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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    3

    Default The "I have no idea what I am doing" GIS build thread - Sydney, Aus

    Hi guys,

    Quick intro: I'm a 21 year old uni student, from Sydney Australia (law student - the worst kind!). No experience with woodworking or boats, whatsoever. If there ever was a blank slate, I'm it. I'm on a summer break from studying and I've saved up a little bit to get this project underway. One day I woke up and thought it would be an awesome idea to build a boat, maybe learn a few skills along the way too. But really, I have no idea what I am doing!

    After some research, I quickly settled on the GIS - it seemed to match up with my expectations in terms of time, budget, difficulty, ability etc. And I feel slightly better knowing that plenty of GIS owners were once in my shoes, and plenty of people including Mik are happy to help. I'm (optimistically) hoping to get this together in 3-4 months.

    So, let's get the ball rolling! Here, we go, another newbie's journey begins...

    Step one: I've got the plans all printed out. Started to budget for the tools I need (basically everything). I've started reading the plans and working out how I'm going to do this in my head... well, it's starting to seem daunting! There's a lot of stuff I have no idea how I'm going to do.

    So, any help on some of my quick questions would be GREATLY appreciated . And if anybody in Sydney wants to lend a newbie a hand, let me know!

    1. Where should I start? I'm not sure I'm ready to make the hull panels right off the cuff... which parts are good to "practice" on before the serious stuff? What should I buy first?
    2. Tips for getting the wood supplies? I will be making some calls to get some quotes on wood soon (anyone with suggestions for local Aussie suppliers?), but I don't really know what I'm asking for in terms of quality.
    3. A heads up on any good resources for beginners would be appreciated e.g. tips for basic wood-working, lofting, boat terminology etc. I haven't been on this forum long enough to know how things work - even links to some build threads similar to mine would be great!

    Also, I'm gonna apologise in advance for all the dumb questions I'm going to have

    Cheers,
    Josh

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Santa Cruz La Laguna
    Posts
    134

    Default

    Hi Josh - welcome to the "GIS boat builders guild"!

    Others may have a different opinion but my thoughts:

    1. Best place to start? The hull panels really aren't that difficult or daunting. They were the thing I first tackled and I have the same wood working background as you. Only thing to really be careful with here is to measure twice/thrice before cutting (especially the larger plywood sections).

    2. Timber in Sydney? I don't live in Sydney anymore but I'd love to hear your experience at sourcing the timber (esp. if it is as expensive as everything else in Sydney!!!). It took me quite awhile to scarf together the long sections (gunwales/inwales/chines etc), in part due to my lack of experience, tools and available work space, so take this into consideration when buying your timber - there may be a time/$$$ trade off here for you to resolve.

    3. Woodworking resources? The plans are really quite detailed, I have rarely had to reference external sources and when I have I have found good youtube clips that explain basics. Some of the threads on this forum have good detailed pictures of many stages of the build. I generally found that the first time I did something (cutting/epoxy gluing/epoxy coating/scarfing etc) was a little daunting and then not a worry afterwards. Tackle something simple like the framing of Bulk Head #4 first which is hidden in the rear tank so if you make a bit of mess it won't be a problem. Similar for epoxy coating the front/rear faces of BH #1 and BH#2 are hidden (if you plan to pre-coat panels). As I said after you have done it once you'll understand the "tricky bits" and then you should have enough knowledge to work out how to tackle the rest.

    Good luck - unless you are much better then everyone else you'll make some mistakes. As long as they aren't structural or major just keep moving on and try not to think about them to much. I look forward to following your build!

    Cheers

    Matt

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    NSW, Australia
    Posts
    474

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by joshw View Post
    1. Where should I start? I'm not sure I'm ready to make the hull panels right off the cuff... which parts are good to "practice" on before the serious stuff? What should I buy first?
    As Surlyone says, the panels aren't diiffcult as long as you are careful with your measuring. You will need plywood for some of the internal bits anyway, even if you make them first, so I would be planning on buying the plywood early in the game. Might as well get is all at once too, in case the price goes up in a couple of months.

