Day 24 - Ding, dang,

durn it.

I woke up this morning with a sneaking suspicion I had done something wrong last night. Wasn't sure what, but I was sure it had to do with the angles on the transom. Got to the shop tonight and pulled the screws from the last scarfs and scraped the joints then pulled the screws from the transom and stood it up.

See anything wrong with that angle? Yep, it's fifteen degrees to the left instead of fifteen degrees to the right. Dang it. I know how it happened, I was working from the wrong side of the transom and got the angles wrong in my head. Oh well, as Steveoh says, epoxy solves all problems.

Decided to cut and glue up the lower doubler and then fix the upper doubler as I knew that would be messy. Drew my line on the transom to set the distance between the upper and lower doubler, clamped the the 1/2" ply down, traced the transom, unclamped and cut all the angles. Made up a couple large batches of epoxy, slathered the transom and the doubler and put in a bunch of screws. Plenty of squeeze out and that always makes me happy. :-) Probably would drive Renn crazy with the waste, but I'm willing to waste some rather than not get enough epoxy on and starve the joints (dry spots on the wood where the resin fully soaks in leaving none to attach to the other piece) .

Made up a third large batch of resin and liberally coated my now beautifully useless gap in the upper doubler, coated the pieces I had cut out (glad I saved them!), and then used the rest of the resin to make up a large batch of peanut butter. Spread that liberally in the gaps; up the sides and in the valley, and then put the pieces in. Pushed and prodded and moved those pieces all around to make sure I got lots of peanut butter in the gaps and then screwed those down. Then I used my fingers to spread the squeeze out back into the little gaps remaining.

No longer pretty, but it'll look fine and work fine when I clean it up tomorrow. Besides, once I paint it...

Here's what the transom looks like so far.

With the cooler working environment it's taking 72 hours for the epoxy to fully set up so I won't be able to really go back to this until Monday, but I've a plan already to get that gap back. I need to buy a power hand planer for the stringers (the horizontal long members on the bottom of the hull that provide the longitudinal strength) anyways, so I'll do that this weekend. I'll use the planer and sander to get things level. Then I'll use my Skilsaw to cut the angles. And then I'll use my router to carve out the gap between the cuts. Not elegant, but it'll work.

Oh, some good news today. The resin order from Aero-Marine got here today. All three boxes and 100+ pounds of it! I've stored most of it in the garage to keep it warm and brought the small box home to open and look at. They shipped it in one gallon containers so it'll be easier to handle than the five gallon cubes I'm using of the System 3 resin.

Much non-boat-building activities tomorrow so not much will get done.

3.5 Hours

Day 23 - You inspire me!

Three weeks! Ha!

Sorry, but I think that's the best tv commercial punch line I've maybe ever heard.

How does that fit with my boat building? Well, my two best friends (women BTW) decided they had all kinds of ideas about what they wanted in the boat. My sweat, my blood, my time, my boat, says I. Ideas are welcome, demands require sweat equity. :-) One of those friends came over to help tonight. Very much appreciated!

We pulled the screws, washers and poly up and I scrapped while she cleaned up behind me. Then we scarfed the last two side panels; long pieces to short pieces. I mixed epoxy and poured, she spread, flipped the panel over, I lined up the scarf and she screwed it down.

That didn't take too long so we started work on the transom. We pulled out the piece of laminated 3/4" plywood and laid it over the upper end of the transom and traced an outline. Then we cut out the pieces. These pieces are called doublers, probably because they "double" the strength of the wood you attached them to. She had to go, but I was inspired by the work accomplished so far tonight so I kept on working.

My shelves (the horizontal flat pieces that run between the hull and the cabin sides and extend back to the transom) will actually wrap around the corner of the sides and extend along the back across the transom so I had to cut a section out of the doublers for the shelves and an additional corner brace (essentially a doubler under the shelf as it wraps around the corner). My corner brace will be cut out of 1-1/8" plywood so I was cutting out a 2-1/4" gap. I ended up with two large transom doubler pieces (left and right) and two small transom doubler pieces.

