Forecast: Excellent

The Forecast for Saturday

Yay. A nice, dry, warm, clear day.
Tomorrow I shall fiberglass.

How, you ask, do I know how to fiberglass?
Answer: I don't.
However, I have a six page (very densely typed) booklet of instructions from Raka (my epoxy and fiberglass supplier), and I am poring over them. One interesting direction is to cut strips of the fiberglass (I'm thinking about 2 or 3 feet wide), and lay them down individually, rather than trying to epoxy down one giant sheet all at once. This strikes me as eminently logical, and when I get to glassing the final constructed boat, I will do so.

But tomorrow I will just be joining the shorter sections of plywood (via the previously-mentioned butt joints) so that I have LONG sections of plywood out of which I will construct the boat.

My plan:
Pull the cars out of the driveway. Lay down plastic sheeting so as to keep the work area as dirt-free as possible. Test the epoxy/fiberglassing on a very small project: wrapping my rubrail scarf joints (done last weekend and resting since then) in a layer of fiberglass to strengthen them. This will only take a piece of fiberglass about 4"x6" and a very little bit of epoxy, and should be a good "primer" on the consistency of the epoxy and the manoeuverability of the fiberglass sheets.

Then I will join the two pairs of 10" sideboards (making two long sideboards, each 16' long) because that will only take about a 1'x2' square piece of fiberglass for each side.

Then I will move on to the big boys - the two bottom pieces, each 4' x 28". In each case, I will lay down some waxed paper, wrap the fiberglass, put more waxed paper on top, and then weigh down.

My concern: The driveway is not really FLAT. It's . . . cracked and sloped. So it's unlikely I will get a flat piece as an end result.

Options:
1) do the long pieces on the sidewalk, which is somewhat more level.
2) do the joining in the basement, which is very level.

The disadvantage with the basement is that it will not be as warm as outside, and it has a higher humidity - meaning the epoxy will take that much longer to cure.
Another potential disadvantage is the difficulty in getting the completed 16'x28" piece of wood upstairs and outside after it is joined. There's a pretty tight angle to the basement stairs, but I think it just might be do-able. I need to call Raka and see how long the epoxy needs to set before it can be moved. If it's less than 8 hours and I can find a level enough spot outside, I think I'll try to join them outside.
But if it's a couple of days before they can be handled, then it's basement for sure.

Note: No word from Fred on my going rogue on the sail plan. It's not a done deal, and I may still be talked out of it. And I did not mean any disrespect or to imply that his proposal was not most logical and by all means should be used. Of course it is and should. But that doesn't mean it will. Because I'm stubborn.

Me = Recalcitrant

I haven't gotten much done on the boat lately.
I was very excited about the potential sailing rigs after my last post, but significantly less so today.
I got a very thoughtful e-mail from Fred about the various potentialities of sailing rigs, which I will quote in part:

One of the more compelling aspects of any sailing rig is its structural and organizational flexibility. A limited set of basic components can afford the ability to adapt to all the compounding variables of load and trim and wind and water. For your boat, without the benefit of a time-tested specific sail plan, any design will be inherently speculative and prototypical; it would not suit to impose a rigid system.

Eminently logical, no doubt. And it matches this article I found about setting up a sailing canoe rig in many important points.

I will post the proposed plan from Fred here, if only to have it in the log. Once again, if you are not up to speed with your Chapman Piloting and Seamanship, you may want to skip down a bit.

So if I could presume to suggest the outline of a plan........

It appears in the official, idealized catalog photo of your canoe that there are occasional clearances between the ribs and the bottom. It was not clear in your photo of your dry fit mock-up if this wold be the case with your boat. If not, some sort of similar feature would be exceedingly useful--it could be as simple as an evenly spaced(6-8" apart) series of 3/8" holes through the ribs.

Beyond that, you would need a few spars of different lengths for the parts. It could all be of similar stock, say 2"x 2" or thereabouts, squarish rather than rectangular. And you would need a fair amount of 1/4" line, decent double-braided-type marine stuff, good for knot-tying.

The mast foot: This would be a length of wood long enough to comfortably span two of the ribs, nominally along the centerline of the bottom. It would have a few holes drilled through--evenly spaced every 3-4", a foot or so to either side of the centerpoint, big enough(thus slightly oversized) to accommodate a 1/2" bolt. The mast foot would be set across two of the ribs--on the centerline, offset, or diagonal--and lashed down. The lashing and the holes would allow positioning adjustability fore and aft, as well as side to side, if desired, for the location of the mast.

The mast: A spar of maybe 10'--these specifics are where your sea trials will become telling. If it starts long and proves awkward, you can always cut it shorter. This spar would have at each end a hole the same size as the hole in the mast foot, with the exact placement allowing an end to bolt to the mast foot without the mast itself touching the bottom of the boat. (The other hole will serve as a point for tying on the sheave for raising the yard.) The bolt could be a nice stainless steel or brass hex head, washered on both sides, and hand-tightened with a wingnut. This will secure the mast to the foot, and still allow it to pivot, perhaps useful for stepping and striking and trimming. I would envision stepping the mast by resting it across the bow and aligning the bolt holes, and then swinging the mast up(or, in reverse, striking it down to the deck, as it were) into its desired trim.

