Building Jemima, A Puddle Duck Adventure

Success!

2010-04-28T21:49:00.004-04:00

My maiden voyage in Jemima was about a week ago and was a disaster. The wind was blowing down river away from my put-in point and the current was flowing the same way. Needless to say it was hell sailing back. My tiller extension was about 8 inches too long and every time I tacked it would jam into the side tank and push me downwind. After an hour I pulled out my knife to cut the rope holding the tiller extension and tiller together and cut the extension off but managed to gash myself in the process. Blood was on everything.

I attribute this to not christening the boat before I went out. I did christen it, but it was with champagne after I rowed/swam/paddled back to the dock and cut myself again on the oyster beds. Needless to say, her feelings were hurt and I had to do it right the next time before I went out. Especially since I told her I was going to use Aussie wine while the building was going on.

So this time I took her to a lake. I didn't want to deal with tides, currents, oyster beds or brackish silt that you sink up to your hips in if you step in it. I also brought along an Aussie wine named Lucky Duck so I could christen her right.

She liked that a whole lot more than the champagne.

It was an amazing day on the lake. I would sail 20 minutes one way and then sail back. I inadvertently pulled one of the traveler line fairleads right out of the wood before I raised the sail so I couldn't point very high in the wind during the trip but I'll fix that before the next trip.

Still no sailing...

2010-04-14T14:14:00.002-04:00

Here she is all rigged up and ready to sail. Still experiencing small craft advisories for the next few days so I'm stuck on shore.

After hoisting the sail in the driveway with a pretty strong breeze I noticed a few things I need to fix before the maiden voyage.

1. The block for the yard needs to be moved forward on the yard so the COE is correct in the sail.

2. The mast and/or the boom need some leather to protect them from themselves.
3. I didn't lash the spar ends correctly. (Just one wrap instead of a triangular sort of wrap.)

4. Forgot the downhaul!

Finis!

2010-04-09T15:13:00.002-04:00

Day 89

I finished today. I'd like to sail over the weekend but the forecast calls for steady 15mph winds with up to 30mph gusts. No thank you, not for the first sail. I'd like a nice breeze to get accustomed to the eccentricities of my new craft before I start testing its limits.

Anyway, here she is!

Almost there

2010-04-06T12:30:00.004-04:00

Day 86

I've spent a large amount of time painting and priming and it's almost ready. I've also spent almost everyday working on the boat in the morning and going to work at night so I'm tired. I'm in the process of building a cart to transport the boat from truck to water. However, today I'm going to follow my both of my dogs' recommendations and lounge around the house doing nothing.

Here's an update pic.

Paint

2010-04-04T22:58:00.002-04:00

Day 84

The first coat looked like crap mostly because it was thin. Nothing a sander can't take care of...

The 2nd coat worked a whole lot better. I put it on thicker and had the remnants of the 1st coat to help out. Many of the dumb blemishes that were glaring at me the day before are now gone. I'm curious to see what it looks like in the morning and hopefully, since I tipped the paint after rolling it, there won't be any sags or runs.

Primer!

2010-04-02T14:22:00.003-04:00

Day 82

This morning I went out to the garage and scuffed up the patch. Then I mixed up a batch of filler and slathered it on the repair. While it was drying I starting scuffing up the resin on the rest of the hull so I could cover it primer.

Note to self:Polyester dust in your coffee is not good for you. Leave it inside next time.

After I propped her up, she got a good coat of primer and you almost can't see the patch. The paint accents a lot of rough spots that weren't so obvious when everything was shiny resin over wood grain so in the morning I'll break out the random orbit sander to level it all out and put on one more coat of primer.

I'm fixing a hole...

2010-04-01T20:01:00.008-04:00

...where the rain gets in...and stops my boat from sailing...where it will gooooo...

Day 81

Cross another boat building experience off the list. I now know how to fill and fiberglass a hole.

Yesterday I was getting the final coaming piece ready for installation while resin on the sides and some filler on the bow cured. The boat was tipped on its side and my table saw was across the garage. I just had to rip a 2.5 foot section and glue it in place. There was 6 inches left to cut and I decided it would behoove me to keep all 10 of my fingers. So as I pushed on the butt of the piece I reached to the end of the cut side and began to pull on the wood. 4500 rpms and 2.5hp doesn't like being told what to do and the saw shot both pieces off the saw. The smaller of the 2 hit the hull of the boat and fractured, then sailed over my full size truck into the road and finally came to rest 20 yds from the saw.

At least I still have all my fingers!

Now for the repair:Part 1

The original hole is smaller than a quarter. Not bad. However, the stress cracks extended out to form about 2.5 inches square that were no longer structurally sound.

I drilled holes from the inside to mark the boundaries of how far I could cut out with my jigsaw. The damage was extremely close to the side buoyancy tank so that meant the repair needed to be done on the outside.

After cutting out the hole I sanded the area down in order to have a beveled edge for the fiberglass and filler to stick to. Then I took a file and gently squared off the inside edge.

Next, I put a backing piece of plastic (the plastic off of the back of the sanding disc fit perfectly) on the inside of the hull and reinforced it with cardboard and finally a scrap piece of wood.

I applied a little filler so the fiberglass threads couldn't be seen.

While the filler was curing I cut out 3 pieces of glass, each an inch wider than the first. The very first piece was an inch wider than the hole. Then I applied resin then the first piece of glass, wet it out and continued until all pieces were on. I put an extra thick coat of resin on the last piece and went back inside.

...To be continued...

It's April...So why am I cold?

2010-03-30T15:56:00.003-04:00

Day 79

I had a long list of things planned for today. All of them depended on the warm Florida weather helping out with curing time.

As I write this the temperature in the sun is 71. Then take into account that a cold, not cool, wind is blowing with some pretty strong gusts. Hardly ideal curing temperatures. So I wait to apply the last coat of resin another day.