I cleaned up the floor and screwed down the transom. Mixed up a large batch of resin, nine ounces, and spread it across one large doubler piece and the corresponding section of transom. While that cooked, I mixed more resin and did the other side. Left over resin was mixed with sawdust to make peanut butter (what I'm going to call it from now on), spread on the doublers, and then the doublers were screwed through the transom and to the floor.

Next I used two pieces of poly and two long left over pieces of 1-1/8" ply to provide spacing between the large doubler and the small doubler "cap" piece and screwed the small doubler pieces down. Here's a couple pictures.

In this photo you can see the large lower section of the doublers screwed down with the scrap 1-1/8" ply spanning the transom.

In this photo you can see the small "cap" doubler. Note too, that while you can't tell from the photos, that gap was cut at a 15 degree angle to match the transom.

4.5 Hours

Day 22 - And we're out...

of floor space. :-)

That's three sections, one 1/2" and the two long 3/8" side panels. On the left you can see the two scraps of 1-1/8" I screwed down to provide my starting straight-edge.

Earlier I took the screws out of the laminated 3/8" sheets and scraped the oozed resin, which was still a little soft and a tiny bit tacky. Then I pulled the screws and washers from the first scarfed 1/2" panel and scraped it down. Had squeeze out on both sides which is good and proves my processes are working correctly.

I've added one more container (after buying a few more tonight) to the resin process. The one I used yesterday for adding sawdust to the resin will continue that job until it gets a thick enough coating inside to peel the old resin out. I've added a new one that will be used for resin only. Sawdust is added to the resin to act as a streghthener and gap-filler in the scarf. It also makes the resin thixotropic, which means it flows when you push it around but stiffens when you leave it alone, thus it stays where you put it even though it's a liquid.

Tomorrow I'll glue the two short 3/8" panels and scrape tonights work and then Friday I'll cut the two 1/2" panels to length and glue on the 1/4" panels. That will give the 1/2" panels at least 48 hours to cure and strengthen.

Last, mom came to visit tonight and made a request. Could I translate please? I'll try to include short explanations or links to web pages for non-obvious terms like scarf. She also gave me some homemade spaghetti to take home for dinner. Aren't moms great? :-)

2.5 Hours

Day 21 - First resin day

Well, I'm off and running with my first day of resin work. I've done fiberglass work before with polyester resin and divinycell so this is nothing new. I bought a bunch of measuring cups, some cheap brushes and a couple plastic spreaders. After cutting one of the 3/8" plywood pieces I set aside yesterday in half lengthwise I set up a basic resin workstation.

My basic process is to pour resin and hardener from the five gallon jugs to large containers, not for measuring, but to make it easier to handle. I then pour an appropriate amount into smaller measuring containers. Finally, I pour these into a larger cup for mixing and pouring. This process allows me to keep everything separate and easy to handle until I'm ready to go. Less mess, less stress.

The first thing to get laid up was the double layers of 3/8" plywood after a cleanup and real good sweeping of the floor. I wasn't real sure how much resin I would need, so I mixed up a small batch of six ounces. Not nearly enough to coat sixteen square feet, but it gave me an idea of how the coverage would go. Another fifteen ounces was enough to do the job and the dry plywood really soaked up the resin! Put the layers together and put in a bunch of screws on top of a piece of poly.

Last I laid down two 1/2" sheets, mixed up three ounces of resin and wetted out the scarfs real well using a chip brush. Saved a little resin and mixed in some sawdust until it was just stiff enough to stay on the mixing stick while waiting for the resin on the scarfs to settle in then spread the sawdust mix and put the plywood sections together, lining them up using a plywood section line on the floor for alignment. Screwed one piece of plywood down, lined up the plywood and pushed the scarfs together, then screwed the second plywood section down. Then put five screws with washers through the scarf.