The gunwale brace: A spar as long as the beam width of the canoe, plus several inches. This would be set across the gunwales, positioned as needed--square to the centerline or not--and lashed down. The mast, swung up, would then lash to it. The extra outboard length might eventually come in handy for stays and fairleads, or even a daggerboard point. At this point, too, you might find that a backstay will answer--a simple line from that hole at the top of the mast to somewhere stern-ish, rib 'C' maybe, or another gunwale brace(it would just be another uncarpentered stick after all) forward of the steersman.

The yard: A stick of the same stuff, 8'to 10'? with a simple bridle tied to a line passed through the mast sheave. Hoist. Tie off to the gunwale brace.

The sail: I'm serious here--a shower curtain. I think the size(tub-style) and material(lightweight, moderately impermeable) would be about right, it would be inexpensive, it would expendable, and it would be reinforced and grommetted along its top edge and ready to be tied onto the yard. You would only need to add grommet points to the corners that would become the clews. If it were too big, length or width, you could simply cut off what you didn't like; too small, tie on another one, overlapping to suit. The sheets, secured at the clews, would pass outboard under the gunwale brace to the stern.

The article I referenced above about setting up a canoe for sailing stresses many of the same points:

The placement of you and your sail rig in the canoe is part science and part of the art of sailing well. In order to sail safely and under control, it is essential to obey the physical laws of balance. . . The mast step should be placed in relation to the location of the leeboard thwart and vice-versa for a balanced rig. It is recommended that you start by using secure clamps to attach the leeboard thwart to the gunwales so that you can make adjustments.

I would like to state for the record that I do not like these answers.

Fred puts it best:

I don't know if this is a definitive design, but I hope that its essence is relative simplicity and flexibility. Ideally it might provide the capacity to allow you to complete your boat without building yourself into a corner, so to speak. If you were, for example, to forgo your sailing ambitions, you would only be left with four unused sticks and some rope(and a shower curtain), rather than an integral structural modification.

I want to build in my mast step. I want it to be part of the boat. It is less important to me that it works properly than that it looks good. I have already mentally designed the mast step, and some parts of the rig itself. Will they "work" according to some arbitrary "laws of physics"? Answer: I don't care.

Is this smart of me?
No.
Do I care about that, either?
No. It's my boat. That's the best part of building a boat. It doesn't have to make sense to any of you.

I do, very much like this last bit from Fred:

Some questions:
Does any of this make sense?
Can you sew?
Do you have a small grommet kit?
Do you have a passing familiarity with certain knots--bowline, clove hitch, sheet bend, trucker's hitch, maybe a sheepshank, and various lashing methods? It is always good to remember that rope work, so fundamental to any mariner, can be aesthetically pleasing and deeply satisfying, as well as profoundly useful and effective.

In answer:
- Yes, it makes sense. (Even though I don't like it.)
- I can sew. Kind of. Not really.
- No, but I would like to have a small grommet kit.
- No, I no know knots. Although I truly want to. In all sincerity. That is something that I do want to come from this whole boat thing. I want to have nice ropes with intricate knots. I don't know any, but I will learn some.

Sailing Rigs

Actually, come to think of it, I do have something else boat-related on my mind.

NOTE: This is going to be a fairly lingo-heavy post about the specifics of various types of sailing rigs, so those of you of a less nautical bent might want to go ahead and look the other way on this one. I will try to add pictures to help to clarify.

As you may recall, I have been thinking much about making this at least a part-time sailing vessel. My original thought was to add a lateen sail, based upon an old black-and-white photo I had found, but Fred advised otherwise:

You might consider that your boat, and I say this with all respect, will probably never be much more than a before-the-wind sailer. Without entering into a detailed conversation about the dynamics of foils and pressure differentials, your boat seems suited for a simple square rig--mast and yard, sheeted from the clews--trimmed and steered with your paddle at the stern. The structure of the boat would support, in my opinion, an adequate mast--stepped at the bottom deck, with a simple brace from the gunwales, and perhaps a backstay.

I found this to be not only a very sensible idea, but it also appealed to me because of the prominence of the square rig in maritime history.

A quick example of the various sail rigs:This illustration is from the book Hand, Reef and Steer; A Practical Handbook on Sailing which I picked up at the library today, simply because of the title.

You may notice that for the "square rig" illustration (top), it depicts a Viking boat, complete with dragon figurehead. About it, the author (Richard Henderson) says:

The square rig is undoubtedly the oldest rig, having in all probability been used on the first sailboat. It reached its highest degree of development in the days of the clippership. This rig is most efficient when the wind is abaft the beam, or when a squarerigger has the wind behind her. The top of a squaresail is secured to a yard, which is a horizontal pole running athwartships that may be swung for and aft to a limited extent by lines called braces. Except for an occasional squaresail or a deep-sea boat expected to sail before the trade winds, or on a training ship, one seldom sees this kind of sail today. Squareriggers have been outmoded by the fore and aft rigged boat, which can sail much closer to the wind. Before they began to fade from existence, squareriggers reached a high degree of rig variation and complexity, but since they are almost a thing of the past, we will deal only with rig variations in the fore and aft class.

So . . . no help to me.

So, I did some more research, and found that there is very little information about single-mast, single-sail square rigs. I did find the Open Canoe Sailing Group, which has a small section on the rigging of a canoe for sailing, and since my pirogue will have much the same sailing properties as a canoe, I can use that as a reference.

But if I am going to add a sail to this boat, it will need a mast. And if it has a mast, it will need a mast step (a place to hold the mast) during construction, and if it's going to have a mast step during construction, I'll need to decide where to place it before construction.

