is Stressful

Boat Plans Uk

You know the scene at the end of any action movie where the hero has minutes to disarm the bomb, cutting the wires in just the right sequence or he blows up the 747 full of schoolkids?  Working with epoxy is just like that.

In short, using epoxy involves mixing two dangerous chemicals together to make a viscous adhesive so powerful it permanently bonds anything it touches.  You have minutes before it reaches critical temperatures and kicks off like a bomb.  And if you do it wrong, at best, you completely ruin your work, and at worst it burst into a violent conflagration.

Okay, thats overstated, but isnt really too far from the truth.

Back in the day there were a few waterproof adhesives that were used for boat building.  Ive never used them, so for me, they are largely mythical.  Some came in powder that you mixed with water.  Some had multiple parts you mixed together. But for the last several decades, epoxy is king.

Until I started researching boat building methods, I really didnt understand epoxy.  Epoxy was just something I squirted out of tiny twin tubes now and then to fix something that wouldnt stay together with a liberal coating of Elmers.  Who would have thought Id be brushing epoxy on to 2x4s and plywood with a paintbrush by the bucketful?

After wading through books on fiberglass boat building, Im wise to its ways.  Epoxy is simply a hard plastic that comes in (generally) two parts that you mix together and apply as a viscous liquid.  The formulation contains a resin and a hardener -- and several other things including stabilizers, thinners, accelerators, decelerators, fillers, and sometimes waxes -- that together make a polymerized plastic goo.  When hardened, it is much stronger than the wood it is adhering together.  Two pieces of wood epoxied together are for all practical purposes one piece of wood.

Epoxy is commonly the stuff that is used with woven glass cloth to make fiberglass.  Together, the two make a super tough, resilient compound material.

The reaction of the resin and hardener is exothermic and sets up hard as the result of the heat generated by rapid oxidation.  What that means, is that from the moment you pour the hardener into your resin, the clock is ticking.

Chemicals in epoxy are varying degrees of poisonous.  It is recommended that you wear eye, skin, and respiratory protection.  In practice, we regularly only used skin protection in the form of a release cream for our hands and latex gloves.  Principally because the epoxy is uncomfortably sticky and once stuck to your skin, more or less permanent.

Kai had some experience with epoxy (she helped her dad fiberglass his submarine!), so that helped take the edge of terrible uncertainly that was epoxy for me.  Still, it is stressful.  Preparation, planning, and timing are everything.

We had the "slow" epoxy formulation that under ideal conditions (70-80 degrees Ferenheit, medium humidity) takes an hour to set.  What were ideal conditions for us, a sunny barnyard, were less than ideal conditions for epoxy.  We had about 20 to 40 minutes to work with the epoxy before it rapidly started turning hard as a rock.  Despite all of our planning, we had a few containers of epoxy kick off faster than we could use them, resulting in a few hard plastic hockey pucks.

Before any complicated assembly we carefully discussed our game plan before we committed with the epoxy hardener. A simple plan might look like this:

1. Set up the epoxy station, level the surface (for volume measurements).
2. Get the drill ready with the extension cord, correct star bit, and screws.
3. Put wax paper under everything.
4. Turn the pieces adhesive-side up, mark places to epoxy.
5. Measure out single batch of  resin, do a final check.
6. Add hardener and stir for at least one minute, scraping the sides.
7. Apply first coat to all surfaces to be adhered.
8. Measure out 2nd single batch of resin, final check.
9. Add hardener and stir for one minute.
10. Add filler (silica) to thicken.
11. Apply 2nd coat of thickened goo to one surface.
12. Assemble pieces, screwing as you go.
13. Smooth out excess goo that may have squished out

 

As recommended on the Glen-L Waterlodge plans, we used epoxy to adhere every single joint and piece of plywood together.  We used it to "encapsulate" piece of wood, that is, seal them completely in epoxy so they are waterproof and rot-proof.  And later we will use it to cover the hull of the boat in fiberglass.

So when you see in future build days that we say something like "assembled side stringer," understand that this means cutting all the pieces, assembling them for fit, and epoxying and screwing every single joint.

Do you find information about Boat Plans Uk are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Uk. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Wooden | Keel and Skeg Stringers

Boat Plans Wooden

It most conventionally built wooden boats, the frames refer to what you might think of as the "ribs" of the boat running across ways (thats "athwartship," to you, matey!).  In the Glen-L Waterlodge, the framing members run longitudinally and are called stringers.

So building the boat frame means assembling the individual stringers and then tying them together with various cross beams. 

There were five stringers total.  Two side stringers, one keel stringer in the middle, and two "skeg stringers" between the keel and the side stringers. While the plans are relatively straightforward about building the stringers, there are lots of pesky details to consider, notches for cross beams, plywood reinforcement, butt blocks to make sure the plywood on the side stringers didnt leak, and a subtle curve to the deck that will sit on top of the stringers.

The keel stringer used big pieces of plywood to structurally reinforce the member and did not have overlapping two-by pieces.  The skeg stringers did have overlapping two-by pieces but no reinforcing plywood. The result will be two big storage bulkheads under the decks on either side of the boat.

The side stringers of course had plywood that covered the outside surface of the boat and no overlapping two-by pieces.  Well talk about these and their butt blocks in the next build day entry.

The notches for the cross beams were easy, though we still forgot a few and had to cut them out of the already assembled stringers.  The porch deck beam notches were not really dimensioned properly on the plans and so we had to do a little improvisation later. 

We built the stringers on the asphalt floor of the barn.  It was flatish and shaded, so we didnt bake as we fretted over the details of our new stringers.