Got some squeeze out which was good! And lacking space decided to quit for the night. After cleaning up I started to turn out the lights, took one last look at the scarf and saw that the resin squeeze out was starting to wick under the washers! That's not good so I cut another piece of poly, took the screws and washers up (with some resin underneath) and put the poly, screws and washers back down and called it a night.

I've been thinking about the shelves and I may redo them. They're a two step process during construction: the initial set I've already cut are used for shaping the sides when the sides are installed, and a second layer as a cap. Some folks have had problems with the shelves flexing too much and various unique ways of dealing with it have been tried. Renn calls for that top cap to be nine inches wide, I may narrow that. I'm willing to trade walking space for interior space.

I've been working on a new set of offsets for six inch wide shelves instead of the four inches called for, plus since I'm essentially creating pockets in the back corners of the boat I'll need to carry those shelves around the corners and across the back. That raises implications for the corners braces as well, hmmm... The old domino effect in play. :-)

3 Hours

Day 20 - All ends well

A good news day. Stopped by Valley Lumber this morning and talked to Walt and they've stepped up. They're ordering me replacement Versalams and providing credit for the bad sheet of 1/4" plywood. I'll be dropping the Versalams off tomorrow.

Tonight I got the Versalams down off the sawhorses and grabbed the last sheet of 1/2" plywood for the transom, put it up on the sawhorses and started measuring and drawing lines. Measure three times and cut once, there's a lot of angles (in three dimensions) and figuring to do. Plus I'm doing the 15 degree mod on the transom instead of 12 degrees in the book.

Looks like a real boat part!

I'm also going to do things a little different than Renn calls for on the splashwell. I'm only going to make mine as wide as the cutout (lined up with the outside of the stringers). To compensate I'm going to use the full width of the Versalam, 9.5 inches, and will run the half inch doubler on the bottom all the way up to the bottom of the Versalam instead of leaving the gap to slide the floor into, plus since you're supposed to add to the height of the stringers the floor wouldn't line up anyway. I'll be running my shelves from the sides around the back to join up with the splashwell. I'm really on hold with finishing the transom until the Versalams arrive.

So tomorrow after some serious clean up I'm going to do some epoxy glue-ups. I need to laminate some of the 3/8" cutoffs to make 3/4" pieces for the upper doublers and while I'm at it and until I run out of floor space I'll start gluing up the scarfed pieces of plywood.

3.5 Hours

Day 19 - Success and frustration

Well, today started out well and ended not so much. Got started about 9am and it was a brisk morning. As noted yesterday, termination snow was revealed on the mountains and a clear sunny day was supposed to become a cool cloudy night. Nope. Stayed clear all night and this morning it was a brisk 34 degrees. Inside the shed it was right at fifty but with the sun coming up it would be a good test of the black tarp and how much of a difference it would make.

Grabbed the 10" Skilsaw and jig and went after the 3/8" and 1/4" plywood and in less than two hours I had all the scarfs cut. Took a while, but I finally worked out a quick system for the process.

Grab a sheet of plywood. Mark the correct distances. Set and clamp the straight-edge. Clamp the plywood to the sawhorse. Cut the scarf. Pull the clamps. Flip the plywood. Repeat. Done!

As the sun started to rise I could feel the heat start to radiate inside and finally I had to open the door as the temperature rose to 70+ degrees!

This is great for drying stuff out and pulling the humidity out!

Then I unstrapped the Versalams, put them up on the sawhorses and discovered some very bad news.

The 19' Versalam was so badly cupped at one end you could slip two quarters and a nickel underneath a straight-edge spanning the plank!

And starting eight feet from the other end the Versalam bends more than two inches off center!

Then I put a straight-edge on the short Versalam and over its' length it's cupped 3/16" of an inch.