I did manage to get filler in all the outside screw holes though. I mixed a medium curing batch and started pressing the stuff everywhere. Keen observers might also notice that the foredeck is finally permanent. I had been storing various boating sundries in the foredeck compartment and at the last minute remembered to pull out all the things that wouldn't fit through the deckplate hole, like the deckplate...

I test fit the mast through the foredeck and made sure that the bolt in the mast step would slide in and out easily. The plans called for gluing a couple pieces of wood on the mast partner (the upper one) to take the forces of the mast flexing. I'm not a big fan of gluing endgrain. So I drilled a hole identical to the one on the lower mast step in the upper partner.

Now...the mast is completely solid for the 1st 3.5 feet from the hull. I'm not an engineer by any means, but I don't see a 2.5 inch square piece of wood that's 3.5 feet tall flexing much. I can see it trying to move back and forth when the upper 8 feet of the mast start to move but the way I tapered it it's already a snug fit. In addition, the mast is held securely in place by 2 3/8" bolts drilled through 2 1x2s that are 10" apart. So the question, when I look at the mast, which Detective Greenly so eloquently posed in Boondock Saints, is "Where you goin'? NOWHERE!"

Rigged up and almost ready

2010-03-27T15:27:00.003-04:00

Day 76

I scrounged all the spare rope I had available so I could test fit the mast and see if the sail fit properly. I drilled the hole in the bottom of the mast just a fraction off when I was inside and took care of fixing that first. Now I can finally fit the foredeck and then paint and varnish is all that's left.

Then I hoisted the sail and started grinning ear to ear!

It's not perfection, however...

2010-03-26T15:35:00.001-04:00

Day 75

I originally said I would not try to make this boat prefect and believe me, it's far from perfect. However, as I stared at the boat today something was bothering me. Here I was about to put 1 of about 6-8 coats of varnish on the cockpit floor to make it look really good but there was still bits of glue everywhere. I've already put down 2 coats so far. I couldn't do it. I needed to get rid of the glue so I pulled out the Dremel and a wire brush and went to work for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, the last coat of varnish was still tacky and and the glue dust stuck to the cockpit floor. Oh well, I'll just start the varnish process all over again.

Here's some before and after.

Varnishing

2010-03-25T00:40:00.002-04:00

Not much to report lately. If you've ever varnished anything you know what the first part of my day is like.

Step 1) Brew a pot of coffee.
Step 2) Let the dogs outside and then go to the garage and stare at the boat.
Step 3) Plan method of attack for the day.
Step 4) Go back inside laughing at yourself since today's method of attack is the same as yesterday.
Step 5) With cup of coffee in hand, start working. Sand, vacuum, varnish, wait, wait, wait.

Bring on the varnish

2010-03-24T00:22:00.004-04:00

Day 73

It was a bright sunny day today in Florida and I took advantage of that by opening the windows and varnishing the inside of the boat. The wood was really, really dry so it soaked it up almost immediately. This is a gloss finish too! Maybe after a couple more coats...
It turns the wood a nice whiskey color (mmmmm whiskey...Focus Paul! Focus!) and since I didn't have some of the holes filled yet I left a panel uncoated to show the difference in varnished and not-varnished. Tomorrow I'll get the boat back in the garage and hit the sides with resin before I put another coat of varnish on the inside.

I also finished the mast today. Ok, so I still have to drill a hole and varnish it too but the hard part is done! I think creating the mast was my least favorite part of the build. Not that it was terribly difficult but it just seemed the boards were always getting away from me as I planed them no matter how well I thought I had secured them. And when 13 ft of unwieldy board decides to move, it moves!
I picked the front face of the mast based on the bend it took. This is one time when warping is good. The mast bends at about the top 1/3 which should be perfect for the stresses the the sail and rigging put on it. Lovely isn't it?

Mast

2010-03-22T22:00:00.002-04:00

Day 72 continued...

I got off work early today so I've been pretty motivated to get things done since my brain was in fast mode thanks to work.

The mast is glued together and after 2 separate trips to the store to get more C-clamps, everything that should be glued is bonding nicely. I'm now the proud owner of 14!!! C-clamps. I tried to clamp a section and then wrap tape around the mast like the designer said in the plans. They must make a meaner tape in Australia, because my tape and my lumber laughed at me as soon as I removed the clamp at the point I'd just taped. I don't foresee ever needing this many clamps ever again. Oh well...

3M 5200 doesn't stick to some things

2010-03-22T16:21:00.003-04:00

Day 72

Pop quiz: Does 3M 5200 stick to wood that's covered in polyester resin?

No it does not.

Of course, I already knew that because I sanded the resin off of the parts where the centercase frames met up with the side decks. I just forgot to sand off the resin on the 7 foot frame rail that runs along the outside of the deck. Oops. And remember when I coated the inside of the buoyancy tanks with resin? Yup, nothing escaped my brilliance on this day.

However, the boating gods were working with me on this one because there's one other thing that 5200 doesn't stick to and that's corner edges. I forgot to angle the carlins to match the angle of the buoyancy tanks and when I pulled the clamps off the carlins the sides popped right out. I was able to pull each side deck off fairly easily and did not have to recut them.

I spent a few hours getting the angles right on the carlins and then glued everything back together. Yes I remembered to sand everything down this time and to make extra sure, I left the clamps on the floor and used screws to hold it all together.

Getting closer to paint

2010-03-20T13:12:00.003-04:00

Day 70

The tiller is glued and finished with the exception of a spacer block in the middle of the tiller arms. I've already cut and sanded it down but I don't like any of the 4 versions I've made yet so none are getting glued in place.