And I don't know where to start. I was thinking of stepping the mast in the front third of the boat, but from the little I've been able to find on square rigs, the mainmast (or only mast) would be in the dead center of the boat. (A couple of the canoes on the OCSG have mid-hull masts.) What would happen if the mast moves forward? I'll be seated in in the stern of the boat, so that could offset the weight in front, and might keep the sail from pressing down the prow of the boat.

I also don't know how to actually rig the sail. I have found a simple line drawings of square sails, but no details about how the yard is affixed to the mast, or exactly how the braces are rigged . . .

I don't know that Fred will already know The Answer on this one, unless he has square-rigged a pirogue and loaded it with two boys. But I need to start somewhere, and all of my research has gotten me nowhere.

And his knowledge of the sailing properties of all of the various sail rigs, fluid mechanics, my pirogue, my building skills and the overall aesthetic of this project gives me complete confidence that he will come through.

Sunday Musings

We must start, of course, with Fred's latest, if only for the elegance of his writing:

If I lived near you, I, too, like your friend Dennis, would want to come over and drink beer and laugh at you--relying on the beer to choke down fat gobbets of envy and the laughter to mask my wistful self-denigrating sobs.

And, of course, after a few beers, I would begin to gush about your gumption and your wherewithal, about you and your boat coming together right before my unbelieving eyes, before staggering home to drunkenly, desperately cobble together some sort of soul-redeeming raft of boards and and twigs and string.


Because, by the looks of your last log posting, you are well on your way to having a boat. If it looks like a boat, it very well might be a boat. Most probably, at the very least, something that will float.

Today I smoothed out my long 6" scarf cuts in the rubrails with sandpaper, applied a liberal layer of glue, and once again weighted them down with a heavy cookbook. I will not look at them again until next weekend. Well, probably Friday. I am going to give them every last chance to succeed.

The big progress today (besides gluing the rails) was a complete cleaning of my basement workbench, which was in such a state of disrepair as to make me embarrassed to even speak to Fred. So, I feel better about that.

I don't think there's anything to be done on the boat before assembly next weekend. So this week, I will lay out the first couple of trips I hope to take in my boat. (I had asked Fred if it was premature to discuss potential trips before the craft is constructed, if that would be considered tempting fate. But he reassured me:

Certainly it is not too early to plan a voyage. Doesn't every boat begin with a particular piece of water in mind?

So, look for that in the next few posts.)

Post #23: In Which I Tell the Weather to Suck It

I checked the radar this morning, and had a good two or three hour window before the rain rolled in.
So I did it. I pulled out my sawhorses, set everything up, took my time, measured it out, and made my first cut:
And then I made several more cuts. And then I had this:
and this:
Now, I'll grant you, there's a lonnnnng way between a few pieces of sawn plywood held together with some clamps and a seaworthy craft. But . . . c'mon now. Are you kidding me? That looks kinda like a boat, don't it?

More Setbacks

10-day forecast:
Friday: afternoon/overnight rain
Saturday: scattered thunderstorms
Sunday: rain
Monday: rain clearing
Tuesady: sunny
Wednesday: sunny
Thursday: sunny
Friday: scattered evening thunderstorms
Saturday: showers
Sunday: showers

So . . . no boat action.

More Support

I coach Charlie's baseball team (go Phillies!) with another guy, Dennis. (Dennis was Charlie's coach three or four years ago, and I kinda pitched in and helped out, and now we're tag-team, and always coach together.)

At practice recently, Charlie was telling Dave (Dennis's son) that I'm building a boat. Dennis overheard this, and asked me about it. His response (to me):

"Seriously? Wow. I'd like to come over and drink some beer and . . . laugh at you."

That's right up there with Mary's "Forget boat - impossible to do!" support.

But I'll show 'em! I'll show you all!

Progress (or a lack thereof)

For those of you who are beginning to think that this is a never-ending boat project, I would like to say for the record that, all told, this boat will ultimately take about five days to build, and that's only working on it two or three hours on each of those days.

Day one:
assemble the ribs
scarf the rub rails
join the plywood
leave to dry

Day two:
cut the sideboards, assemble to stempost and sternpost, attach ribs
leave to dry

Day three:
Cut and attach bottom
leave to dry

Day four:
Fiberglass outside
leave to dry

Day five:
Fiberglass inside
leave to dry

Unfortunately for me, I don't have a large workshop or garage in which to work, so I am at the mercy of the weather. This weekend (during which I should be able to finish Day 1 and Day 2) it will be raining, and so I won't really get to do anything apart from re-join the rubrails.

But then I'll leave them to set and dry for a week, and next Saturday I am going to cut the sideboards and, hopefully, join them and the bottom.

If the weather cooperates, I will have something vaguely boat-shaped to show you by next Sunday.

In the meantime, I have some other boat-related things that I may address here.
Oh, and here's the finished Samurai costume:

Math 1, Tom 0

I got this from Fred:

For the rub rail scarfs, maximize the gluing surface.

All along, I had been thinking that I wanted the scarf joints to go across the rails, rather than up and down. It seemed logical to me that by scarfing them across the vertical axis, the stresses put on by the horizontal tension of trying to bend them around a curving boat would not work to pull the joints apart. Despite all of the scarf joints I had seen on the pictures, I thought I knew better.

Maximize the gluing surface.