This is completely unacceptable. Valley Lumber and I will be having a talk tomorrow. If they can't deliver dry, flat and straight lumber then I'll be going somewhere else. They left the plywood and Versalams outside where they got soaked in the rain and lied to me saying they called but couldn't reach me. They get one more chance to get it right or we're done.

I'm not happy.

I was so wound up that I decided to quit for the day. Time wasted, but I make stupid decisions when I'm mad, so it's for the best.

On the plus side, the I did pick up a second box fan and three filters. I pulled the front grills off the fans and screwed them together. Put the grills back on and taped the filters in place, then wired them for a single cord. Works even better than a single fan! Glad to have all that dust in the filters and not on everything or in my lungs.

3.5 Hours

Day 18 - Lots of sawdust!

Did a lot of cutting today and made good progress. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First off the plywood and versalam got delivered yesterday. The yard had them Tuesday and failed to call me. :-( Some of the plywood got wet and the versalams are very wet, but they'll dry.

Doesn't look like a boat! Doesn't look like a thousand bucks either. Ouch.

19 feet of Versalam. That thing is looonnnng.

And then my Red Green HVAC system.

Heater on the right, box fan with filter in the middle, dehumidifier on the left. The box fan and filter are working so good it looks like this...

This works so well I'm going to add another fan and put three filters side by side to span the fans. The accumulation on the filter is just from today. Speaking of which, I started cutting that $1000 up today. Cut the plywood to width with my 7 3/4 Skilsaw with only a minor boo-boo. This is what happens when I get too excited and forget to reset the height on the Skilsaw.

Oops.

Then built a jig to mount the 10" Skilsaw I rented and cut some scarfs!

That contraption is heavy! Must weight thirty pounds but it does the trick! Got all the 1/2" sheets of plywood cut, will do the 3/8" and 1/4" tomorrow other things to do today.

Kind of a sunny day, this is how bright it is inside with the lights out.

But at night, no light gets out, so I've a good compromise.

Dad finally got home from moose hunting and he thought the shed was commercial. That qualifies as high praise. Mom came home last night and visited today and proclaimed it looked larger on the inside than on the outside. Probably won't look so big once the boat starts to go up!

2 Hours yesterday, 4.5 Hours today, termination snow on the mountains!

Day 17 - Blow wind blow!

This day had to come and I was dreading it somewhat. We can get some nasty wind storms and monsoonal rains and we got a good one today. It was blowing this morning, but by this afternoon it was howling 50+MPH with gusts over 60MPH! Wasn't much I could do about it, but right after work I headed over to the shop and did a quick drive by. Everything looked fine so off I went.

I was supposed to take the day off as I had plans for this evening, but the wind put paid to that. I went home after checking the shed and almost didn't make it back out. I can be a horrible procrastinator; that's why I go straight from work to the shop, the diversions at home are just too much. :-) Tonight I got home and was thinking about doing other things, realized what I was doing, chewed myself out and headed out the door.

Got to the shed and worked on cutting out the bottom mold pieces. I cut them out of the extra pieces of inch and an eighth plywood. I cut an extra set of rear molds to put back at the transom since I'm extending the hull two feet beyond the jig.

Took the two extra sheets of plywood I had laying around, 3/8ths and 1/2 inch and glued them together and screwed them to the floor. I'll cut them up for bracing on the jig.

It was a little eerie having the lights swaying when the wind gusts came through, but after spending time working inside and watching things flex and move, I'm feeling pretty confident about the shed construction. The top tarp didn't flap at all and the ends only billowed some, while the PVC frame just swayed back and forth.

Life is good!

1.5 Hours

Day 16 - Cleaning and cutting and...

After the sawdust cloud I worked in last night I decided to do try something about it. Another! trip to Home Depot netted me a new shop vac, and fine particle filter and a little round outdoor thermometer so I can keep track of the temperature during fiberglass work.