    2. Tips for getting the wood supplies? I will be making some calls to get some quotes on wood soon (anyone with suggestions for local Aussie suppliers?), but I don't really know what I'm asking for in terms of quality.
    For plywood you want real marine ply.

    There's only one Australian manufacturer, and that's Austral. Their ply is made from hoop pine (native timber, plantation grown) and is of very good quality. There should be several suppliers in Sydney.

    However, you can also get imported marine ply made from okoume, which is lighter for the same thickness. It's also not as strong (F rating is about half that of hoop ply) but is strong enough. There's really only one place to get in if you want the good stuff, and that's Denman Marine in Tassie. They'll ship at reasonable rates.

    For framing timber you just need straight grain, no knots, and something fairly light. The usual choices in your area would be hoop pine, cedar or (if you want to go light) paulownia. There are other timbers that would be good, but you're not likely to come across them as easily. Good examples would be silver quandong or King Billy pine.

    I haven't lived in Sydney for yonks and don't know all the possible suppliers. Two I do know, for framing timber, are Trend Timbers and Anagote Timbers.

    3. A heads up on any good resources for beginners would be appreciated e.g. tips for basic wood-working...........
    Keep your tools really sharp. It makes a hell of a difference. The building process is not rocket science. If you can handle a law degree, you can handle builidng a boat.
    You know you're making progress when there's sawdust in your coffee.

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Arundel Qld 4214
    Age
    86
    Posts
    701

    Default Timber for a GIS

    If you decide to use Paulownia for the framing, and there are a lot of advantages to this timber, I'm sure I remember MIK or one of the other experts saying 'add 10% to the widest dimension'. So if the plan specifies pine at 19 x 50 make the paulownia 19 x 55 to allow for the fact that Paulownia is not as strong as pine. Hoop pine weighs 560 kg per Cubic metre and Paulownia weighs 288 kg per c/m so even with the increase in size of the timber it still leaves you a big saving in weight. By the way balsa weighs 128 kg so you can get an idea of the relative weight of Paulownia as compared to pine. Paulownia is easy to work with and takes glue very well. I don't sell it any more. Good luck with your build whatever timber you use.

    Whitewood

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    3

    Default

    Thanks for the suggestions so far, guys.

    I'll probably start with the hull then. Probably not a bad idea to get the expensive wood out of the way first, too.

    Denman have a great rep here so I'll give them a call soon - I think I'll want to stick with Gaboon to keep the weight down (as long as its not unreasonably expensive).

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    NH
    Posts
    77

    Default

    Hi Josh,
    Welcome to the site. My goat is close to complete but I'm in the US and the weather turned and I'm likely on hold until spring to finish up the exterior. In response to your inquiry about tools, it doesn't take too many to build the boat. Here's a list of what I found useful:

    1. Cordless drill and driver set. I have the cheaper Makita set which is nice and light to use bending over etc.
    2. Cordless skilsaw same brand as driver. I put in a nicer fine cut saw blade. Think it's 40 teeth. I used this to cut out all the panels. It will follow the curves quite closely. You can carefully plunge cut the straight lines in the bulkhead cutouts too.
    3. Hand plane. Could probably get by with one. Maybe a #4 or 5.
    4. Power planer. Not necessary but was handy for planing down the chine logs, gunwale etc. You could also use it for scarfing.
    5. Card scraper. I used this a lot to clean up epoxy, fair parts etc.
    6. Hand saw. I use a traditional backsaw and panel saw.
    7. Chisel. A 1" is most handy
    8. Sharpening tools. I use a grinder and water stones and an oil stone for the card scraper.
    9. File. To sharpen the scraper and to file off epoxy bumps at screw holes
    10. Small electric router. I used a small router to clean up the hole for the mast through the seat (I glued up the partner and step rather than cutting out a hole), to cut the radius corners in the bulkhead cutouts (Mdf pattern cut to the radius of the west system filler cover) and to clean up the dagger board slot in the bottom. You could do these by drilling/sawing out and filing however.
    11. Rasp. I used a rasp to shape the radius on the gunwales and then a small scraper filed to the radius in a piece of an old scraper. A Nicholson #49 is what you would want.
    12. Tablesaw. You could probably get by without this if you get the materials dimensioned when you purchase them.
    13. Clamps. Bar clamps and spring clamps. I also had good luck with homemade plywood clamps and wedges when gluing in the ledgers for the seats and the gunwales.
    14. A way to mill the gunwale parts to thickness.
    15. A random orbit sander. If you have the money, the Festool sander and vac is hard to beat. But you could do the whole thing by hand if you have the energy.