I did some maths (with the help of Charlie and a calculator), and found that a six-inch scarf on the 3/4" axis will create 4.5 square inches of surface area (6 x 0.75 = 4.5). Whereas a six-inch scarf on the 1.5" axis will create double that. Sure, laugh at me now, but that was a real shocker when I did 6x1.5 and came up with nine.

So I cave to the superior math.
I have seen the light.

Fred went on to say

Ideally when you attach them to the rest of the structure, the joints will be placed in a gentler part of the gunwale curve, closer to the bow or stern, rather than at the apogee of the arc amidships. With the length of material you are using, you might even consider giving each rail two scarfs, adding a small extension at each end of an unmolested 10' or 12' piece, setting the joints in a relatively unstressed part of the plan curve.

If your plans include a provision for a full-scale layout of the boat's shape, you could determine the best spot for the scarfs. Draw out the curve of the gunwale in chalk on the ground, then find the straightest sections.

I'm afraid that's not going to happen. I am not going to double my scarf joint labor. I will have a 9'6" piece scarfed to a 6' piece. That will put the scarf joint not exactly at the center of the curve. It won't be too far off, but it won't be at the center. And, just to be safe, when I make the butt joint in the plywood for the bottom and sides, I will add a layer of fiberglass around the rub rail scarf joints, as well.

The bad news: it's going to rain all weekend. I won't get to work on the boat outside. Rats.

The plus side, the Samurai is coming along well:

Scarf question for Fred

Freddd,

Am I right in assuming that I want the scarf joint on the rub rails to be in the vertical axis and not the lateral? That is to say, when the rails are bent around the gunwales, I don't want horizontal pressure working to split that joint, correct? I should continue as I had, with the scarf running from top to bottom (albeit for a full six inches as opposed to 1.5), looking at the rail in elevation (as opposed to plan) view.

A Call Back to Reality from Fred

I think the concerns about pre-tensioning your panels before final assembly, while not entirely irrelevant, might be a bit academic for a project of this nature. I think your focus should be the basic construction of the vessel--unclouded by the complicated considerations of idiosyncratic resin properties, the differing strength and flex patterns of various weaves and weights of fibreglass cloth, and the inherent variables of composite materials engineering applied to compound curves and fluid dynamics--eased, perhaps occasionally, with a lowball of Connemara Irish Single Malt.

To be blunt: build the wooden boat, then glass it. Enjoy the handmade process--the feel and shape of the wood as it becomes the essence of your boat--before you move on to the synthetic wrapper. And when you are ready for that final phase, remember that fibreglass and epoxy resin, augmented with assorted thickeners and enhancers, can adequately address any and all perceived deficiencies, aesthetic and otherwise.

More on fiberglassing

Well, I've certainly given the guys at Old Sparkey's Forum a lot to think about with my question about fiberglassing the composite parts before construction of the boat.

Here's some of the latest. Bob says:

Hey Guys,
Follow this and then I want some comments on wheather this is right or wrong or just doesn't matter.

When you glass the panels before stitching, the glass on either side of the panel is relaxed, just laying there. When you bend the panel to stitch it togeather you wind up with the glass on one side under tension and the other side under compression. If you glass after stitching the boat togeather then the glass is just laying there netural in the shape of the boat. Any outside forces placed on the boat will give tension on one side and compression on the other side giving resistance to the forces applied.On a pre glassed panel what happens when an outside force is applied to the boat? Would the glassed after construction boat be stronger than the glassed before construction?

To which seedtick responds:

might be on to something Bob,

similar to a post tensioned concrete slab for your house - concrete under compression, steel cables under tension, already preloaded for new stresses and considerably stronger than conventional reenforced slabs.

Interesting. Ron then chimes in:

Personally I think it would be stronger.
Inside is glassed ,and bent ,yep that glass is compressed.What happens when you hit a rock the outside takes the blow so puncture strength is important. The inside is braced because you try to strech the glass and cloth ,if you preglass and compress that it will take more puncture penitration to reach the point where the glass and cloth starts to strech.
Boy hope you can get thru the mud and understand what I just wrote.

So . . . I think this leads me to the conclusion that glassing the inside of the sidewalls before building might make them slightly stronger. The compressed glass on the inside would have an increased puncture strength. (And, when I'm completing my trans-oceanic trip, puncture strength will be very important.)

So, I think that's what I'll do: glass the inside of the side walls before construction, then glass the entire outside and inside deck after.

Oh, and on the rub rails: I looked at it again, and I don't think I'm going to have the length I need after re-cutting the scarfs. So I'm going to have to get another 12' piece to make the rubrail scarfs (scarves?). No worries: I can use the 10' for the sail project.

Setback, part II

Well, both rub rail joints failed.
Perhaps predictable, but nonetheless slightly disheartening. Of course, some words of encouragement from Fred:

Don't worry. It need not be fatal. And if you are too ill-at-ease, you can always repeat that step with new material.

"It need not be fatal." Implication: it probably will be.

That's exactly what I'm going to do: start again with new cuts. 6" on either side of the joint. Then I'm going to set them and leave them for several days.

Just when I'm getting discouraged, Fred comes through with a beautifully-written paragraph on the mitre cut:

Once, long ago, when I was working for Pierre Cayard, the longtime head of the SF Opera Scene Shop (originally called the Cayard-Kotcher studios), the father of Paul Cayard, the renowned blue water sailor, and a fine sailor and craftsman himself, he gently criticized me for repeatedly walking over to the chop saw to cut 45deg mitres. "Why," he said in his thick French accent, "do you not use the reflection cut?" He demonstrated: with the hand saw poised to cut, align the blade so that the board and its reflection on the steel form a 90deg angle. Voila. I began to suggest that the time it took to walk the few steps to the chop saw were mitigated by the infinitely repeatable accuracy and cleanliness of the machine cuts; I stopped. I embraced, at least for that day, the reflection cut.

