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Thread: Tom Cat

  1. #1
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    Question Tom Cat

    Hi Guys
    The planning was completed last year so 2008 marks the commencement of a new build project for me. All the decisions with regard what design to build, how big etc. is over. Considering my previous project (a Derek Ellard Scruffie Stornaway 18' yawl plywood kit boat) was completed in 2004 and the spiders have overtaken my shed I thought the time was right.

    I have completed the lofting of the William Garden 12' 6" cat boat design, Tom Cat and decided that I would strip plank her in Paulownia over a Tassie Oak backbone using New Guinea Rosewood and Hoop Pine for the trim.

    The build will most probably take a long time (read years) but I thought I would canvas the forum for your thoughts on following my slow progress but with as much detail as possible. If you can stand the strain I would like to give it a bash to off set the many canoe threads.

    Waddya think? Any body interested?
    Rgds
    Laurie

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
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    Hornsby. NSW
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    Default

    I'd love to read a weekly account of your progress! Please post up as you go!
    Thank God for senility... now I don't feel so silly any more.

  4. #3
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    Thanks Wayfarer.....I'll give it a go. Not sure about weekly posts but will attempt to provide enough to keep people interested. (I hope).

    I'll most probably start witht he lofting process when I get myself geared up to spend some time on the keyboard. At the moment I'm longing to pull the lofting up but am hamstrung with more measurements to take and doing the last minute checking of my faired lines etc. Almost ready to go!

  5. #4
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    Default Lofting

    Considering all my previous boat building projects were either kit boats or fitting out empty hulls the thought of lofting a boat from scratch provided me with a challenge that I had looked forward to. To assist my learning I purchased three references that I thought would stand me in good stead. I actually don’t think I could have done it without all three and having reached the point of lifting the lines I would recommend them all to anyone who hasn’t had a go at lofting.

    · The Gougeon Brothers on Boat Construction
    · Lofting – Allan Vaitses
    · The Boatbuilder’s Apprentice – Greg Rossel
    ·

    I’m glad I’m not attempting to earn a living from this! It has taken me a few months between other things to get it all but finished. After completing the last minute checking prior to taking off the lines I found a mistake in the laminated stem layout. Lucky, lucky, lucky! Just hope there are no more lurking amongst all those lines on my two sheets of 12mm ply on the floor of my garage.

    I manufactured a straight edge by ripping a 75 wide strip off the side of a remnant of a 12mm ply sheet I had and then bevelled the original outside edge to 5mm. I used two hoop pine lofting battens – one 19x6x4800, one 19x10x4800 for all the long work and I had a piece of 3mm Perspex 1200L that I cut to 19W for all the tight curves. This all seemed to work OK. For weights I used some old tins of paint etc, in lieu of the expensive recommended drafting ducks or lead ingots.

    I did use four different colour pens plus pencil for all the line work. However, I still got confused in the transom area. The design calls for a sloped and rounded transom and with a straight, sloped transom as an option. This was the greatest challenge of the whole process and I chewed more pencil and subsequently ate more lead than a person is supposed to in a whole lifetime, I’m sure. Reading the text in a reference book and transferring that to practice in some cases left me spent some nights. Any way, the template is complete and only time will tell.

    The other thing I should mention is that the battens spring around the nails much better if they are put under some tension. I worried about the thing not lying against all the Station points and finally read in one of the above texts somewhere that this makes a big difference……..and so it did and a niggling pain in the butt went away. All lines fair with no naughty words emanating toward the Lines Plan!

    I am now making templates for those areas of the boat where it will be easier to have these than to figure them out after the lofting comes up. I have produced templates for the the transom, transom knee, deadwood, aft centre case log, mast step, deck camber, and am currently working on the revised stem patterns inner and outer. These were all completed using MDF and flat head nails. Worked a treat with the MDF being soft enough to pull the nails from the ply and remain in the MDF thus allowing me to spring a batten around the nail heads. The reverse of the original process on the lofting board. Plus I have taken a drawing of all of these plus the body plans onto drafting film using the good old fashioned carbon paper method.

    So that brings me up to date with where I’m at with the this part of the project.
    Have a great day!!
    Last edited by Boatmik; 28th March 2008 at 02:54 PM.

  6. #5
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    Gidday drywater, I found this thread after your post on another!

    Some pics would be a great adjunct as you document your build! There'll be plenty watching over time, so please just keep going!

    Cheers,

    P

  7. #6
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    Default Stem Laminates

    Thanks 'midge. I'm on it. Piccies will come.

