Alot has happened since my last update; I had finished stitching the hull but when I tried to attach the transom I had a setback. Some of the planks were twisting severely to attach to the transom. I attributed this to distortion caused from the weight of the hull sitting on sawhorses.  I removed the transom and the temporary frames and strated building a strongback in order to build the boat inverted. The first photo shows the strongback and the uprights to which the frames and transom are attached. I removed the stitches from the top four planks on each side, laid the bottom six planks on top of the frames, and restitched the hull. I began to reattach the transom, this time staring at the keel and working out to the gunnels and discovered the real cause of my transom problems. Apparently my planks were each a millimeter or so too wide as the top edge of the gunnel ended up a 1/4" higher than the top of the transom. In my first attempt I started with the gunnels and tried working in toward the center which started forcing a twist into the third and fourth planks. The wood on top of the gunnels was shaved off using a block plane. Last weekend I began the process of gluing all of the joints in the planks between the stitches with System Three's EZ Fillet. It took the better part of Saturday and Sunday to complete this step. I also crawled under the hull and glued the transom and bow together as there was not enough gap to get the glue into on the outside of the hull. I let the glue cure a few days and removed all of the stitches on Tuesday night. Wednesday and Thursday evenings were spent glueing the gaps and holes from all the tyraps that were used as stitches. At the top right of the picture the dark brown fillet mixture is visible in some of the holes. Friday and most of yesterday were spent sanding the hull joints in preparation for glassing. I did take a four hour break at noon to attend a crawfish

boil at my brother's house.

The two photos above were taken this morning. They show the hull sanding complete. If you look closely you can also see the 6 oz. biaxal tape I added to the keel and around the transom joint. I also coated the rest of the hull with clear epoxy last night.

The next photos show the glass on the portside in place and wet out with epoxy. The photo on the right shows my brother Ricky, (on the left) and his brother in law Jeff (on the right) smoothing out the glass on the starboard side so we could wet it out. Have the extra help available made the process go smoother. It also helped that Jeff lays up fiberglass as his day job. In all we laid 11 yards of 6oz. glass with 72 oz. of epoxy. My cost for this extra labor, 43 lbs. of crawfish for yesterday's crawfish boil.

Yesterday I continued the process of stitching hull panels. After completing the fourth pair I decided to add the the temporary frames to help make sure the hull took the correct shape.

The first two photos are before and after shots of the first frame.  The stern end of the boat was very flat prior to the frames being tied in place. Plainly visible in the first photo are the short pieces of dowel rod under the tyraps to help align the panel edges. They do help in this regard, and I found if the panels were still uneven after the stitch was tightened they could be rolled slighly in one direction or other to straighten things out.

The third photo shows three frames along with the fifth and sixth pair of hull planks in place. The foward frame (nearest the camera will have to be removed and retied because I forgot to wrap the edge in packing tape. I don't want this thing epoxied to the boat. 

   

The last two pictures show the seventh and final hull panel in place. Today I took a day off from boat building and went fishing with my brother and his father-in-law. Monday I am off and hope to get the transom in place so I can start gluing the boat together. 

  

Starting to take shape

Started stitching hull panels today, the picture shows two pairs of panels loosely stitched together.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

                                                                                          

In the next photo the third pair of panels have been added, the bow has been pulled together and the stitches have been pulled snug. Short lengths of dowel are put inside the zip ties to help the panel edges align. Tomorrow I will continue adding the hull panels, and if all goes well I will attach the transom with temporary screws.                                                                                     

The end of the beginning

All the panels were drilled for stitching holes over the weekend. Also cut the three pieces for transom and coated them with unthickened epoxy.Glued the three layers of the plywood transom together last night.The picture shows the small wood blocks I used to keep the layers aligned while gluing. they are wrapped with packing tape to keep them from becoming part of the boat The next step is to disassemble the layout table to make room for stitching the hull. 

