In the racks

Tony Cronin, the UMass Men's head coach helped me lift the boats into the racks, where she'll be staying until get back for christmas. Before lifting it up Michelle got me some soft serve to celebrate the event.

Well, that's where it's at now. Jim Dietz, the UMass Women's head coach, donated an old fashioned foot board, and some oar locks, and Tristan McKee at Parlee Cycles is going to try to fashion up a some riggers. By the way, check out Tristan's blog, which really inspired this whole adventure, for his Yacht.

Thanks for making it this far. Next time we'll make the riggers, and attach them, stay tuned.

The Deck

Now came time for the decking. I was thinking about doing a clear plastic deck, but decided to go for the all wood look. I used Ash, or Oak, veneer for the deck, but it didn't really lay straight, so please be kind.

Because of the unevenness of the veneer, I let it stay overnight in the humid Amherst summer, with the hope that like ironing a shirt the lazy way, that the humidity would smooth things out.

It mostly worked, and then it was back to work with the epoxy!

Using a router, i trimmed off all the scraggly edges, and made a nice smooth line.

This felt wrong, but i needed to do a little trimming.

The Bow and Stern

Ok, we're in Amherst, and now it's time to get down to buisness again. This baby needs to get done. The bow and stern pieces are supposed to be removable (read as break-off able). That way if you slam into something too hard, they pop off with not greater damage to the boat. The plans call for solid mahogany pieces, so we're going to join two thick boards together and then shape them.

The first step is to make two boards perfectly smooth so we can join them together. I did this using epoxy and some heavy duty clamps.

Not a bad new work place, no? Don't look at the tractor, look at the wood!

With the boards glued up I was able to use the wood shop in the new Studio Arts Building at UMass thanks to Dan Wessman. Using a ban saw I cut the "V" shape into the boards. I was too scared to cut the curve into them, and decided to do this by hand. I decided to go for a Resolute looking bow and stern. There is very little rocker to this boat, so Dave Snowdown (a real boat builder at Van Dusen) said that a plumb bow would be ok. And it really looks cool like that.

The stern was shaped much the same way. It was a lot of fun to use chisels to sculpt wood. Maybe I should rethink this grad school thing.

Then came the fun job of attaching them. **Note** Make sure the end ribs are square and plumb to the boat, you will save yourself HOURS of frustration. I didn't. That's because I'm not a master builder, and I don't know these things. But mostly, I was in a rush to get things done. when I attached the bow and stern pieces, it looked like a excellent rudder. So, it took some finesing.

Using a belt sander I fit the pieces, and Michelle held them still while I bolted them on.

Building the ribs

The hull is free from the mold, and things are looking good. Now we need to head back to the drawing board, and make the finished ribs. I used the same process from before (making the ribs for the mold) and traced each rib and then cut with a jig saw. All the ribs are made with marine grade mahogany plywood. The ribs in the center, and the end ribs are 1/2", and the rest of the ribs are 1/4". Two of the ribs need to be specially cut, because they will be the rigger attachment points. I photo copied the detailed drawings of these sections, and cut them just like I had the other ribs.

In my modified version of the plans, the gunwales are not attached to the boat. This meant that at this point I also had to fit the gunwales in. Then I did a dry layup of all the pieces. You'll need gunwales, gunwale stiffeners (which run between the two rigger mounts), and the decking stringer which will hold your decking on.

Once I felt good about all the pieces fitting, it was time to find every clamp I could, as the gunwales got glued on to the hull, and the ribs got glued in place. I didn't glue down the deck stringers, because the bow and stern pieces will get attached later, and my hands would just not fit in there later if closed it all up.

The weight of all the clamps twisted the hull slightly, but I'm not too worried. When they're not there, she's nice and straight.

Freedom!

With the boat shining, it's time to remove it from the mold. With our process, this means cutting the gunwales just above the staples. I traced a line where I thought the staples were with a magic marker, then followed with a trim saw. I was worried about marking the newly finished hull, so I covered the trim saw in blue tape. Then, with a utility knife I finished the job. And with a little re-cutting of a few stray staples, freedom!

Finishing Touches

Well, it worked! The veneer is attached, and now it's time to pull all those staples, and to sand!

Just don't get too carried away, otherwise you'll sand right though, and it'll look like this...

Once the sanding is done, and you've convinced your apprentice/dad that he needs to put the sander down comes the most rewarding part of the process, seeing the boat shine. To finish the hull, we used West System 207 epoxy. This has a built in UV protector which will keep the epoxy from going bad. The hull was wiped down, and then the painting began.

Yeah, it looks like that. We put several coats on, so expect to be at this stage for a few days.

Buisness Time - Day 3

The final layer of veneer is place length wise, running with the water line. I couldn't figure out a better way of doing this, so I followed the Gougeon Brother's advice, and stapled the veneer down to the hull. Rather than using plastic for this final layer, they recommend scraps of veneer, as the plastic is supposed to mark the wood somehow. I'm not sold on that. What I did learn though, is that you have to make a choice, and make it right now. Do you want the water line to be perfectly straight, or do you want to get this thing done easily. If easy is your choice. Then start at the keel, and work your way down to the gunwales. If you're obsessed with aesthetics, which I must admit I was, then start at the gunwales, and work your way out to the keel. The problem with the later one is that by the time you get to the keel, the veneer is twisting so wildly that even staples every few inches can't keep it flat to the hull.

The problem really arrises when the two sides meet each other. Now you've got all these strange shaped pieces you need to cut, or as we tried, overlap and then sand. I really think that if you start in the center you'll have yourself a lot of trouble, and it'll look awesome, don't worry.

Because I think we love the plastic wrap we wrapped the whole boat once done, pulling extra tight. Well that's it, hopefully tomorrow it'll be ready to unwrap, and oh yeah, the epoxy turned redish this time.

Transport

Most of you wont have to do this step, but I was building the boat on Nantucket Island, and running out of time before heading to Berkeley, and was getting worried that the boat would get left like a boat project -- undone.

So, we wrapped up the boat, and shipped it to Amherst, where I tried to finish it before leaving.

You'd be surprised how many stupid faces I can make.

There's another one.

And with that, the boat was loaded onto a bigger boat.

I actually got to fulfil a huge dream of mine, which was to have my own boat on the roof of the van. When I first got into rowing I saw a VW driving down the highway with a beautiful yellow Empacher on the roof. Well, today I got to have my own boat, and it's not yellow, it's wood!