    The lifting of templates from the lofting seems never ending but considering this is my first time I don’t want to miss anything. I have now decided to lift the Floor templates (approx. 12 –13) but will complete these after lifting the mold templates.

    To break up the brain overload on the lofting floor last night I ripped down the Tas Oak boards I had and thicknessed them to 6mm ready for the stem lamination process. I started with 93 x 19 x 1600 dressed boards, ripped in half length wise and then ripped again on the larger dimension to bring the boards to 45 x 8. I did this on my bandsaw. After some experimenting with the standard fence to complete this I have now decided that a different methodology will be required to resaw my 125 wide N.G. Rosewood required . Thankfully I had some meat to work with on the T.Oak so no harm done after hitting the thicknesser.
    I now have 16 strips 42 x 6 x 1600 ready for lamination. The finished width will end up being 38mm after steaming, bending and gluing so again I have some excess to work with.

    It was good to hear the machines going – back to wood working after so long on the lofting board without a diversion. Back to the lofting fun tomorrow.

    Question – anyone out there with experience bending T.Oak? The bend is 90 degrees with a radius of approx. 300mm. All 16 laminates will ultimately be epoxied together to provide a finished dimension 90 x 38mm.


    Cheers
    Last edited by Boatmik; 28th March 2008 at 02:55 PM.

  8. #7
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    Default Stem Laminates Cont...

    Just some prelimary pics to work out how to get them inserted. Sorry for the quality.

    6 Lines Plan.jpg

    It appears I missed the Construction Plan pic. Next post maybe. The Lines Plan went thru though. hmmm

    10 Stem Laminates.jpg 9 Stem Template.jpg

    The other two pics display my ripped and planed Tassie Oak laminates and the RH one also shows the template that they need to be bent, glued and shaped to. My lofting board is underneath. Two sheets 2400x1200 C grade ply screwed to some 30x70 framing stock. The ply I got for nix from a container that was lined in the stuff being burnt by a transport company cause thay had no use for it. Can you believe that?!
    Cheers til next time.

  9. #8
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    Looks like you have it sorted - this will be a nice thread to have on the forum!

    Best wishes
    Michael Storer

  10. #9
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    Thanks Mik.........there's going to be plenty to write about.

  11. #10
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    Default Station 2A

    I have been busy cutting down the large sheets of chipboard I had for each mould and decided to attempt the construction of the largest Station mould to see how it would go. [/FONT]

    As I didn’t have quite enough board to make a single half mould in one piece I had to assemble this particular half mould in two pieces. After ascertaining the mitre angle I cut them up, added a gusset and screwed the two halves together ready for transferring the mould line from the lofting to the chipboard. I am using the nail transfer method to take the lofting to the board.

    This I have accomplished using 38mm flat head nails tapped into the mould line on the lofting then placing the chipboard over the top and walking on it to press the nail heads in to the board leaving an indentation. When doing this in the past I have been able to get the nails to move from the lofting to the board without any trouble. However, this did not happen and I had to dig my nails from the lofting and hammer them into the indentations. This works really well and it was just a matter of bending my Perspex batten around the nail heads and pencil in the line. Hey presto, all done in a few minutes. Certainly beats mucking around with tracing paper, awls, whatever, etc. I have included all the water lines and of course, the sheer in the transfer process. Can’t have too many reference points.

    Having completed that, off to the bandsaw and cut around the line and tidy up with plane and spokeshave. Some minor work at the centreline to get the two halves to come together correctly necessitated fitting and screwing the two halves back together, planing etc to ensure we get this absolutely right. Now I have Station 2A complete. (Note that the chipboard is murder on blades. I think I’ll be up for resharpening after each mould is complete. I’m cutting to within a 1mm of the line to keep this type of work to a minimum as well).

    You will note in the pics that I have screwed a couple of straight edges to the lofting. One for the side and one for the base. One represents the top of the strongback and I have also marked in the width of the strongback on the lofting to ensure the base of the moulding will actually land where it is supposed to. The other is for the side of the moulding. Having this right angle corner to butt the chipboard up against is a real help when attempting to line up the mould on the lofting. I was originally using my Stn 0 mould but ended up removing that and replacing it with my long plywood straight edge. See Pic 4.

    11 Nail Transfer Method.JPG 14 Making the Impression from the Lofting.JPG 12 Perspex Batten around the Nails.JPG 13 Two Sides being Joined to make the Mould.JPG

    I have also added the Construction Drawing. Poor quality but it gives an idea.

    5 Construction Plan.jpg

    Keep you posted!