It will all be okay. I've lost about 6" in total linear length so far. So my 16' rails are down to 15'6". I will lose another 6" in this new scarf joint, but that will be okay - that will leave me with 15' rails for a 14'6" pirogue.

All good.

On the plus side: all of the fiberglassing materials arrived today. I have a long roll of glass, and the various epoxies and other ancillary supplies. (I haven't yet opened the box. A glass of Connemara Irish single malt got in the way.)

The plans look so easy. But I have no real clue how I'm going to complete the next step: cutting 10" sideboards from the 4x8 sheets. I have some sawhorses . . . I clamp down the plywood and measure out my sides . . . But I'm cutting with a handsaw. I predict more frustration in my future. (So much so that I have added a sub-section to this Log: "Setbacks".)

But I am going to have a boat. This summer. Before September, I will be on the DuPage river in a boat of my own making.

Mark. My. Words.

Setback, or the Fancy Butt Joint

Well, I did exactly what I said I wasn't going to do; I rushed and made a mess of things. I was so excited about the rubrails that I decided to test the joint before it had had time to set. Of course, one split. So I did my best to sand away all of the glue residue and tried to re-glue the fresh ends, but I don't think it's going to work. I decided I'd probably have to re-cut both sides of that joint and re-glue next weekend.

Then I got this from Fred:

There may be a slight problem with your scarf joint. Usually the angle is very extreme, to maximize the gluing surface and contact area between the two pieces to be joined. In material of that thickness, one might expect the scarf cut to run four to six inches along its length. Your picture, unless I am misinterpreting it, shows what essentially amounts to a fancy butt joint. It may need reinforcement, which can probably be accomplished when you attach them to the rest of the structure.

I had thought about this before making the joint, but as I have a cheap mitre box, I decided to risk the 45 degree angle. I was very discouraged last night, as I received Fred's well-intended criticism of my joint immediately after one failed. But I consoled myself with the thought that the fiberglassing kit should arrive today, and I can simply reinforce the scarf fancy butt joints with a thickness of fiberglass and carry on.

This was never going to be the most perfect and beautiful boat. All I ask is seaworthiness.

My fourth rib is on its way to me, and I'm pleased about my decision to increase the displacement. I'm a bit concerned about how heavy the finished boat will be, and how I'll get it onto the car for transporting to the mighty DuPage river. But that is presupposing I will actually end up this project with a finished boat, which is far from guaranteed. So I'll have to leave my concerns about the weight for another time.

Go large

I've just decided to make the boat slightly larger by adding a fourth rib set. (It's identical to the middle rib in the picture a the top, so there are two wide ribs in the middle and two narrow ribs in the bow and stern.)

This will increase the displacement from about 300 lbs to about 425 lbs. With the three-rib boat, I could go out with one boy or the other, but all three of us together would be dicey. This way there will be room for all of us.

I think this is a good call, and will not affect the fundamental difficulty of the project.

The Keel is Laid

I did it.

Today, Sunday, April 18, 2010, I started the assembly of the boat.

But first, I did some more work on the samurai armor. (These are not great pictures, it's much more grand in person. But it was a couple of cardboard boxes, a couple of rolls of gaff tape, and a few packs of shoelaces yesterday morning, so it's pretty good progress:
Then, we went to Charlie's scrimmage, where he went 0-2 with a walk and a run scored, and pitched lights-out.
Then I came home and mowed and fertilized the lawn. And then ran out to exchange my 10' red oak for a 12'.

But then, then, I was ready to actually, really, for reals, actually start on the boat.

I cut 45 degree angles in the middle of the 12' oak rail and at the ends of the two 10-foot rails. I bit the bullet, and using Titebond III wood glue, scarf-joined them together. I'm doing this in the basement, and so I stuck the butt ends of the 10' pieces against the wall. laid the 6' extensions over the joint, and then put weights at the other end, to keep them from sliding apart. I applied the glue, set them carefully, and then laid over a piece of waxed paper and placed a heavy cookbook on top to press it together, but not too tightly. (I've read reports of clamping wood splices too tightly, squeezing all of the glue out, and making a bad seal.)The scarf joint is the diagonal line on the left. The opposite diagonal, on the right (between light and dark) is the shadow of the waxed paper protecting the cover of the book.
I still have a hard time believing glue is really going to hold this thing together. How can gluing two pieces of wood be stronger than screwing them together?!
But I have to take Fred's word for it.

Then I glued all of the ribs together. These could not have been easier. They are lap joints (perhaps rabbeted, I'm still not sure what that means), and were number-coded so as to be idiot-proof. I'm using handy pressure clamps to hold these together. (I almost got very strong spring clamps, but I'm paranoid of 'glue starving' my joints by clamping too tightly, so I got these clamps, which I squeeze to the tightness I want, and they lock. Like vice-grips.)If you look a this picture, and compare it to the picture of the finished boat at the top-right corner of this blog, you can see what I've done. The three ribs are clearly defined in my picture, and you can see exactly where they fit in the final boat. The long pieces of wood, called the "rub rails" are at the top of the sides of the boat above (the light colored reinforcements along the outside of the boat.) These actually provide the structural support and form of the final boat. This is the only dimensional lumber in this project.
I'm not sure when I'll be able to continue, but it's good to have gotten a start.