Wind was blowing tonight and listening to the tarps snap and pop was a little disconcerting. Put the ear plugs in and no more problem. :-)

Used the shop vac to clean up some of the dust from last night then started to make some more. Pulled out the 2x8 for the rear frame members, split it down the middle and measured out four pieces 36" long. Only one ended up with a small knot with some creative cutting. Left the shop vac running with the intake nozzle pointed toward the saw while cutting and it really cuts down on the dust. Doesn't eliminate it completely, but it definitely helps.

Next I put each of the 16' long 2x8 boards for the jig on the sawhorses, grabbed the laser and straight edge and cut the crowns off so I have straight edges to work with. Contemplated doing some more cutting, but decided to quit a little early so swept and vacuumed up.

I've decided that I need to do as much wood cutting as possible before I do any fiberglass work. I'm creating so much dust that I only want to do a single deep clean before fiberglassing.

Oh, the dehumidifier is working a treat! I've set it for its' lowest humidity setting, 35%. Sunday it filled its' 30 pint bucket in about six hours. Monday night it was full again. Tonight there was very little in the bucket which makes me very happy. Our humidity here is generally 80-90 percent so keeping that level down will help draw more resin into the wood, provide better adhesion and reduce the amine blush problem.

2.5 Hours

Day 15 - Shelving done...

Or at least cut out. Bought another sheet of inch and an eighth plywood tonight, a Sureform, a couple more clamps, a new plywood blade for the Skilsaw, a trick little protractor for setting those odd angles and a nice straight edge that's longer than eight feet.

Got back to the shed and promptly started making more sawdust. Set the saw to the 21 degrees and went at it. Cut the four curved shelf pieces first, then grabbed the new piece of plywood and ripped out the straight portions of the shelves using the new straight edge. Beautiful cuts! Might be the only straight thing on the whole boat by the time I'm done. Then grabbed the saber saw and cut the inside curves on the shelves. Not so nice. It'll work, but they're going to take some cleanup work. Cut the 12" angles on the ends for joining the pieces together and it was time to clean up and go home.

I've got a new problem though. All this cutting is leaving a huge amount of fine sawdust in the air that's getting in everything. I think I need to go looking for a very fine filter and a box fan. Might be able to McGyver something together. We'll see.

3.5 Hours

Day 14 - The boat building begins...

Boat building has begun! Well, after a shopping trip and doing some other prep work.

A trip to Home Depot finished (I thought) the purchase of the last of the lumber. It's clear the world of lumber has changed since Renn wrote his book. The lack of variety and quality available made it hard to get even close to what he specs. Was able to purchase some of the fasteners there as well. The rest of the fasteners were purchased at Don Abel.

Once I got to the shed and hauled everything in I got so frustrated with my little piles of spare stuff laying around I decided to use 'em or lose 'em. I decided I needed some more shelving so I added an additional shelf under each corner brace. That used up most of the plywood scrap and 2x4 scrap and really added some nice storage space. I used the cut off ends of PVC and the left over joiners to make fiberglass roll up tubes. Then all the little pieces of wood and the empty boxes that have been piling up went down to the firepit on the beach for a nice little fire.

Next I sorted and labeled all the lumber. Then I pulled out my new favorite tool, a 90 degree laser line. It projects two laser lines at ninety degrees to each other on the floor, great for laying out long straight lines. I laid out where the boat will sit on the floor and an additional line to start doing my layouts with.

After all that I decided to actually make some boat sawdust and to deal with the largest piece of lumber, namely the inch and an eighth plywood. Man that thing was heavy! Ripped the tongue and groove edges off and then ripped it in four pieces lengthwise. Used the laser line here too as my longest straightedge is 6'. I screwed two pieces end-to-end on the layout line and then started to try to figure out how to get Renns' offset tables to work with what I had. It took three tries but I finally figured it out. Got the first piece laid out, unscrewed it from the floor, cut the angles, screwed it back down, lined up the second piece, screwed it down and finished the offset table numbers.

