Build Thread: A Goat in New York

[BrianMCarney]

OK, as promised, I'm launching my own thread for my build.

So far, I've cut out framing pieces from some Red Cedar, tried to shape a stem, cut out the transom and BHDs 2 and 3.

My goal is to do a little each day. That way, I'll eventually finish, right?

Sorry, no pics yet. Really very little to show so far. I have already made several mistakes, but as far as I am aware, I have caught them before translating them from marks on wood in kindling. Last night was the latest--my eldest son and I carefully measured out the front-seat top, sprung the batten to the curve and marked our lines, 15mm outside the true lines for cutting as prescribed.

But we forgot to allow 50mm at the stern. So tonight, I will go down to the garage and redo what we did yesterday. Fortunately, we only measured and marked yesterday. We didn't cut.

Anyway, my first question for the gallery is this:

Next on my list is marking out the bottom panels (I want to mark out the bottom panels so I can then get the two remaining bulkheads from the same sheet of ply).

BUT ... The ply is 2500mm, not 2440. So, should I be concerned about where the butt joints fall on the bottom? Should I move the stern forward on the ply so the joint stays where it is on the plan, or keep the station lines where they are, and let the butt joint land farther forward in the boat?
Same question applies to the side panels I suppose.

Am I just overthinking it all again?

I will definitely try to enliven this thread with some photographic evidence in coming posts. As I said to my son last night, don't worry. Before we're done, we'll have made _all_ the mistakes. The other doozy this week was a mishap trying to resaw a 2x piece of Doug fir for the transom reinforcement. Maybe more on that later.

[BrianMCarney]

I should add: This is my first boat-building project. I have some woodworking experience but no real talent for it.

It started last summer up in Maine. My sons were getting tired fishing off the town wharf. "Dad, let's buy a boat!" they said.

I said, "If you really want a boat, let's build one!"

Months of poring over designs, and the purchase of several sets of plans later, here I am, hopefully finally having found a boat that we can actually build. I travel a lot, so progress will be sporadic. But as I said, I'm trying to get a little something done each day I'm home. With that in mind, I'm heading to the garage now to fix last night's mistakes.

[BrianMCarney]

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1420760295.421568.jpg
Ok, first picture from my messy garage. If it came out, you can see my old lines and new. In addition to leaving out the 50mm margin, I drew the curve 15mm outside the offsets, but still went straight to the true peak at the third station. Which is why the original was, among its other problems, the wrong shape.

[paulie]

Hey Brian. Like you, I started out with zero experience of building boats and only a tiny amount of experience building anything else in wood. I think that the last woodworking I'd done was a coffee table in high school, nearly 30 years before I started my build. I'm sure I made every mistake it is possible to make. Luckily for us, MIK's plans are extremely forgiving. A little extra epoxy will hold it all together and a good coat of paint will hide all the sins.

Congrats on starting your build. And I envy you that your son is interested in helping you. Feel free to ask questions, either here or on Facebook.

[paulie]

Oh. To answer your question. I don't think the exact location of the butt join matters. MIK can say for sure, of course, but I don't remember the joins landing anywhere that will conflict with anything else.

[Poit]

I have 2500mm sheets, and I was inclined to put the join 60mm forward of where it is in the plans, just to have one large offcut rather than two smaller ones. I decided in the end to leave it where it is in the plans because I was thinking its closeness to the centre seat might disguise it a little, and moving it 60mm forward might make it "stick out".

(Now that I say that, would moving the join 60mm to the rear tuck it away under the middle seat even better? Not sure if that could work.)

Good luck with your build!

[BrianMCarney]

Thanks guys. I've gone ahead and measured it as indicated on the plans, which will have the effect of leaving the join 60mm ahead of where it is on the plans. I also failed to offset the center line to leave room for bulkhead 4 on the port side near the bow. Instead I drew the centerline straight down the center of the ply. (did I mention I'm bad at following directions?)
I'm loath to redraw it all though, not only because I'm lazy but because I feel centering it gave me a really good straight center line and reference for the offsets. I figure I can just take BHD4 out of that spare half sheet in the plans, right?
I told you I'd make all the mistakes...
As for my sons, we'll see. One has been great so far. He missed last night because he had a long writing assignment for school, but that's fair enough. The other has put in just one appearance to date. As I said, we'll see. I'm not going to dragoon anyone.
Next question: I have at 12' (3600mm?) batten. Can I use that to line off the bottom my marking partial curves and moving it? I'd scarf up a longer one, but it seems to me that the odds that I'd scarf it straight enough to be useful are very low.
Thanks again!