  12. #11
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    Not much to report this week. I have completed the half frames for Stations 0, 2, 2A, 3 and 4. Just need to complete 1, and 1A. The plans actually show only 5 stations but considering I am going to strip plank I thought it prudent to add two more stations in the beamy areas. The distance between 1 and 2 and 2 and 3 is 950 app. So I’ve added one in between for peace of mind like. Hence the 1A and 2A designations.

    Thought I could finish them up over the weekend but as always something unexpected comes along. This time it was my ride-on mower….it threw the rear axle so spent all my “boat time” pulling that down to investigate the problem. Found that a nut had come off inside the transmission that allowed the axle to part company with the housing. However, after numerous attempts to undo some stubborn screws to fix it I gave up and took it in this morning to the “professionals” to have a go at undoing those 4 little screws that were being obnoxious! Wednesday they say………God help me!

    I had also gone out on Saturday and purchased a new Dust Extractor for my machinery and there it sits, in its box and now my shed is littered with dirty, greasy mower bits everywhere….consequently no room to do a bloody thing. Talk about frustration @#$%!!

    Did I mention that the chipboard I am using for the moulds is 19mm thick? I read somewhere that the edges may not hold up well during the planking process and additionally the paulownia may dent easily on these edges so I’m now procrastinating over the mould bevelling issue. Should I or shouldn’t I? Also no answers yet on the steam bending of the T.Oak.??

    Cheers

  13. #12
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    Gold Coast
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    Default Paulownia

    Dry Water,
    Just completed a 14 ft runabout using paulownia and had no prblems with the planks bruising over the frames. If you havent got you paulownia yet I can put you on to a supplier in Kingaroy who supplys good rough sawn timber, milled to the sizes you ask. Good luck and have fun.
    The greater danger to most of us is not that we aim too high and miss it, but that we aim too low and reach it.

    Regards Lewy

  14. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lewy the Fly View Post
    Dry Water,
    Just completed a 14 ft runabout using paulownia and had no prblems with the planks bruising over the frames. If you havent got you paulownia yet I can put you on to a supplier in Kingaroy who supplys good rough sawn timber, milled to the sizes you ask. Good luck and have fun.
    Thanks for the tip on the Paulownia Lewy........however I got a great deal from Whitewood and am very pleased with my purchase. Considering I was stripping he was able to get me all my 400 lineal metres in off cuts from a process of milling boards to larger sizes. They're appox 16x42 rough sawn and my intention is to thickness them down to 12x42 then bead and cove to give me a planking size of 12x38 or thereabouts but I have the gear so no problems.
    Also thanks for the other info on the moulds. It always helps to have some other input to the decision process.

  15. #14
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    Default Station Moulds

    Things have been slow with Easter away etc but am now back on the daily after work 2 hour routine. I have completed pulling all the templates off the lofting and have only one mould to finish. See my completions to date stacked up against the bench in the attached. I completed two more after the pic was taken.
    The next project will be the Stem so I will now need to turn my attention to a steam box and how that will come together. Still not sure what direction to take so have to give it some thought. Any suggestions?

    15 Station Moulds.jpg

  16. #15
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    I have commenced the mini project to build a steam box. I purchased some cheap pine boards 19x150x1800 and basically screwed them together longitudinally with no glue. I closed off one end with some structural exterior ply and inserted some 12mm dowels to keep the boards apart to assist the steaming process. These are at the ends and in the middle in two rows. I figure I will stop the open end up with some rags.
    To get the steam going I purchased a new 5L petrol can and a Fiskar grey water funnel connector from M10. One end of the funnel fits the can opening and the other is inserted into a short length of reinforced bilge pump hose I had lying around. I cut a hole the same diameter as the hose in the middle bottom of the box and forced the hose into it. For the fire I had a 5KG gas bottle with a single camp stove top that I sat the can on. See pics of the assembly.
    I flashed her up and went about my other work while I waited for the water in the can to boil. It was an anxious wait to see what head of steam my rig would provide. I was caught out because one second there was nothing then the shed started to disappear under the cloud that was coming from the open end of the box. I was stoked and immediately thought I should steam something even though I had not organised anything. To cut a long story short I found a dried up old piece of Oregon 6x25x1000 and stuck that in, shoved in my coat to stop her up and counted off 15 min before dragging it out and bending it around an old small tabletop I had from somewhere. It bent like a dream!

    OK so now it is down to the real deal……..this week I work out if I can bend my Tassy Oak around the jig for the stem that is, as yet, not built.

    13 Steam Box.jpg 9 Steam Box Setup.jpg 12 Steam Box Water to Pipe.jpg 11 Steam Box Pipe to Box.jpg

    14 First Bend Oregon.jpg 16 First Bend Result.jpg

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