    Good luck and hope you enjoy it. If you get frustrated with your results, do your best, but remember the words of my seven year old, "it's just a boat."

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Sydney
    Posts
    3

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Beaton1 View Post
    Hi Josh,
    Welcome to the site. My goat is close to complete but I'm in the US and the weather turned and I'm likely on hold until spring to finish up the exterior. In response to your inquiry about tools, it doesn't take too many to build the boat. Here's a list of what I found useful:

    1. Cordless drill and driver set. I have the cheaper Makita set which is nice and light to use bending over etc.
    2. Cordless skilsaw same brand as driver. I put in a nicer fine cut saw blade. Think it's 40 teeth. I used this to cut out all the panels. It will follow the curves quite closely. You can carefully plunge cut the straight lines in the bulkhead cutouts too.
    3. Hand plane. Could probably get by with one. Maybe a #4 or 5.
    4. Power planer. Not necessary but was handy for planing down the chine logs, gunwale etc. You could also use it for scarfing.
    5. Card scraper. I used this a lot to clean up epoxy, fair parts etc.
    6. Hand saw. I use a traditional backsaw and panel saw.
    7. Chisel. A 1" is most handy
    8. Sharpening tools. I use a grinder and water stones and an oil stone for the card scraper.
    9. File. To sharpen the scraper and to file off epoxy bumps at screw holes
    10. Small electric router. I used a small router to clean up the hole for the mast through the seat (I glued up the partner and step rather than cutting out a hole), to cut the radius corners in the bulkhead cutouts (Mdf pattern cut to the radius of the west system filler cover) and to clean up the dagger board slot in the bottom. You could do these by drilling/sawing out and filing however.
    11. Rasp. I used a rasp to shape the radius on the gunwales and then a small scraper filed to the radius in a piece of an old scraper. A Nicholson #49 is what you would want.
    12. Tablesaw. You could probably get by without this if you get the materials dimensioned when you purchase them.
    13. Clamps. Bar clamps and spring clamps. I also had good luck with homemade plywood clamps and wedges when gluing in the ledgers for the seats and the gunwales.
    14. A way to mill the gunwale parts to thickness.
    15. A random orbit sander. If you have the money, the Festool sander and vac is hard to beat. But you could do the whole thing by hand if you have the energy.

    Good luck and hope you enjoy it. If you get frustrated with your results, do your best, but remember the words of my seven year old, "it's just a boat."
    Thanks for the tips Beaton1. I'm hoping to source as much stuff second-hand off eBay as I can.

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    sydney
    Posts
    26

    Default

    Try cbm milling for the timber.... Not ply. Gladesville Joinery - Home

    they will cut to size. Ring them and see what they have. When I was there they had heaps of varieties of timber and their rate for cutting it up was very good.

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    New London, Minnesota
    Posts
    181

    Default

    Any time I have made a mistake with my build it was because I failed to read the plans carefully. To paraphrase, read twice, cut once. There is no reason not to lay out and cut all of the plywood first thing. It will save some storage space and have the cut panels as soon as you need them on the build. I did the bulkheads first to get experience gluing and shaping parts. I also prefinished as much as I could. Then when you have the parts cut out, one day you will put the side panels to the bulkheads and instantly have a boat. Lots of luck and enjoy. PS its going to take longer than you think so have a long term place to work.

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Santa Cruz La Laguna
    Posts
    134

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Northstar View Post
    PS its going to take longer than you think so have a long term place to work.
    I can second that - hope for the best, plan for the worst.

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Aberfoyle Park SA
    Age
    63
    Posts
    1,787

    Default

    Hi Josh
    Just to be a contrary blighter...
    There are a lot of little parts you can make (& store easily) while you work up to the big bits (the mast & hull).
    They can be made fairly cheaply, each one costing you very little if you stuff up.
    And each part building your skills & confidence before you start turning serious money into sawdust.
    So I suggest you start with things like the rudder stock, foils, spars & such like.