The side decks have finally been glued down. There was some significant warping in the pieces so the initial screw holes left gaps that weren't touching the side rail and that just would not do. I managed to break a drill bit off in the 2nd to last pilot hole (Murphy lives!) but otherwise, it was a painless couple of minutes. I'm not looking forward to filling more holes but these are going to be filled and painted over so no one will be the wiser.

I'm really getting excited about being able to paint her. Anyone who knows me knows I have a general loathing of painting that goes to the core. However, this is a different sort of painting. More steps are involved since I have to tip the paint off after I roll it on. I'm not sure why, but I feel that since a mirror finish can actually be achieved, this painting job is more like a challenge than the normal paint a wall sort of painting. I like challenges and we'll see how long my passion for the challenge overshadows my contempt for painting.

Rudderbox

2010-03-18T23:09:00.005-04:00

Day 67

My rudderbox is nearer to completion. A couple of weeks ago, before I got sick, I received my pintles an gudgeons in the mail along with some pretty bronze oarlocks and sockets. They sat on the dining room table while I sewed the sail, and they shimmered at me in the sun while I was sick. Yesterday I finally had the motivation to start working again on the boat.

I tapered all 4 sections of the mast for the lug rig and then decided I needed to finish some other pieces of the puzzle so I could paint the hull this weekend when it gets nice again. So the mast lies in wait.

First on the agenda was the side buoyancy tanks. They needed a good coat of resin so I could permanently set the side decks on the hull and trim the edges off of the faces. Next was the fillet for the tank faces which is mostly ornamental. I didn't use fillets as the main structural support for the faces, opting instead to use tapered blocks glued to the hull and the back side of the face.

The foils had been sitting quietly in a corner while everything else was going on as well. They hadn't even been cut down to size from their original length. I drew the gentle curves and lopped off the extra wood. Now on to my rudderbox.

I glued the two sections of the handle together after I made the endgrain at the handle match up. I'll be able to round it later once the glue dries. Finally, I made a test setup of the pintles and gudgeons so I can just slap everything together using the measurements I made today instead of making more holes in the hull. It looks so pretty!

Goin' Mobile

2010-03-11T20:23:00.003-05:00

Keep me movin...

With homage to The Who my house, my boat, and my back now thank me.

I created a mover's dolly. No more heavy lifting, bumping into door frames and sliding across my wood floor. Ouch! Yeah I know, dollies only cost $20. But I had everything I needed to make one and did it about 20 minutes. So the way I see it, I saved a dollar a minute by using stuff I already had. Now I can wheel it out in the sun to dry when I put resin on the inside. And that is tomorrow's project...

Bits and pieces

2010-03-11T13:54:00.002-05:00

Day 60

Today is day 60 of the build. I scarfed the 2nd set of mast sides together after I realized that you need 4, count them 4, sides to make a square mast. It's amazing what a head cold can do to your rational thought processes. Also included in the scarfing fun was the boom. The finished size needed to be 1.5" square by 12 ft long. If only they made 2x2s in 12 foot lengths that were straight. Ha! So that's why I got 2 2x2s at 8' lengths and scarfed them together.

Since I was already covered in glue I decided to make the most of it and fill some holes inside the boat. I went to work inside the bouyancy tanks pushing glue everywhere I saw a hole. It wasn't the neatest job, but it's very effective and after all, no one will ever see this again so I'm not too concerned.

This afternoon I hope to get the side decks sanded down and finally glued in place. They had to take a backseat in the process when the cold weather wouldn't allow me to do anything since my resin wouldn't dry. One other thing I need to start thinking about is how to transport this boat when it's finished. I've been picking it up by the side and putting the inside of a frame on my shoulder and lugging it around which I'm sure is not good for the framing. It's also pretty heavy.

So my plan is to build a wheelbarrow type cart out of 2x4s with a ladder frame and 2x2 uprights in front to keep it from sliding off to take this from place to place. We'll see how it pans out...

Real men follow directions, THEN make their own sails...

2010-03-10T21:01:00.004-05:00

Day 59

I started cutting another sail according to the plans yesterday. Tonight I finished sewing it up.

I'm still sick but powering through it. Admittedly, I could only work for about half an hour at a time before getting worn out, but I worked most of yesterday and today on getting this sail cut and sewn.

When I was cutting the patches I taped them to the wall so I could keep them all from getting lost in the offcuts. In addition, doing this helped me align the patches before putting them in place.

It's just a little bit bigger than the room I lofted it in but it looks good. My stitching looks good too since I took my own advice and slowed down. I'm going to install the grommets in the morning. I don't think I want all the hammer banging on top of my headache tonight.

I am so smart. S M R T...

2010-03-08T22:57:00.002-05:00

Day 57

My Paul sail looked great in design, looked great after I sewed it up and looked good on the mast and boom. When I rigged it up on the boat it looked like a flaming bag of poop. Good thing I planned for this back when I was building the mast step.

Now I can build the sail and mast according to the plans. What a concept!

Today was the last of 16 days in a row that I worked and somehow I managed to catch a cold. Despite the lovely head cold I went to buy the wood for my mast this morning. I got home and created the scarf joints and glued everything together and went to work excited that I could have a mast built in the next day or so.

On my way home I stopped by the grocery store to buy some odds and ends so I could hunker down in the house with the boat and the mast and just get better. Somewhere in the dairy section it hit me, I only bought and glued enough wood for 2 sides of the mast. So now I have make another trip to buy lumber and scarf the joints, AGAIN.

This is why you shouldn't do anything when you're sick!

Real men make their own sails

2010-03-06T13:58:00.006-05:00

Day 55

So the Paul Design sail has come to fruition. Making it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be and most of the time was spent in the design phase. It's a 5.4m sail which is good for the windsurfing mast that I have and fits neatly inside the aluminum boom length of 8 ft. The reinforcement patches at the head, tack and clew were challenging for the sewing machine since there was so much material to go through. I only jammed the machine a couple times so I feel good about it. Also, I'm not very good at sewing but, like my woodworking skills, I know what will hold even it if looks ugly.