My fiberglassing equipment should arrive tomorrow. It's forecast to be cool and rainy this weekend, so I might be out of luck moving on to the next phase. We'll see.

Feedback from Fred

Not much new to report on the boat since yesterday. A lot of baseball, but not much boat.
And more on the docket for today: Charlie's Phillies have a scrimmage at 12:00, which will have us out from 11-2 or so.

The Samurai costume is coming along extremely well (I think), but a shortage of black gaff is going to stall construction today.

I was very anxious about my baltic birch 1/4" plywood purchase, but Fred is reassuring:

On plywood: 1/4" is just right. Remember, it will be forming the skin stretched over the framework of the ribs. You did well to buy the baltic birch plywood. You can usually gauge the quality and strength of plywood by examining the number of layers, or plys, in any given sheet. 1/4" birch will usually have at least five plys, and a good deal of structural integrity, whereas luan, used most often in interior door skins and movie-set flats, will offer two surface veneers sandwitched over some sort of dried-out crouton paste.

A quick run out to the garage, and I see that my baltic birch is, indeed, 5-ply:
Hard to see, perhaps, but there are 5 layers there. Also cold toes (lower left)
Fred would have gone another way for the rails:

The red oak should be fine. I might have picked maple, if given the choice, but that's a personal bias--I tend to favor it over other hardwoods like hickory or oak for its cleanliness and clarity of grain.

This red oak is really very pretty, so I'm okay with my choice, but I did just realize I didn't get enough; I need two rails, each at least 6" longer than the length of the boat. I'm building it to be 14'6" long, so I need two 15' rails. But I got three 10' sections of oak, meaning I can have two 15' sections exactly -- but that does not count the 4" I am going to lose in the scarf joint. Bummer. So I'll take back one of the 10' sections (I got three), and exchange it for a 12-footer, and we'll be good.

My goal is to glue the ribs and try to get a start on the scarfing of the rub rails today/tonight. We'll see.

(Fred is also reassuring about my impending dread of fiberglassing, which--by all accounts--is tricky.)

Fiberglass is fabric + liquid. It is a process well-suited to conforming to the shape of three-dimensional objects.

Yes, in the hands of a skilled craftsman. I have grave doubts.

Progress today

What a day, and the day's only halfway done.
Started out working hard on the Samurai costume. This is for a project at school, in which all of the sixth graders are to dress up like someone from medieval times. They can pick one of several cultures: Western Europe, Asia, India, etc.
It's going to be black, with red highlights, but this is a pretty good half-day's work, I think:

After getting that done, we needed a break from the samurai, so I went to Menards to get some boat-building supplies.
Of course, I left the directions at home. But why would I need them? I just needed two sheets of 4x8 plywood, and then some rub rails. What's hard about that?

Well, for one thing, THIS:
That was the 4x8 plywood selection at Menards. From 1/4" to 3/4", and out of materials from knotty pine to red oak, cherry, maple, birch, baltic birch, plus construction-grade pine and luan.

I went through agonies, debating if I wanted to get red oak (all the best ships are made of heart of oak, right?) . . . all down the list. I was determined to get 1/2 inch, because 3/4" seemed like it would be a little too heavy.

Then I got the brilliant idea of actually checking out the pirogue plans online (you can see the exact plans I'm working from here.)

It very clearly says 1/4" plywood. Yikes. That's really, really thin.
But it answered my question. So I looked at the various options, and the baltic birch was the nicest, smoothest, least knotholed, and flattest selection. (I've heard of problems butt-jointing because the luan is warped and it's hard to get the edges to align.)

I got my two sheets, I got some nice red oak for the rub rails (it comes in 10' and 12' lengths, so I fear I'm going to have to do a scarf joint after all. Two, actually, One for each side. Grrrr.)

I managed to get everything to fit inside the car, but it wasn't easy. The plywood was basically the width of the interior, and the depth, too. So it was basically where my head needed to be. No worries. I opened the window, and leaned out the window to drive home.

Fortunately, I didn't pass any cops.

The build starts tomorrow.

Is Today the Day?

There's a chance I'll get some ACTUAL work done on the ACTUAL boat today, but it's not likely.
I have a lot on the agenda today (two baseball practices and a big samurai warrior suit of armor to construct, in addition to the usual tasks at hand.)

But either today or tomorrow I'll have the nominal Keel-Laying Ceremony. (Significance: As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event. Only the ship's launching considered more significant in its creation.) In modern times, as giant ships are built from pre-fabricated sections, and not around a fundamental keel piece, the "keel ceremony" is marked by the cutting of the first piece of steel. In this instance, it will be the assembly of the ribs.
The Keel
When I ordered the fiberglass, the guys at Raka (the fiberglass company) suggested I try glassing the sheets of luan plywood before construction. Their rationale: fiberglassing is tricky at best, and glassing a large, flat rectangle is necessarily easier than glassing a three-dimensional boat-shaped object. I asked around among some other pirogue-builders (there's a wood-boat-building forum here), and the best response I got confirmed my suspicions:

I surprised they recommended doing this. Really surprised actually. You be adding unneeded stress to the fiberglass weave and would be doubling up on fiberglass and epoxy needed.
[and]
I do however believe that the general thought about "pre-glassing" was that it was not that good an idea.
The reasons you stated were of prime concern. ie.: Difficulty in bending the pannels, and cracking of the "stiffend " wood.
All in all, not a recommended procedure.