    As a bonus, when you finish the hull, you can just go sailing, rather than suddenly realising you have another 6 months of looking at (and storing) your complete but unusable hull because you haven't yet made all the bits that make it go...

    You can start with a few basic tools - battery drill, random orbital sander, jigsaw, hand saw, chisel/s, clamps, plane & rasp.
    The 3 power tools are optional - hand tools plus elbow-grease also works.
    Make sure you buy Li-Ion battery tools - Ni-Cd & NiMH are only ok if using tools daily.
    You can also get by with a B&D Work-Mate or similar for these small parts - not as nice as a full work bench, but do-able.

    By the time you have done these, you will
    a) know if you're really up to the build - skills AND manhours, and
    b) have located long-term build space and suppliers, and
    c) have a life-time tool kit for house-hold fix-its.

    cheers
    Alan J
    Alan J

    Nothing says "Unprofessional Job" so loudly as wrinkles in the duct tape. - B.Spencer

  13. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    New Jersey, USA
    Posts
    767

    Default

    Welcome Josh. Lot's of great tips here. Even better, flip through the various build threads here and see what others have said, done, and... photographed!

    I want to second AJ's advice. I personally started with the spars then the mast so I could wet my feet with parts that are easily replaced. (Actually, I started with stitching up the sail, but that's not a recommendation I usually offer.)

    Once I took the plunge and purchased the (pricey) Okoume plywood, I did everything I could to prepare them while flat. By the time winter rolled around, all that was left for me to do was assemble the parts. (Ok, "all" is misleading...) But my point is that I was able to store the flat pieces easier than having a 3D hull taking up my garage space all winter.

    Finally, thanks for starting a thread here; you won't regret it. IMHO, there is nothing like having your own dedicated thread that captures your whole experience. There have been some build lately that have sort of used Facebook to update the community and ask questions. It isn't the same.

    Good luck and post pics!
    Dave
    StorerBoat Builder, Sailor, Enthusiast
    Dave's GIS Chronicles | Dave's Lugs'l Chronicles | Dave's StorerBoat Forum Thread

  14. #13
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Gothenburg, Sweden
    Posts
    100

    Default

    Hi Josh!
    My very slow build so far as taken this route:
    1. Sell motorbike, and try to by as much expensive stuff as possible while the money is there (gaboon ply, epoxy, sail...)
    2. Slowly create an IKEA type flat pack.
    3. Try hard to refrain from assembling the said flat pack until all parts are ready. I build in a smallish garage and once the boat is assembled there will be very little space left. This is where I am now. Bulkheads and side panels are ready and they are screaming at me to fit them together, but so far I'm holding up.

    Good luck with the build. You are at the right place with a build thread here.

    Pontus

  15. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    New London, Minnesota
    Posts
    181

    Default

    scooter - I used ratchet straps to pull my side panels in to the bulkheads. I would not say it was easy. When the glue gets on those pieces, it gets very slippery under pressure. Lots of squirming around of bits and pieces, some blue air around with the king's English suffering terribly. But - - - it is together and wonder of wonders perfectly straight. Hard to believe that you started with a pile of bits and an hour later you have a boat! Makes lots of things worth while. Just warning you that pulling it all together is not that easy and you need a couple of extra pairs of hands to help. That isn't hard to find because folks are just in a wonder than anybody could do that. They are also fascinated with the sheer beauty of the wood.

  16. #15
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Location
    NSW, Australia
    Posts
    474

    Default

    If you have a pre-drilled screw at chine and sheer where each bulkhead or frame is, and put those in as you wrap the panels around, it should be pretty easy to make things behave. Without those things would be slipping all over the place, but just a couple of screws as you work the panels into shape makes a big difference.

    I did my old rowboat this way and it worked a treat. Just put the midships frame in to start with, then pull the ends until the next frames are sitting about right. Rinse and repeat. If you do it that way, it's only the last bit to the stem that'll take any real effort.
    You know you're making progress when there's sawdust in your coffee.

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