Design photo

Rigged up

Reinforcement patches
Head

Tack

Clew

Mast grommet

I don't like it anymore than you men

2010-03-03T11:45:00.002-05:00

Day 52

If you asked me 52 days ago what I'd be doing today my answer would have been sailing. Mother Nature and my inability to follow directions have thwarted that plan!

It has been too cold to apply resin to the boat and get it to dry. Actually it's been warm enough twice in the past 2 weeks and each day after that it has been cold and rainy. So you get what we had here last week, which, is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it! No wait, Cool Hand Luke wasn't what I wanted either. But it sounds like a good movie to watch while I wait and wait and wait some more for the resin to dry.

...and thought the holes were rather small...

2010-02-25T09:16:00.004-05:00

Day 47

...I had to fill them all.

After only filling the holes on the bottom I had pretty much had enough of that! Luckily for me there aren't many holes on the inside to fill. I still have some filleting around frames for embellishment purposes as well as to hide some gaps that I couldn't get perfect. Unfortunately I decided to start playing with resin before checking the weather forecast. I put a good layer of resin on the bottom yesterday and was planning on smoothing it out and laying another down this morning. However, it is 39 degrees right now so I have to wait patiently for the air to warm up to the 70ish it was the day before. Ugggh.

I also found the paint color I wanted yesterday. It's the one on the left. The other 2 were colors I thought might have been contenders but after they dried I knew they were no good.

Bits and pieces

2010-02-21T02:16:00.002-05:00

Day 43

This is a quick update since nothing has dramatically changed in the last few days. I've spent quite a bit of time sanding away glue and removing pencil marks in the hull. I'm getting all the wood that will be visible through resin nice and clean so no blemishes show up once the hull is coated. I've also decided to paint the outside hull a dark blue (no surprise there if you know me well), the top a pure white and the inside will be bare wood coated in resin.

My rudder box and tiller handles have been glued together and as soon as I put the spacers in the handle it will be ready to go on the boat as soon as the rudder attachments show up in the mail.

Today was also the day I test fit the mast to make sure everything was in the proper place. The mast fit perfectly but the mast foot was too tight between the frames since I haven't cleaned up the glue in them yet. I won't glue the top deck on until I'm 100% positive the mast isn't too far forward or backward. I'm still curious how the sail will make the mast flex once it is on so I might not even glue the deck on until I have the sail cut and sewn.

Side tanks are glued

2010-02-17T16:28:00.006-05:00

Day 39

I attached the side tanks to the frames and the hull today. After I dragged my feet for a few days I got motivated to get the job done.

It could have been done much quicker if I had used epoxy but I didn't want to go that route at the start of the project because of the cost. After buying polyester resin to coat everything and 3 tubes of 3M 5200 to use for glue, I'm only 20 or 30 bucks short of the cost of epoxy and filler. Oh well. On my next boat project I'll start with epoxy and leave the headache of how to do things without it behind.

While I was looking at some other OZ PDR builds around the world I noticed something peculiar about one of the centercase frames. Everyone else had vertical framing on the forward one and I did not. Luckily, I had extra 3/4 x 3/4 framing leftover from the time I messed up the transom and the center bulkhead. I had another 8 feet riddled with holes from the twisted carlin fiasco from last week. My frames are now glued and sturdy.

Speaking of carlins...Today was also the day I glued them down to the side decks.

Now for a quick back story. I read a post

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/jobs/10pre.html

by Lawrence Cheek about boat building and patience a few weeks back and since then have worked on my boat with the calm of Buddha. Until today.

When I screwed one carlin back on to the side deck it wasn't the completely flat, total glue bonding setup I had before. I couldn't get them to sit down and I was running out of time since the glue was drying. I was livid! So, I did what any logical builder would do at this point, having already dealt with and solved this problem once before. I picked up a hand tool that had a lifetime replacement warranty on it and started wailing on my glue board ply. Either the tool or the ply was gonna give out first but not me!

After I was through with my childlike temper-tantrum, I decided to screw the screws in from the other side of the deck and everything was flush. I also used a couple clamps to hold everything in place while I backed every screw out and put them in the other way. Thank God that ordeal is over with!

How to make foils...

2010-02-16T22:33:00.004-05:00

Day 38

...Or more appropriately, "How to take a perfectly good stair step, reduce it to almost nothing, give it some shape and call it a centerboard."

2 stair steps came into my home measuring 48"x12"x1". Now they're a little less than 3/4" thick 11" wide and will be shortened to 44" for the centerboard and about 40" for the rudder. I still have to make them waterproof and pretty to match the rest of the boat.

In addition, I'm putting the finishing touches on the sidetanks before I can glue them into place. Since I opted not to use epoxy to glue everything together I have to make certain adjustments for a few things. The plans call for a fillet on the inside and outside of the sidetank faces to hold them to the hull. I could do it with 3M 5200 and it would stick, but it wouldn't look very good. (See note above about pretty.) I came up with a structural solution that almost no one will ever see. Blocks on the inside of the tank!
I'm not too worried about the tanks coming toward the center of the boat. I am concerned that I'll put my foot on the tank face and push it to the outside of the hull by mistake one day when Mr. Murphy decides to sail with me. That would have catastrophic results. These should hold everything nicely and they look good just in case someone does look inside.

I have a new power tool!

2010-02-12T23:13:00.002-05:00

Day 35

I set about making the foils today. At first I was reducing a 26mm thick piece of wood to 22mm with a belt sander. 4mm isn't that big you say? It's 3/8 of an inch and quite a bit of wood on something that's 44 inches by 11 inches. Almost 500 square inches to reduce and make sure it's still even and level. At lunch I decided I had enough. Everything in the room with me was covered in a thick layer of dust and my power sander started shooting dust from the bottom of the collection bag with great force on anything in its path.