Then I pulled out my alternative to Renns' battens. He uses wood battens, but I would have spent a fortune in wood for something I would only use a couple times so I used something else; a ten foot section of half inch PVC pipe!

It's flexible enough to accept a pretty good bend, but stiff enough to hold it's shape. I drove 6d nails on the marks and additional nails where necessary to hold the batten tight. Worked a dream!

I spent some time contemplating the 2x8 I bought for the rest of the shelves and have decided not to go that way. Even though I looked through a ton of lumber to find good pieces I've decided to buy another sheet of inch and an eighth plywood and use that instead.

Did some cleanup and called it a day.

10 Hours

Day 13 - GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!

Or for my American friends: SCORE!!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen today was a great day. I got up this morning, pulled up Craigslist and what do I see? Five gallons of System 3 resin, five gallons of System 3 hardener, 50 yards of 7oz biax glass and 25 yards of 7oz triax glass for...

400 bucks.

Yep. Can you say speed dial? Wheee!

Never thought I'd be this excited about fiberglass, but you take your grins where you can! Such a good deal I couldn't even dicker on the price. Nice guy, we chatted boats for a while, and off I went. Stopped by Don Abel and bought a dehumidifier and headed for the shed. Was pleasantly surprised at the warmth inside.

Got most of the rest of the plastic up, jammed my staple hammer (grrr, that's going back to Home Depot), did some cleanup and had some friends stop by to chat. A little more plastic on the ends tomorrow and I'm ready to go! Last of the photos until sawdust flies, although I'll still post updates.

5 Hours
$400 - Resin and Fiberglass

Day 12 - A second layer

Getting close to being finished with the shed. Tightened the ropes as they had stretched some, finished putting in the wall lag bolts and supports, put the last of the battens on the outside (and painted the visible ones black for good measure) and started putting up the interior layer of plastic.

I should finish that tomorrow and then I'm done with the shed!

Here's the inside picture for tonight. You can see the area with the second layer of plastic on the right.

3 Hours

Day 11 - Raising the comfort level

I've been fretting the past few days about the visqueen ends on the shop so I decided to do something about it. I bought two additional tarps, 16'x20', and installed them on the ends. Not only will they keep the light in, but I think they'll be much more durable in the wind. A few more outside battens and they'll be done.

I've also started to lag bolt the side walls to the floor and add some additional bracing. I don't want to overbuild or make things so stiff they can't flex, but I also don't want things coming apart. Time spent now means less worry later and money spent now could very well save me a ton later.

I left a fan and heater running last night to start drying things out and it was noticeably warmer tonight which is a good sign. After finishing the lag bolts and support tomorrow I'll start to add an internal layer of visqueen to add a little insulation with an air barrier.

Here's a picture with the new tarps. Looks pretty respectable don't you think? No blue tarps here!

3.5 Hours

Day 10 - Let there be light!

Yep, I got the lighting done tonight. Four sets of T8 lamps really lights the space up! The fixtures and lamps weigh very little which is a good thing as they're suspended from the PVC frame. These plus the second layer of plastic inside will be the only additional weight added, no need to push things.

Marine plywood and the Versalams have been ordered, working on the fiberglass and resin order. Will need to make one last Home Depot lumber run, but I'm sure there will be more for tools.

I've been working on the cabin and floor plan design and I think I'm getting close to my final decisions. I've been told a Porta-Potty is a requirement, hanging it off the back is not acceptable. :-) Still figuring that one out.

Here's tonights picture.

2.5 Hours

Day 9 - A day for little things

Today was a day for doing little things. Finishing the door with a hasp, handle and poly covering; putting the last of the poly on the ends and securing it, but thinking I may redo that with proper tarp, I'm not sure it will last, plus I'm losing a lot of light to the outside; tying down the last rope over the top and adding more screws to the battens around the side; replacing the GFI outlet so that I don't keep tripping it with the fluorescent lamps; sorting stuff and general sweeping and cleaning up. Looking good! Nice to be able to work until I want to quit, not when the sun goes down.