So, I'm glad I asked.

I also got a follow-up from Fred. He asked:

In suggesting the rabbetted half-lap, I assumed you have access to a router, which would make it a very simple thing to accomplish, well within your abilities. Do you have a router? Have you thought about getting a router?

It's a good question, and one that's been much on my mind in recent weeks.

But, no. I got into this project as a woodworker of limited ability and resources, and I am determined to leave it much the same. My tools consist of:
- various hand saws of different sizes and teeth layout
- a non-adjustable-speed electric drill. This is not a Makita-type screwdriver; it is a drill to which I can add a screwdriver bit. It goes forwards and backwards, but at one high speed only. I also have a circular sander attachment for it, onto which I can secure any grit of sandpaper. This will be my prime shaping tool.
- A tape measure, corner square, and pencils.

Those are the tools I have. And, for better or worse, those are the parameters by which this boat will be built.

Initial advice from Fred

My particular friend Fred is a highly talented carpenter who possesses a vast knowledge of the sea and sea-going vessels (and their constituent parts and attendant rigging and accoutrements), and has a thoughtful way of expressing himself. Despite being 2,101 miles away (via land, much longer via the sea -- more on that later), he will be my advisor for this project. (Without my presuming his advice I would never have had the confidence to so much as order the kit.) Graciously, he has consented to answer questions and otherwise provide invaluable advice.

A word about joining: I had asked Fred about the relative merits of a scarf (or scarph) joint v. a butt joint. Here are the differences:

To make a scarf joint, one planes the two edges in a diagonal manner, so that there is much overlap to secure together:

Whereas in a butt joint, the two squared ends of wood are "butted" together and secured with a joiner across the joint. In this case, a thin layer of fiberglass on each side:

I had asked Fred for advice, because Uncle John recommends a scarf joint, but it seems beyond my rudimentary abilities. I think a butt joint would be more within the scope of my talent.

Fred's response:

A butt joint is okay.

Scarf joints in sheet material are difficult to execute, and can often be aesthetically and structurally disappointing. The underlying rationale is sound, but, in this case, a thoughtful, careful, artful butt joint will be entirely serviceable. The advice you refer to in your blog is well worth heeding. If you feel compelled, for any sort of spiritual reasons, to infuse your boat with a bit of joinery, you could consider, for this phase, a simple rabbetted half-lap, augmented perhaps with butt joint elements. A scarf in dimensional lumber, on the other hand, employed to cleanly lengthen a member or create a suitable blank for a curve or slight bend, is the preferred option from both formal and functional standpoints.

I looked up a half-lap (rabbeted or otherwise), and I think he's pulling my leg:

That is well outside the limits of my abilities. So a butt joint it is.
I would also add that increasing the difficulty level of this project for any reasons (spiritual or otherwise) is quite improbable. The project itself is enough of a challenge.

Fred then responded to my question about using brass screws as fasteners.

Moving on. The common complaints about fasteners, especially in structures of this kind, has to do with the vagaries of expansion, contraction, and deterioration of the differing materials. Adhesives, properly applied, ultimately will provide a stronger, more durable connection--a more fully synthesized whole. And the resin bond, inherently variable at the fasteners, might provide an eventual weakness and source point of delamination.

I never intended using just fasteners and no adhesives. The images I have seen of other pirogues under construction frequently include about 10,000 clamps holding the various parts together as the epoxy sets. Several of the builders, as I had said, have expressed a purist's reluctance to use fasteners. I have no such pride. Fred concerns me, though, in saying that the bond could be compromised at the screws. Still and all, I am going to press ahead with the screw plan, relying on the covering layer of fiberglass to fix all.

(Incidentally, I have a somewhat ironic attachment to using brass screws. When a boy, my family visited relatives in California, and we stayed with my Uncle John. (Not, I should point out, the Uncle John of the General Store.) My Uncle John was refurbishing an old power boat he had somehow obtained, and I spent several days helping him repair a splitting gunwale by adding a row of brass nuts and bolts along the entire perimeter of the fiberglass shell. I found the neat row of brass quite striking. It looked . . . nautical to me.)

Fred went on to make a very insightful commentary about my sail plan. I will hold off on posting that at this point, as I think it far too premature to consider means of propulsion of what is, at this point, still a theoretical craft. But I found his recommendations entirely sensible and I'm doubly excited at the prospect of making this a sailing vessel.

A Mother's Love

Got this loving note of support from my mother, in response to this blog:

I found tale to be most entertaining but I am worried—are you really going to build a boat??? And what do you know about boats. Although vocabulary is impressive..you sound like a sea dog. Forget boat impossible to do.

So sweet!

A follow-up on the screw question

An authority no less than Uncle John himself! assured me (via e-mail) that using brass screws would in no way affect the structural integrity, but reminded me that I need to drill the ribs before screwing them to avoid splitting the wood.

Overactive imagination

I have ordered my fiberglassing supplies from Florida. There's a chance they'll be here by this weekend, and I can get a start on the butt joint.
But I think the main goals for this weekend will be assembling the ribs, for which I'll need some high-strength waterproof epoxy and some clamps.

I am determined to go V E R Y S L O W L Y on this project. I have a tendency to rush and get excited and do a sloppy job of things. I'm going to really move in slow motion so as to be as thoughtful as possible.