[BrianMCarney]

So, on this butt joint matter--are the butt joints on the sides and bottom supposed to line up, or supposed to -not- line up?
Because it seems to me that they will move owing to the longer plywood, and may not move in the same direction on the sides and the bottom. Or maybe they do move equally and it doesn't matter. I can't quite work it out in my head, since the sides are curved and the bottom is more flat.
Thoughts?

[Capturethebeer]

They end up pretty close to being in the same location within a few mm difference at most. The chinelogs will conceal any difference.

Cheers Dan

[BrianMCarney]

Thanks. So will my longer ply have any affect on that, or do the differences cancel out? I figured out a way to check it with a batten, but not before if finished for the evening.

[paulie]

Mine do NOT line up. That is, the ones on the sides match each other, but they do not meet the ones on the bottom at the chine. Probably 1.5" off. I always thought that was intentional, offsetting the potential weak spot a tad. Or, if the joins are not weaker than the rest, then it does not matter.

I'd post a pic, but the boat is covered up for the winter. Here's a pic from my build that shows it:

DSCN5200.jpg

[BrianMCarney]

Thanks Paulie. I guess I'll see where the butts fall as it were.
Cracked right on today. Cut out on side, then decided to try something new on the other side. I had never owned a router until I picked one up from a fellow emptying out his father's workshop this fall. It came with a drawer full of bits too, so I thought I'd try using a flush cut bit to cut out the other side with the router:
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1420927260.703897.jpg
It went pretty well.
Until I discovered that the plunge lock on the router was broken:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1420927017.820608.jpg

Aside from that mishap it did work though. Two identical side panels all cut out. So then I went ahead and used it to make the center case sides match too.

Other realizations of the day: I hate my jig saw. It tears out underneath and I can't cut straight with it.
But I love my low-angle block plane. Very satisfying to true up those nasty jigsawed cuts with a nice sharp plane.
Everything is cut out of the ply except the stern and middle seats and bhd4.
One other thing. In Mik's plans he has to lay the first set of side panels down face down to draw the second set. But they wouldn't fit on the ply like that (for me). Laying them down face up worked however. Is that just me? Did I do it wrong?

[Poit]

Routers are very temperamental things, they won't tolerate even a smidge of inattentiveness, but they have considerable advantages. Jigsaws are a pain, I totally agree. I used a circular saw running against a straight edge where I could to cut the ply, sometimes followed up by a low angle block plane. And planing 6mm ply edges is mucho enjoyable.

As long as you kept the butt join (butt cheeks?) together, I don't think you'll have a problem with your face up side panels.

[BrianMCarney]

Foils question:
I've got some 2x6 red cedar stock that I was going to try to cut up into foils (the 1x stock was too narrow). Any advice on the width of staves or other tactics for sawing it up? I have a bandsaw and a table saw. Advice welcome. Thanks!
Today I mocked up the tiller and rudder stock (can't work out how to post my pic of it from my phone...). But haven't glued it up. Would like to shape the tiller and the spacers a bit before gluing but not sure about the best way to go about that either, especially for the spacers. Thanks again!

[paulie]

There is a discussion about stave sizes on page 64 of the plans. Basically, any combo of widths which builds up a blank of the required size is fine. By "2x6" I assume you mean nominal, that is isn't really 2" thick. In that case, you might just run it through a thickness planer and use the whole width as one stave. If you don't have access to a thickness planer, then I would rip it into 1" x 1 5/8" (or whatever your actual "2x" thickness is) pieces, rotate them 90" and glue them up.

Good move, BTW, to make the foils first. I did it the other way around and ended up with an extremely tight fit for the rudder and rudder box. Same for mast and mast partner.

As for the tiller spacers, I glued up the tiller with all sharp edges and then sanded by hand to knock the edges off. A Dremel with a router bit would have worked fine too.