I pulled up one of the plywood floor sections as one edge wasn't properly supported and kept sagging when I stepped on it and discovered pooled water underneath on the poly! Ding-dang-durn it. Drained the water and added support for the edge of the plywood and re-screwed it down. Pulled another section and more water. Drained that too, now I have to figure out if I'm going to pull all the sections not trapped down by the walls or only the sections that got rained on. Something else to ponder tonight.

Need to pick up two more work lamps and figure out how to get power to them, plus add the interior poly. Then I'm ready to go.

No pictures tonight, nothing big to see for changes.

3.5 Hours

Day 8 - And being an electrician...

Never thought being an electrician would be part of this project. I bought two fluorescent lamps tonight for lighting and after plugging one in and having it on for about 15 minutes the GFCI outlet tripped. What the heck? So for the next hour or so, every 10 minutes I'd have to go reset the outlet. Tried the other one and the same problem. So I did what work I could with the fading light and mostly got the door done and finally gave up.

After some research tonight it turns out that the newer digital fluorescent ballasts and GFCI breakers don't play well together so I'm going to have to do some research and come up with either a better GFCI outlet or an alternative lighting solution. Daylight is rapidly shrinking and I'll need to the lights to get any work done.

Too dark for photos and not much to show anyways.

3 Hours

Day 7 - Another beautiful day

And I made good use of it. After getting a late start, almost noon, (had to do laundry you know) good progress was made. I got 6 mil poly on the ends, two additional support knees for the center posts (they were moving too much for me to be comfortable) and then worked on the tarp.

I doubled the number of grommet holes and then contemplated how to get the tarp over the top. I finally just decided to put ropes on the corners and one in the middle and try to pull it over. Worked well! Cinched down the ends and then installed battens along the side. Drilled holes in the side for the eye bolts and mounted those and then installed the ropes over the top.

No door today, ran out of gas. So tomorrow I will get the rest of the ends covered with poly, the last rope in place and work on the door. Then I'll work on the layer of poly on the inside and I should be ready to start boat building!

Here's the pictures for tonight.

6.5 Hours

Day 6 - Meet the neighborhood

Want to meet you neighbors? Build a house. Want to meet the neighborhood? Build a boat. :-)

Every day someone new stops by to ask what I'm doing and the most common comment is, "That's cool!" "I think so too", I reply.

Today was a gorgeous day, warm, calm and blue skies. Got a huge amount done: glued up the PVC pipes for the arches, mounted them on their support posts, mounted the horizontals and zip tied and gorilla taped everything together, built the end walls and got the corner bracing in place. Did lots of cleanup too, quite the pile of sawdust!

I spent some time too just looking at this creation. It's starting to dawn on me just how big this project will be.

Tomorrow is a huge milestone day as the roof tarp goes on, the ends are sealed and hopefully a door gets installed.

Two pictures tonight.

10.5 Hours

Day 5 - Lesson learned...

Home Depot is a time black hole. It might just be impossible for me to get in and out in less than an hour. :-)

Needed a few things to continue working tonight and I spent an hour and a half there. Gotta do better than that next time. Wasn't as organized as I should have been. Only an hour of actual work got done today.

Anyways, I got the metal pipes cut and pounded through the holes drilled last night. I had to climb up on a ladder, pull out the sledgehammer and drive the pipes through the holes. That pounding resounded throughout the neighborhood! Hopefully that will be the last of the really loud noise making I'll do on this project. Trying hard to be neighborly and friendly when folks stop to chat. Cut the PVC pipe to length and laid out on the deck to dry. Supposed to be a drier day tomorrow so I'm hoping to get the hoops built and installed and the end walls done tomorrow. Sunshine predicted for Sunday and I'd like to get the roof tarp on then.