So I bought a power planer. This thing is amazing!

It did in 20 seconds what took me the better part of an hour to do earlier in the day. It also shoots out little shavings which are considerably more fun to pick up than sanding dust.
While I watched the America's Cup press conference I made up the foil template and transferred it to my blank and started planing. I've only got one being worked on right now but it's about 80% finished and is looking good.

Now it's getting fun

2010-02-10T15:19:00.003-05:00

Day 33

Went to buy the carlins today. 3/4 by 3/4 Oak. I had to break out the old glue board that I used to glue the chines in a bend so I could screw the carlins on the side pieces. One was perfect. The second went on and as soon as I released the clamps the side piece crinkled up and twisted. I thought about correcting it wink, wink, by screwing it to the tops of the frames and just dealing with it.

No, I said, I can fix it.

So after about 10 screw holes later in a length of about 1 foot I decided to scrap that piece of Oak and try again. Luckily I had another lying around. When I took the abused piece of Oak off the side I saw why I couldn't get it right. It was warped AND twisted. Finally!!! Something that wasn't my fault! (Unless, of course, you blame me for picking out bad lumber.)

I have a TON of gluing ahead of me and after that, a good day of hole filling. There are a ridiculous amount of holes in this boat because I got carried away with my drill.

However, I have the side pieces screwed to the frames so I can get the side tanks perfect and it really is starting to look good. I'm starting to think about paint...

Centercase

2010-02-09T22:13:00.005-05:00

Day 32

Today it rained enough to keep me inside to work on the boat instead of doing yard work. Oh, the sacrifices I make...

Yesterday I glued the framing around the centercase and went to work. Pretty uneventful day. Today I made up for it.

I doubled checked frame 2 was fit properly in between the chines and then centered the centercase. At first it seemed that something was off and that I would have a huge mistake looking at me and laughing every time I stepped in the boat. It looked like I had, once again, measured something incorrectly, and the center of the frame didn't line up with the center of the centercase. After I stopped for lunch I came back and put everything the way it was before and it all lined up perfectly! Don't ask me how I did it. I promptly screwed everything into place so if I left it again it didn't go back to off center.

Next I made a full size cutout of the side tank out of poster board and after cutting the real ones out, set them in place. I would have screwed them to the frames but I haven't bought the carlins yet so that is priority #1 in the morning.

The evening's activities involved beveling the foredeck frames so I could attach the foredeck. Did I mention that most of the frames in this boat are made of Red Oak? They laugh at you when you try to plane them down. Power sanding isn't much faster. But I press on...

Bottom is permanent

2010-02-07T17:50:00.003-05:00

Day 30

The bottom is on. Forever. To make sure the glue touched all the frames I screwed the bottom to them. I used an entire box of screws! Perhaps I went a wee bit overboard but I like sturdy. Here's a shot of what a box of screws looks like on a PDR hull.

Tonight is the Super Bowl and unless it's a complete blowout nothing will be done except drinking beer. Monday is the beginning of the 33rd America's Cup. Here's hoping the USA BMW Oracle team wins!

Send in the Reinforcements

2010-02-05T14:47:00.002-05:00

Day 28

There is a very large knot in one of the bow transom frames. If you look at it hard enough it bends. Not very reassuring for something that is one of the main structural supports for the boat. I took some of my leftover Red Oak 3/4 x 3/4 and glued it to the frame from the mast step to the chines. Now it is quite solid and I'm not worried about it taking a bump or two and shattering.

Now to my very experimental and somewhat controversial mast foot. I wanted to use my windsurfer's mast foot and mast so I designed a place to secure it all. I also took into account that the whole windsurfer mast idea could fail miserably so I made the mast step for the windsurfer removable. Three 3/4 x 1 1/2 pieces identical to the mast runners fit inside the original mast runners and are bolted horizontally in front and back. I have the original support system ready to be screwed on top of the runners if necessary. All of this is designed to be accessible through the access hole in the bulkhead.

Accepting Mistakes

2010-02-04T17:24:00.002-05:00

Day 27

Today started off bad and got worse. The coffee machine decided it was time to go nuts and use the secret option "Weak Brew" from its programming. Then the mast step runners I cut last night didn't fit anymore for some reason so I had to cut and sand more so they fit flush with the hull. And finally, when I went to cut limber holes in the frames with a hole saw I found out that my hole cutting skills were somewhat lacking.

Oh well.

I've decided that perfection isn't possible and 99% of the people who look at her when she's finished won't be able to tell what the mistakes were. My buddy Brian will be able to spot them though and to make it fun I won't list some of those mistakes here...He likes a challenge.

I glued the transoms and bulkhead in place today as well as the stern support piece. The centercase frame is put together and waiting on glue to dry as well.

In a stroke of genius, or maybe because I was tired of screwing up, I took the bottom and drew a line down the center so I could line everything up when it came time to fit the centercase and frames. Maybe I'm on track to make fewer mistakes. Probably not, but at least I can handle them now.

Mast and boom fittings

2010-02-04T00:44:00.003-05:00

Day 26

I bought a spinnaker pole end and shoved it into a 1" aluminum tube that's 8 feet long and it was good. Then I called it a boom and snapped it on the mast eye. Life is good. The amount of time I thought of getting all that together is unbelievable. I thought of so many ways to do it and none made as much sense as this one. My blocks shipped out today and I should have them by the weekend so I can fit them to the boom.

Worked awhile on getting the mast foot set up. I don't do notching out wood very well and when there is anything other than a 90 degree angle to cut I'm bound to mess it all up. I used up all my spare scraps of similar size to get it right. I have to notch out the centercase frames tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to it. Hopefully I can get them notched out and glued in place before the end of the day.

Thinking, thinking...