The reports I read about pirgoue building are very heavy on all glue-and-clamps and seem to disdain the use of screws or other fasteners. I thought at first that this might have something to do with water-tight-ed-ness, but if I'm glassing the entire exterior, does it matter that there are screws? I think not, and I think these are some sort of purists, who think that using fasteners is a sign of weakness.

For my part, I think nice a row of nice brass screws set at 8" intervals along the gunwales would have a striking appearance. Nautical, if you will. I don't think there are wood screws with rounded tops, but I will check.


I'm also considering making it sail-ready, although I don't plan to construct the sail rig in this initial build phase. But I am considering a half-deck in the front, with a mast step set in the floor. I was able to find this spectacular photograph of a sail canoe, which I intend to use as my model.

As you can see, it is rigged with a lateen sail, which maximizes the square footage and draw, while maintaining maneuverability. A main drawback I can foresee is that it seems designed to work on either the starboard or port tack (in the illustration above, the port only), but if you were to tack to starboard, the fore part of the sail would brail against the mast, restricting the draw. I suppose the way to get around this is to slue the entire boom around to put it on the opposite side of the mast. I think that could be very unstable, though, especially if there is any significant wind. Hm.

The other problem, of course, would be a flat-bottomed skiff would necessarily yaw to leeward without a keel and rudder to convert the force of the wind on the beam into forward momentum. Without a transom, a rudder is impractical, and a keel is likewise not in the plan. So this sail concept is not without obstacles.

I also don't know if a mast with a 3" step on the bottom deck of the boat and then about 3" of vertical bracing at the 10" deck level would be structurally sound. I might have to rig stays and perhaps shrouds, which could become cumbersome, and would prohibit the sluing of the boom as described above. Actually, looking again at the picture, I notice that boat has a forestay, which would prevent the rotating of the boom. Interesting.

Much later in the process, of course, one must consider final appearance (paint/stain) and, ultimately, a name for the vessel. My intention has been to have a natural wood finish, but Fred (somewhat facetiously) suggested the Nelson Chequer.


I could paint the gunwales black, and have black band at the bottom of the sides, and then the false gunports down the side. That could be greatly amusing to me.

As to the name . . . I think I have to know the boat first. Perhaps a name will just come to me, when I see her. Perhaps not. I have some ideas, but it's a bit premature.

Question for Fred

Fredddd,

I need a 15' length of plywood. Uncle John is telling me that I have to make a scarf joint with two pieces of 8' ply. I don't want to make a scarf joint. I want to make a butt joint, because it looks easier.
Here are several suggestions from Jim Michalak as to how I could make a butt joint.

What would you recommend? Keep in mind: I have very little skill in this area.

It's here!

Yesterday the kit arrived. I'm very excited.

I'm going to be building a pirogue, which is a small, flat-bottomed boat typcally seen in Western Africa and the American deep south.

I've gotten a kit from Uncle John's General Store, basically because after much research, this was determined to be the easiest boat for a guy like me to build. Period. I have very limited carpentry skills and tools, and it seems like I am ideally suited to build Uncle John's pirogue.

I can't wait.

Why? (continued)

But the true reason I want to build a boat did not become apparent to me until this past weekend, when I got a fantastic book "A Place of My Own" by Michael Pollan.
(In case you haven't guessed it, my url ("aboatofmyown") is an homage to the title of this book.)

In the book, Pollan is in need of a Fortress of Solitude in which to work and write. But in thinking about the ideal place (a process in which he relates in a deep way (slightly too much for my tastes) with H. D. Thoreau and the whole Walden thing. Which is not to discount his premise or belittle his experience, but it struck me personally as a bit junior-high English class coming-of-age term paper. But I digress), he determines not only does it need to be a physical place, a freestanding room in the woods (as opposed to a quiet corner by the firplace) but also that he has to build it himself. For some of us who work in numbers, emails, and whose whole contribution to society is a sheaf of paperwork taller than ourselves, there comes a need to contribute something more concrete.
I quote Pollan:

I had a dense tangle of reasons for wanting to build something, but one of them was to join the world of makers--homo faber-- and leave, if only temporarily, the dodgier world of words. . . At the end of his day, the builder alone could say--and yet didn't need to say, because there it was--he had added something to the stock of incontestable reality, created a new fact.

That resonates with me.

Why, you ask, do I want to build a boat?

It's not a bad question.

To tell the truth, I've been asking myself the same thing.
And, in fact, it has several answers. I've alwas wanted a boat. There's just something about boat-having that appeals to me.
'What did you do this weekend, Tom?'
'Oh, took my boat out. I went boating. I boated.'
You have to admit, there's some appeal there.

So why not buy a boat?
Well, the impracticality of it, for one. Maybe the deep-seeded longing to have a boat--to be able to say 'I boated'--is itself rooted in the fact that boating (unless you are employed in some type or sort of seafaring commerce to earn your livelihood - say, for example, a commercial fisherman or ferry captain), is a frivolous way to spend your time. In twenty-first century America, there is no practical reason for a 38-year-old suburban father of two to need a boat. And in a society in which so much emphasis is put on results, engaging in a pursuit that in itself creates no result is appealing. All that being said, in a world of limited resources, when there is an imperative to put food on the table and crystals on the chandelier, one cannot reasonably say 'I decided to buy a boat' and expect together away with it.

However, one can say 'I decided to build a boat' and, well, not have it accepted as a reasonable statement, but at least not sound as if you fancy yourself a distant relative of Thurston Howell III.