Moving the Boat

The day finally came to open the front of the shop and get the first views of the boat from a distance. Pleased but admittedly tired. The trailer comes tomorrow.

Dodger Frame

I planned on a pram style dodger over the companionway from the beginning and wanted the framework in bronze to match the rest of the hardware. I had to machine the fork ends I had cast to fit the tubing.

To attach the canvas I did not want the usual buttons so made a casting pattern and had diamonds made that have a protrusion for drilling and tapping into for a #10-24 machine screw. The canvas will have a 1/4" ID grommet  that the screw passes through.

The fork ends are riveted to the tubing . I also machined the pins out of some 5/8" bronze rod.

The frame will be lashed back from the eye on the frame down to the cleats attached to the back of the cabin. It will make more sense when I get to sewing the dodger and post the photos.

Rudder Part II

The rudder work has been spread out in between other jobs on the boat. There has been a long list to work through and it has been admittedly a tiring few months with very long days in the shop.

The cheek plates were made from black locust glued to the rudder with G2 epoxy and then riveted with 3/8" copper rivets and bronze roves. The rudder was sealed with a mixture of Epifanes varnish thinned heavily with turpentine with a splash of creosote in for good measure.

The tiller socket was lined with 3/32" bronze plate bedded in.

 The rudder got four coats of Kingston Grey paint to match the boot stripe and bulkwarks / sheer.

The pintles were riveted with bronze carriage bolts which I annealed with a torch before installing. You can see the bronze exhaust outlet with rubber flapper in the picture.

A few Interior Photos

A few interior photos. Essentially finished the interior with only mechanical jobs involving the engine left and a few things here and there.

October Photos

 The galley stove finally found it's way onto the boat. The reader would know that originally I had planned for a Paul Luke Stove but it was discontinued shortly before I was going to order it. Thus I was stuck with a weird stove cut-out size and no stove. The answer came by filling in the extra width with a small cabinet that I think will be very useful for cutting boards and trays and thus a Force Ten Two burner compact stove would fit nicely. It has practically the same oven dimensions as the three burner and in use I hardly ever use more that two burners at home so imagine two on a boat will be just fine.

The small cabinet with the brass knob looks like it was always planned. Quite pleased with the solution.

However, the stove mounts that were provided were pretty flimsy so I made some beefier one's out of 3/16" bronze that would be less likely to saw through the stove mounting studs.

The Navigator Stove Works heater is finally installed. Looks very nice. Can't wait to fire it up. The stainless steel shield panels are backed with 5/8" RADAR fire rated ceiling tile and spaced from the bulkheads with stainless spacers 1/2" to allow for air circulation.

I asked my Father to carve the name board since I have minimal carving experience. I wanted elegant and simple and I think it looks great. Removable with two bronze machine screws.

Added the bronze safety bars for the skylight.

Drilling block for the winch base holes.

Coaming backing plates

Deck Backing plates.

Winches installed. Holes were as usual counter sunk a bit to leave a good ring of goop around the bolt as it passes through the deck and coamings. 

The stern tube and propeller shaft installed. The effort in installing the motor paid off and only had to shift the motor about 3/16" to starboard to align it. The Prop is a 17" Campbell Sailor.

Put the battery switch on the side of the engine box out of the way but accessible. The main panel is just around the corner under the cockpit safe, accessible and out of view.

 Two Trojan AGM batteries with all it's wiring.

The main panel. A Blue Seas 10 position panel. Still need to run the exhaust through the hole to the right of the panel.

The panel open. 

Finished installing the second 100 liter water tank in 316 - 14G Stainless with baffles. This tank you fill from inside. All the sea cocks, tank valves, tank fill and bilge pump are accessed by lifting only two sole boards.

The sink drain and the various vent and sink hoses under the sink.

Kerstin is almost done the upholstery.. A very time consuming job but looks very professional and very happy with the fabric and how it looks with the woods.

Salon Table

The Pardey style table was build using lumber core veneer technique in order to have boards that would stay flat and stable. I also wanted the clean look of edge grain so I used the veneering technique I learned in Sweden where it is called "Lamell". The nice thing about this technique is you can customize the thickness. Here is how it was made.

The first step is to mill up the core staves of a stable soft wood. I used Douglas Fir because that it what I had a surplus of. Pine or cedar would have been fine too. They should be about six inches longer than required. Preferably the staves have the grain at a 45 degree angle to vertical and should be no wider than they are thick.The thickness is determined by subtracting the outer veneer and backing veneer from the desired thickness.  When I mill them I keep them sorted as they come off the table saw and then they are sorted on a flat surface so staves that are bowed are either eliminated or are alternated up and down to even out any tension in the board.

Here the object is to get a slight space between each stave so they cannot influence each other. Flip the staves on their side and at each end run four layers of tape across them all. Cut the tape between each stave and flip them back up so now there is a tape spacer between each. Bind the panel together by wrapping the ends with some tape. This only takes a few minutes to do.

Now the staves have been flipped back up and will be bound at each end with tape. You can see the slight gap between each stave.

Press the backing veneer onto the staves. Solid wood veneer should have the grain at 90 degrees to the staves. However, I could not find any solid wood veneer locally so used 1.5mm marine plywood as a backing veneer. One sheet did all four sides of the two boards. I used West Epoxy and rolled the glue so there was enough for a proper bond but tried to avoid too much so it would run between the staves. A fine balance.

Now the two ends have an inner edging applied. I used Tite-Bond III for this. This covers the end grain so the final edging after veneering has something to bond to.

Ash veneer was milled on the bandsaw and planed to 2.5mm in the planer using a backing board

The Ash veneer is edge glued into flat panels using Tite-Bond III

The veneer panels are now glued to the cores using west Epoxy and my improvised press. I had a piece of 1.5 inch fir plywood with formica from a kitchen that I could use as a flat press base and the top board is MDF with lead shot bags and clamps.

Here is a cross section of the board before applying the outer edging. The thick veneer ensures that the table can be re-finished. Some of the thickness is lost to final sanding of course.

The finished table with the hinges installed.  The repeating pattern of the edge grain ash is easy to see here.

Installing the bottom supports and hardware. I made little leather pull tabs for the supports and tabs to keep the barrel bolts closed.

The table is 34 inches wide open and 44 inches long. No problem for four people to sit around, six if cozy.