2010-01-31T21:42:00.004-05:00

Day 23

Not much has been done lately as far as actual hull building. Most of my time has been spent researching different rigging setups of popular dinghies to see which I liked best. I've looked at a ton of setups. I know the plans for this boat came with a rig and rigging instructions. It's a good setup. However, I wanted my first boat to be uniquely mine. The hull is the OZ PDR and it is beautiful. At least it will be when I'm done with the plans. I wanted the rigging to be aesthetically pleasing to my sense of what sailing is though and that's why I've spent so long looking for it.

The rigging I've decided to use consists of a conglomeration of sailing thought poached from others. Hey, it's been going on for thousands of years, I'm just continuing the tradition. Most of the sail thought came from the Laser. That's why my sail looks remarkably like a Laser sail. I did create my own sail dimensions and plugged them in the CAD program to see if it would be too flat or too billowy. Here are the results.

Now that I have my sail figured out I need some way to attach it to my boat and then have to have some way to control it. This is where the real money comes in and separates the "haves" from the "have nots". Sailing hardware is ridiculously expensive and I'm not even talking about the high end stuff like stainless steel. When you stare at a wall of pulleys and the cheapest one, which is smaller than the face of your watch, is $10, you realize why only rich people have sailing yachts.

So, my thoughts have the boom fitted with 2 blocks, (pulleys in sail-speak) and one more on a traveler line over the rudder tiller. The block that feeds the line to me off of the boom is 40% of the distance of the total boom away from the mast. That way I'm not pulling on the middle of the boom which is the most flexible point.

Finally, I figured out a way to mount the aluminum boom to my fiberglass mast with out wrecking the mast. I found a $2.50 plumbing pipe clamp and an eye bolt for 88 cents. I wrapped the mast in leather and screwed the clamp on and voila! my 2 month mast/boom problem was solved!

Ladies and Gentleman

2010-01-28T23:10:00.002-05:00

Day 20 (again)

I give you Jemima!

.

Finally Moving Forward

2010-01-28T13:06:00.006-05:00

Day 20

After a week setback because I measured incorrectly I'm back to having the hull 3D. The stern transom, bow transom and cockpit bulkhead fit perfectly. I took this chance to flip her over and test fit the foredeck. Looks pretty good if you ask me. I have some planing of edges to do and some gluing but then I can attach the bottom. I'm getting excited but have to remember that excitement clouds the mind and forces you to make mistakes.

The second coat of resin went on the inside of the centercase faces after a good sanding. It's a shame I'll never see this again since it looks so beautiful.

After dinner I moved on to the reduction phase of the framing. That took quite a long time. I don't care what you use; a plane, a block sander, a belt sander; it takes forever. When you get close to the desired height you're constantly checking to see if it's level. Not that that's bad since you definitely don't want to go too far! The next photo shows the cockpit bulkhead frame teasing me. I had about 2mm to get rid of and I felt like I was taking a ton off each time I turned on the sander.

Finally I got all 3 frames down to the correct size. Time to put on the bottom! But not yet... There's a slight bow that needs to be taken out on the starboard side by sanding down the side of the bulkhead frame and bow transom. I just can't do it tonight.

Wait for it, wait for it...

2010-01-27T15:49:00.003-05:00

Day 19

I went in to check on my glue this morning. Still tacky. Yes I ran out of the 3M 1 hr stuff halfway through the job yesterday. Yes, I used the infamous "3M 5200 I'll dry when I feel like it" glue to finish the gluing. This is about as fun as watching paint dry. OH WAIT! This is exactly like that, only paint dries faster than 2 or 3 days.

I'm ever closer to having the perfect sail and boom combo. I found an extremely popular boat that has a sail very similar to what I want. In the rules and regulations of this "One Design" type boat they list the max numbers of the sail at almost every point. It's a beautiful thing. I'll cut it out of poly tarp and sew it up and have sailing gold!

I turned my living room into a sail loft and pulled string from point to point of my measurements to see what it would look like. Then, I plugged all the numbers and according to SailCad the area of the sail will be 5 meters. Not bad.
Hooray for glowing dog eyes...

The rest of my day was spent looking at ways to attach the sail and boom to the mast.
Here's what I have so far:
8'x1" aluminum tube from Lowe's for a boom.
1/2" fairlead on the end near the clew of the sail for lashing the sail to the boom.
1" spinnaker pole end inside the other end of the boom (tack of the sail) with a clip to attach to the mast.

Glue Day #2

2010-01-26T12:57:00.002-05:00

Day 18

Now that I've made the Cockpit bulkhead and stern transom a second time I was pretty good at it and had very little mess. I also made the frames for the centercase out of the first bulkhead and transom so I minimized my waste. Everything is now glued and drying.

Then I went in the garage to put some resin on the inside of the centercase faces. Very pretty looking but now also drying and all I can do is wait for everything to dry. Cue the elevator music...

http://www.sounddogs.com/sound-effects/23/mp3/477390_SOUNDDOGS__el.mp3

Slow Progress

2010-01-24T14:10:00.004-05:00

Day 16

I work in the restaurant industry so weekends really aren't good for boat building since I'm at work all day. Didn't stop me though!
Day 15 I went to work and thought about what I did wrong at home. (Isn't that the way guys?) I came home and remeasured everything to see what could be done. Planing the mistake away was the thought but the stern was cut 5mm too short so I didn't want to reduce the size of the boat, just the transom. The bow transom was cut too big so once I lined it up I actually could plane the mistake away and no one would be the wiser.
That just left the CBH and the stern. I cut new ones and decided to use a larger frame than was required on the CBH so I could plane it down to meet the hull. I also precut the notches for the chines and precut the frames to match. Very neat and tidy.

On to Day 16...
Today's work involved sanding down the edges of the centercase sides and frame and then using the old CBH to cut Frame #2 sides out in one piece per side.