One challenge we faced was making sure that each member we built matched all the others. The plans suggested literally building them one on top of another.  This didnt seem that practical, so we hit on a solution:  Using the plywood already cut to shape for the side stringers as a pattern for our other stringers.  That way wed know that all the angles would be correct and all the pieces of each member would be in the right place.

We used what we called temporary butt blocks just to hold the side plywood in place while we were using it as a pattern.

So in these photos, you can see the side plywood under our stringers as a pattern. 

From left to right: keel stringer, starboard skeg stringer, and port skeg stringer.

So for each stringer, the process was more or less:  Lay out the pieces for fit on our plywood pattern; put wax paper under anything we didnt want to be permanently adhered to anything below, temporarily screw down, as necessary; apply a thin coat of epoxy to both surfaces of every joint; apply a thickened coat of epoxy to one side of every joint; and finally fasten together all joints with stainless steel screws.

 

After the epoxy on the stringers sets, we could put the stringers on the building form. 

Exciting!  It is looking more boat-like every day. These incremental changes are probably pretty minor looking to other folks, and the progress may seem pretty slow.  But for us, it is crazy.  Look we had a pile of lumber!  Now we have this boat(ish) thing!  Amazing!

Do you find information about Boat Plans Wooden are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Wooden. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Bruce Roberts | Recovering a lost anchor

Boat Plans Bruce Roberts

IF YOU WANT to call yourself a sailor, you really should know how to recover a lost anchor. Luckily for you, I know how. I found the instructions among a bunch of old magazine clippings that had fallen down behind my desk. So here, in the words of a very old salt, is the way they used to do it in the days before you could effect a quick and painless anchor replacement by flashing a credit card in a West Marine store:

“You will need two boats, an oarsman in each. Fasten a weight to the middle of a long, heavy line to keep it down; also, position weights about 10 feet from the middle.

“Fasten the ends of the line to the two boats, coiling it loosely in each. Row to windward of the estimated position of the anchor, then row the boats away from each other to run out the line so it will be stretched just off the bottom. Row the boats down toward the estimated position of the anchor.

“When the bight of the line catches on the anchor’s fluke, cross the boats to take a round turn around the fluke. Make a running bowline at the end of another line, around the drag line, weight it so it sinks, and slip it down. When the bowline is fast to the fluke, pull up the anchor.”

Yeah. Okay. Thanks a lot, old-timer. So where did I put that credit card?

Today’s Thought

The wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor.

— Emerson, English Traits

Tailpiece

“How much is a bottle of brandy? It’s my nephew’s birthday and he likes brandy.”
“Well, madam, it depends on the age. Seven-year-old is quite reasonably priced. Ten-year-old costs a bit more. Twelve-year-old can be quite expensive.”
“Gee, that’s terrible. My nephew is 25.”

Do you find information about Boat Plans Bruce Roberts are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Bruce Roberts. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Yacht Boat Plans | Fiberglass Seal Coat

Yacht Boat Plans

We fretted over fiberglassing the hull so much, we put off beginning with this step for weeks.  We read and reread our instructions from Glen-L, Ken Hankinson Fiberglass Boatbuilding book, and anything else we could find.  We went over scenarios and thought of terrible things that could go wrong.  We thought it would be so harrowing and difficult, that in the end, it was a bit of letdown.

Heres where we left the boat last time.  Filled, shimmed, routed, sanded lovingly.  Lawrence came by a couple times and asked, "What are you building, a boat or a piece of fine furniture?"

Before we started the day, we had to wipe the whole boat down and make sure there was no sawdust, grease, debris, or anything anywhere.

But really, this was just the seal coat, the first of four or five coats wed put on the hull.  We wouldnt even get out the glass cloth until the next coat.

And now a quick primer on fiberglass:  Fiberglass is a composite laminate material.  The layer(s) of spun glass cloth or mat embedded in a matrix of polyester or epoxy resin are what gives it strength.

In some boats where the hull derives its strength from the fiberglass, it is typical to use alternating layers of mat (a loosely woven nest of randomly aligned spun glass) and glass cloth.  In our boat, the fiberglass covering on the plywood hull served only the purpose of keeping it watertight and creating a durable wear-resistant maintenance-free surface.  So we had only to put one layer of glass cloth between several layers of epoxy.

There are many methods of applying fiberglass to a boat hull, but they break down to the so-called wet and dry methods.  "Wet" means the fiberglass cloth (or mat) is laid over a just applied layer of resin and then "wet out" with more resin on top.  This sounded hectic. We imagined laying cloth over a wet sticky layer of resin and fighting wrinkles and having the cloth misaligned and pulling our hair out and getting sticky head to foot.

We were relieved to discover in our Glen-L instructions that they recommended the dry method.  "Dry" means simply that the first coat is rolled out without the cloth and allowed to set.  Then the cloth layer is laid out over this dry layer and more resin on top of that to wet it out.  This allows us to carefully align the cloth without the stress of either sticky goo or the ticking clock.

In this first seal coat, all we were doing was covering the hull with epoxy.  Kai mixed up big batches of epoxy and put them in paint trays for me to roll out with a dense foam roller.

Then Kai came around with extra resin and touched up spots Id hit too lightly and brushed down any air bubbles.  Because we werent mixing the resin with filler, it had a longer pot-life and so didnt tend to kick off early, even though we were mixing it in larger quantities.

The result was beautiful, though vaguely reminiscent of a horribly outdated style of 70s handmade varnished pine bedroom furniture.

Though it was a hot day in the barnyard, we were feeling pretty good about our work and the results.


Do you find information about Yacht Boat Plans are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Yacht Boat Plans. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..