Here's tonights picture.

1 Hour of work, 1.5 Hours of shopping

Day 4 - A little help from a friend

Back to the rain today with a little fog thrown in for good measure but made progress anyways. My buddy Gary came over to help me stand up and secure the stub walls. He'd had a tough day but showed up to work in the rain anyway. Thanks Gary!

They don't weigh very much, but they're awfully flimsy when laying down so the help was much appreciated! After standing the walls up they were secured with four support knees each. The end ones will be moved inward when the end walls go up. Got the rest of the support screws in, holes drilled for the vertical support pipes and a layer of 6 mil poly on the side walls stapled down. Tomorrow will be a pipe work day. It's nice to look forward to a day without working on my knees.

2.5 hours

Day 3 - A dry day!

Woo hoo! No rain today! Finished the decking (after draining the water off the plastic from yesterday) which left me with a head-scratcher. How can two 10' 2x4s plus one 8' 2x4 be one-half inch shorter than three and a half sheets of 4x8 plywood? Oh well. :-)

The stub walls are built, I hope to get some help tomorrow night to stand them up, at 28' long they're just too awkward to handle by myself. That plus bracing is the goal for tomorrow.

Here's the picture tonight.

Another trip to Home Depot is in order. I somehow have miscalculated and am short four! sheets of half-inch plywood for the end walls. Durn it.

2.5 hours

Day 2 - Lotsa rain

Continued working on the floor today. Failed to take a picture yesterday (gotta get used to stopping and taking pictures), so here's one midway through decking.

It's been raining here almost non-stop for the past four weeks and today was no exception. At one point I had to stop for about 15 minutes as it was just to wet to work. The plan today was leveling the framing, squaring and decking. Amazingly enough it was almost completely level to begin with so I shimmed the low spots. The framing is 2x4s, topped with 6 mil vinyl sheet (to make the bottom air tight) and 3/4" plywood. With the rain delay I wasn't able to quite finish, but here's where I'm at as of tonight.

2.5 hours

Day 1 - And so it begins...

 I decided a year or so ago that I wanted a boat to be able to explore more of my home here in Southeast Alaska. So I started looking. I wanted something big enough to be comfortable in for a few days at a time, safe enough to handle the weather here, be able to take two or three people, but small enough that I could afford to pay for the gas. I looked at lots of boats and religiously watched the classifieds and read Craigslist, but everything was either too expensive, too old, too big or too rundown. What's left?

Build my own. That started a whole other search and what I finally settled on was a Tolman Skiff. A gentleman by the name of Renn Tolman started building boats in Homer, AK a number of years ago and after many iterations finally settled on a series of designs ranging from an 18' skiff to a 24' full cabin cruiser, stitch-and-glue plywood sheathed in fiberglass, that worked well for folks in Homer. Then he wrote a book about how to build your own.

I spent two weeks trying to find someplace to build it. Plan A was rent some shop space. Bzzzt. Either it was too expensive (I'm not paying more in rent than it costs to build the boat) or folks were skittish about the idea. Plan B was rent some land and build a temporary structure. Bzzzt. No one was interested in that idea as well. Plan C. Well there wasn't a Plan C because I didn't think it'd be that hard. Plan C became a call to my folks. My parents have a home on a large lot with a huge relatively flat beach area so I called and asked if I could use that. Mom said, "Why don't you just use the area next to the garage?" Uh, ok! That was unexpected but I'll take it!

So I'm off on this crazy idea as of yesterday. This blog will be my attempt to document the process, cost and hours.

First, two loads of material from Home Depot. Then some landscaping as some rocks had to move and a tree had to go. Then lay down the floor structure. It's 18'x28', just long enough to hold the boat and wide enough to allow for inside working space. Later today I'll square and level the frame, put down plastic for a vapor barrier and screw down the decking.

10.5 Hours