The dogs are getting restless since I spend all my free time with my puddle duck and not them. I thought it would be appropriate if they took out their aggression on some ducks of their own that way they can leave mine alone...

2 steps forward, 1 step back

2010-01-23T00:44:00.001-05:00

Day 14

This morning I went in to get ready to plane the frames down and my 3D excitement quickly went away. I carefully tipped her on her side and discovered the bulkhead was not flush with the top frame on one side. A quick measurement revealed that the bulkhead was 5mm longer on one side, which also means everything measured from that line is also 5mm off.
Now I get to recut, reglue and reassemble the transoms,framing and the bulkhead!
I'm extremely happy that I did not glue the transoms and BH to the sides last night.

On a positive note, now I can reuse the transom seconds to cut whole pieces for the centercase frames and I have a deck plate cutout template ready to go for my next bulkhead. I also now have lines on the inside of the hull sides so when the new bulkhead is ready there won't be any fiddling around and hoping it's right.
And the best part...I'll have measurements of the chines so when I'm gluing the bulkhead frames I can take that into account so I don't have to notch out the frame. I suck at that.

3D at last!

2010-01-22T00:41:00.005-05:00

Day 13

It took all day but I managed to get the transoms and the bulkhead on and it's a boat!

I started the day drinking coffee to the soothing sounds of a winter January thunderstorm here in Florida. I knew I wanted to go 3D today but I also knew I wanted to have my deck plates for the inspection holes before I put everything together. I went to my local West Marine store and apparently, when it rains this is the place to be! And it gets better! I bought all 3 deck plates for cheaper than I could have off the internet at most bargain boat places! What a day!

Back to reality in the boat room and the second cup of coffee...The chines were dry and not as messy as my first glue day but there was some work to do. I wanted them to be the same height so I clamped them together and put my level on them to see what needed to be done. Way off. Vertical was level just not horizontal. I sanded them both at the same time with my trusty belt sander and they came out sooo pretty.

After this I took an engineering break. I plan on using my old windsurfing mast for this boat. It is 16 feet 6 inches tall with a mast foot of 5 1/2 inches to bring the total height to just under 17 feet which is roughly 6 inches or 120 mm or so taller than the plans. I can deal with that. The only small problem was how to get it to sit on the hull. I drew a full scale mock mast step on my glue board and realized I could just glue one more 3/4 x 1 3/4 to each runner and finally glue a small piece in the middle of them all and have my mast foot shoehorned into the design.

Orignal mast step design... ...my custom mast foot/step design

Chine logs

2010-01-21T01:50:00.003-05:00

Day 12

The chinelogs are sanded and glued to the hull sides. I learned from my mishaps with the first gluing and didn't make a mess or leave extra glue for cussing and sanding later when it dries. I will have to sand but I could get by with a sheet of sand paper instead of absolutely needing the power sander.

I've been thinking of rounding the edges of the chines to make them look nicer but we'll see if I'm up to it when the time comes.

3D is all set for tomorrow. So is planing and sanding the frames to get ready for the bottom. The most important part of attaching the bottom will be to ensure there is NO twisting in any direction in the frame. Remember this glue is not forgiving. It is very permanent.

Setback Version 2.0

2010-01-19T23:50:00.003-05:00

Day 11

All day at work I kept thinking about how much fun it was going to be to pull all the screws out of the framing and the boat sides and then put it all together and finally have my pieces turn into a whole. I did get it put together. Sort of. If you look at the picture I forgot something pretty integral to assembly of this boat.

Chine logs. As in they haven't been attached to the hull sides yet. They haven't even been sanded down yet. Actually, they're still glued to the tape on the glue-board.

In addition, the transoms need to have the glue sanded down as well since I forgot to smooth and scrape the edges after I screwed everything together. I know what you're saying, "But Paul, removing the glue from those little nooks and crannies is the fun part!"

It isn't.

I'm 99.99% sure Mr. Storer even said to scrape the glue off in the plans because he didn't want everyone else to enjoy it as much as he probably did once (and I as well have now enjoyed). I'm not going to look since I don't need to remind myself that I messed this part up.

So I removed the glue bits. I cussed. I sanded the chines. I removed more glue bits and cussed some more. I stepped on the screws on the glue-board because I forgot to take them out, and because I live in Florida, I was barefoot, and it hurt. I really cussed then. I'm not 3D yet, but I'm close. Tonight I glue my chine logs on and I'll see what other things I might have missed.

Glue day

2010-01-18T13:47:00.003-05:00

Day 10

I put a piece of plastic down to make sure the floor of this room I'm working in didn't become a huge mess. I also didn't want to inadvertently glue a piece of my boat to the floor when I wasn't looking. I'm a neat person normally but when there's glue involved I guess my neat habits get left at the door. I got glue on everything. My feet, my hands(even though I was wearing gloves), my elbows, my clothes. My tools were not spared from the stickiness.

I managed to crack 2 pieces of predrilled, prescrewed cedar frames and decided to use clamps on those pieces instead. Good thing I had a bunch lying around.

After work tomorrow I plan on going 3D and making it all look like a boat. Then I can get my hull number from Shorty and the real fun begins:foil making.

Left, Left

2010-01-17T13:49:00.005-05:00

Day 8

Two left hull sides. Yes. I made it, framed it but thankfully didn't glue it. Sometime around cup 2 of coffee I noticed that both hull sides had the framing on the same side. Well, that's ok because I wanted to replace the 1 inch screws with 3/4 inch screws. At least that's what I kept telling myself even as the dogs laughed at my stupidity.

I decided not to cut my stern transom stiffener from my glue board and get one piece of scrap to use instead so that I only have to make one cut instead of multiple cuts. It's a 6 inch wide piece of cedar. That should make the stern transom nice and rigid.

Tonight is a gluing night. I don't like the cleanup and would prefer to do it all at once. After work I'll start making my mess...