Hull panels complete

Yesterday I put 800 lbs of sand on the ground inside the tent and finished cutting the remainder of the hull panels. The sand did improve the footing in the tent. Did no work this evening as the weather forecast was for heavy rain. When the rain clears out I will clean up the panel edges with a block plane and start laying out and drilling stitching holes. I did not take any photos yesterday.

This photo shows the "floor" of the tent. The white boots, known locally as "Biloxi Reeboks" have become my most indispensable boat building tool. This morning I finished drawing the hull panels, removed the finishing nails, screwed the plywood sheets together and started cutting hull panels.

This photo shows the first hull panel being cut. Visible along the right side of the plywood are the binder clips I am using to keep the cut panels aligned.

The next picture shows a length of wood clamped to the cut panels to give them rigidity for moving them out of the tent.

This is the destination of the cut panels for a short time. The wide flat gunnels of my flats boat make an ideal storage area. Once all the panels are cut I'll move them inside the tent again. I will then clean the packing tape and excess epoxy from the scarf joints and start drilling the holes for stitching. I was able to get six of the fourteen hull panels cut today.

The subject of the last picture is Belle, my Chesapeake Bay Retriever. It is her opinion that my boat building time would be more productive if I spent it throwing her tennis ball or training dummy.

Getting Started

A few weeks ago I began work on a rowing skiff designed by Paul Fisher of Selway Fisher Design.

The design is called Port Sorell and can be seen here http://www.selway-fisher.com/Rowskiffs.htm#SORE . The skiff is 15'-6" long with a beam of 4'-4". The boat pictured in the website is built in the clinker/ply method, but I am building the stitch and glue version, as my intent is to sheath the entire hull with fiberglass, and this will be easier without the lap joints of the clinker hull.

The plans for the skiff were ordered on 2/9 and arrived in about a week.

A tent was erected in the backyard as a temporary workshop, and materials were ordered, okuome plywood from Chesapeake Light Craft, fiberglass and epoxy from Boat Builder Central (Bateau) and hardware from Jamestown Distributors. On a rainy 3/14 my brother and I built several sawhorses and a 16' x 4' frame for a large table made of MDF board. The following day, still raining, I cut 3 temporary frames from more MDF board, but could do nothing else until the plywood arrived.

The next day the freight company called and said they would be delivering plywood that morning and that the driver needed help to get it off the truck. I left work, helped him unload it, and returned to work. I transferred the plywood from the carport to the table in the tent after work but did nothing more as the mud floor in the tent was sloppy after the rain. Tuesday and Wednesday were dry and breezy so I allowed the ground under tent to solidify again. On the 3/19 I aligned 4 sheets of the plywood and began cutting a scarf joint with a low angle block plane. On Friday (I work a 4-10 work week) I spent several more hours cutting the scarf joint, and completed it Saturday morning. That evening I glued on the scarf joints with System Three's Gel Magic and glued the second joint Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon the glue was rock hard, but I gave it through Tuesday to allowe the glue to fully cure. On Wednesday evening I removed the weights from the plywood along with the split trash bags I used between the plywood layers and under the weights to keep the glue where it belonged. I then layed out 16 stations 1 foot apart on the plywood. These station are reference lines for drawing the hull panels of the boat but they do not relate to any stations on the boat itself. I also laid out the measurements for the first hull panel that night and quit, planning to do a few mor

e the following night. Three days and nine inches of rain later, I was finally able to get back inside the building tent today. I finished laying out the other six hull panels and drove finishing nails at the layout points so that the hull panels

 could be drawn.

This photo shows the finishing nails being driven to allow the hull panels to be drawn. Ignore the dates on the pictures, I haven't reset the camera since the last recharge. 

The next photo shows all of the nails in place. Almost a full one pound box of nails were used.

The final photo shows the batten being used to draw the hull panels. The batten is too short to draw the panels in one step so they are drawn in stages. I completed three of the panels today and removed some of the nails. Tomorrow I plan to finish drawing the panels, bolt the two long sheets of plywood together, and if there is time I will begin cutting the hull panels.