Oh I also took care of that clamp problem. I still want more!

You're such a square...

2010-01-16T23:12:00.002-05:00

Day 8

Day 7 was spent rereading the back of the 3M 5200 can. Tacky for 48 hrs. Full cure in 7 days at 70F. It's in the mid 60's in the boat room. I unclamped the chines and watched them go back completely straight. I reclamped the chines and went to the store to get 3M 5200 Fast Cure. Fully cured in 24 hrs. Oh yes...

Day 8 was full of wind and rain outside and full of framing inside. The bow and stern transoms are framed as well as the cockpit bulkhead. I wanted to attach the side frames to the hull sides but I don't have enough clamps because some slow curing adhesive has them hogged all to itself for a few more days. Maybe I'll use sheetrock screws and just get it done. I have to cut my stern transom stiffener out of the glue board still and then put glue (fast cure) on all the frames. That should take up most of tomorrow morning.

...And it begins...

2010-01-14T23:56:00.003-05:00

Day 6

I hit a major road block today. Not a "I can't do this" sort of block, more like a "Are you kidding me? Uggghhh ggrrreeeat!" sort of block.

I can't afford epoxy to glue things together. Won't happen, no how, no way. I researched many different glues and adhesives and settled on 3M 5200 Marine adhesive. From what I read in many positive and negative posts about it, this stuff is permanent. The bond will outlast the stuff you originally bonded together in the first place. Sounds like my kind of stuff. I like to build things overkill one time and never worry about them falling apart. EVER.

So I traced the hull line on my gluing board and then put packing tape over that line so nothing sould stick to the board. Then I screwed sheetrock screws into 8 places along the hull line so I could clamp my chine logs together with my 3M 5200 and form a curvy set of chine logs.

Then I went to bed.
And then work. And finally came home to...tacky adhesive.

No bueno.

I picked up the wrong tube and inadvertently bought the strongest adhesive instead of the fast curing 2nd strongest adhesive. Mine is tacky for 48 hrs and fully cured in 7 days. What I wanted was tacky for an hour and fully cured in 24 hrs...But hey, this is ska-rong bonding stuff. 700 psi tensile strength. You never know when you might need to tow a barge behind your homemade sailboat...Jeez

Ready to start assembly

2010-01-13T20:09:00.003-05:00

Day 5

Days 4 and 5 included the same thing over and over again. Sand to the drawn line on one piece and then clamp the original to the copy and sand them both to the same size.

Repeat.

Even with a belt sander this was a tiring job. After I had all my pieces on the floor and ready to be assembled, I went to my local Home Depot to pick up all the framing materials. (I can do it, they can help. That's the power of the Home Depot...)

I really want to get my chine pieces bent and glued before I call it quits today so they dry while I sleep but I'm having sneezing fits since I forgot to wear a dusk mask for half of the sanding. I did remember to put hearing protection on though. 6 hrs of power sanding would have definitely done some damage.

So here is my makeshift sanding station and then all of the parts for the hull eagerly awaiting their glue.

Cut...it....out....

2010-01-11T14:13:00.003-05:00

Day 4
I searched and searched the vast internet and found out how to plane using my #4 plane. Not that difficult, but not as easy as it looks on TV. In addition, planing something that is not supported and only 5.2mm thick requires some balance. After I thought about it for a little bit I decided to use my belt sander. Some may scoff at the notion but I'm going for efficiency here. If guys can create sculptures using chainsaws, I can plane using a belt sander.

So I cut one sheet of ply down to it's parts. 2 transoms, a bulkhead, 2 buoyancy tank sides, a foredeck, a centercase face and some assorted frames. I'm very glad I bought that jig saw. It took over an hour to cut all that with a jig saw so who knows how long it might have taken with my 4.5" circular blade on the angle grinder...

Now I have a full day of power-sanding errrr planing ahead of me.

Day 3

2010-01-10T23:32:00.003-05:00

Phase 1:I started cutting ply before work today. I began by cutting out one of the buoyancy tank sides with my trusty diamond 4.5 inch saw blade mounted to an angle grinder. See where this is heading? After 5 minutes I had cut about 20 inches of ply.

Phase 2:In which Paul realizes he must purchase a jig saw.

Phase 3:Just plane to the line and copy the first tank side on the ply to cut out the second side. So, with my new #4 plane I started...to realize I don't know how to plane very well.
No photos today. No need to show me learning to plane regardless how humorous it may be.

Measure twice or something like that

2010-01-09T15:10:00.002-05:00

Day 2

Almost finished measuring. Yes, I'm meticulous. I could have finished it all in one day but there's a little saying that goes something like "Measure twice, cut once..."
The saying was on auto-repeat in my mind all day and I still managed to measure incorrectly. Turns out it's a good thing to practice, not just tell yourself. Luckily I haven't taken a saw to anything yet. I had to re-measure and re-mark 3 sections. I have 2 more pieces to mark off and then it's time to break out the saw!
The dogs are less than impressed with my speed so far.

Simple Beginnings

2010-01-09T01:11:00.001-05:00

Day 1

After months of online researching, I have started the building process for Jemima, my puddle duck racer boat. PDR for short. There are many ways to build a PDR and they're all great, but I've decided to go with the Oz PDR by Michael Storer.
It's January 9th, 2009 and here in Jacksonville the outside temp is 34. In most parts of the country 34 is expected during winter but in Florida I assure you it is not. I brought the 5.2mm Luan ply home and started marking off my lines for the hull sides. I'll be using 3/8 ply for the bottom.
I began measuring with a giveaway tape measure I got in a gift bag at a golf tournament and decided I didn't like it after I had half the measurements marked. Unfortunately, I am a strong believer in measuring accurately and consistently and since the measurements in the plans are to the mm I decided not to switch tape measures.
The hull sides are marked off.