What a difference a little paint makes....

Well I finally got to sanding and finishing up the cockpit for some paint.

Still a little paint work to do here though!

I am also working on the mast and the gaff. the sail is pretty much done except I have to put in the grommets for lacing the sail to it's spars. I will be getting the rigging together before long though I still have the centerboard and rudder to sheath in fiberglass and epoxy. I'm hoping to splash this girl in about a month!!!

How to make it go...

Big brown stopped by the other day and brought me a box of sail parts. All I gotta do is stitch them together. Sure would be nice to have a big sail loft with a sewing pit in the middle.

Well I started sewing mine on a 4x8 ft table on the patio. I did the jib and it was about as big as I wanted to do there.

Then I started sewing on the main, doing as much work as I could on separate panels before trying to stitch them together. after I got all the little patches and reinforcements sewn on, I started sewing together the small panels into sections still small enough to handle. Then finally I moved the sewing machine into the living room and stitched these panels together on the floor were they have nowhere to fall. Hard on the knees but got the job done. There are still a couple of things that need to be done in the middle but it was where a patch fell on a seam so I couldn't do that until the panels were together. Now I have to sew on the corner patches, reef re-enforcements and treat the edge of the sail all around. It was actually kinda fun sewing this thing together.

Back on the job!

Got my glue order so I'm back at it. Here are a couple of things I had been working on while waiting.

I turned these Sheaves on my drill press for the rigging blocks I am making.

Matthew cut and bent these block parts for me.

And here are some of the assembled blocks.

I installed the toe rails as well, I think they are a nice little detail at the edge.

Here is the upper part of the rudder assembly. There is not enough room to put the rudder on yet It'll have to wait till I get the boat outside(It's raining here this week). The rudder is hinged near the bottom of this upper part so if you were to hit something under water like a rock or shallow bottom, it would fold up instead of breaking itself or the boat. Seems like a good thing to me.

I like this tiller as it can be raised up while you are using it, You might want to stand up and stretch or otherwise get it out of the way.

You can also easily remove it from the rudder altogether.

Matthew also made this really nice boom gooseneck for me. He runs a laser cutting machine and he programmed these parts and cut them for me.

Ran out of glue!!!

This week I got the rudder pieces cut out and glued up so that it's about ready for assembly but I am out of glue and I need to glass and epoxy coat it before it gets put together. The mast pieces are also ready for glue as is the centerboard awaiting fiberglass sheathing. so while I am awaiting my glue shipment, I am trying to knock out some other small items that are on the "gotta get done" list.

Last weekend, my son was up helping me with a few things and we were playing around with the mast. Though it's not glued together, just duck taped, we stood it up for a picture.

My son Matthew also made these stainless steel straps to re-enforce the mast tabernacle.

Here is the rudder assembly. It will hinge so that if the rudder contacts something under water, it should fold up out of the way instead of causing harm to itself or the boat.

I am anticipating getting the boat rigged for sailing so I started making some of the goodies required for that. Here are a set of belaying cleats. I will need maybe a couple more of this size and a couple smaller ones as well.

Here I have cut some slats to laminate a tiller for the rudder. All ready to go when my glue arrives.

A little closer

Closing in on completion, or at least thinking about launching. I got the coamings ready for permanent installation and am getting the mast ready to go. Also the rudder is coming up soon so stay tuned.

The deck has been attached and sheathed in fiberglass and epoxy, and here the comings are fitted and I am shaping the top edge.

These are the mast parts, I am doing a birds mouth mast assembly. There a 8 staves, each with a 45 degree cutout in one edge and tapered so the the assembly will be tapered as well. Watch more more pics soon.

I needed to get the boat out of the shop to work on the mast so I hooked it up a towed it up the hill a bit. I was just standing in the shop doorway admiring the view.

Today I had my wife help me rip a nice VG doug fir board I had up in the attic of my shop into staves for the birds mouth mast. Then we made the bird mouth cut and I tapered them with the power plane and then tuned them with the hand plane. Here is a shot of the mast dry fitted prior to the glue up. It's about 3 1/2" at the base and 2 1/2" at the top. After the glue up, I'll plane and sand it round.

A slight change of plans....

Well I see my last post started by saying, "it's been really hot" well I guess it's been a while since I posted because,"it's been really cold", in fact we had snow over a week ago and it is just now disappearing. Well there has been a change of heart or change in the plan anyway. I am not going to build the boat as a cabin type cruiser but instead as a daysailer but decked and perhaps a tent or canvas cabin like thing down the road. The boat will most likely be a fair weather affair and mostly on northern California lakes around my local. This change will also allow the boat to be on the water sooner than otherwise. I think my son is disappointed but he'll likely survive. Anyway, we got a couple of days were the weather was warm enough to do some glueing so I installed a bunch of stuff that I had been making. Here are a few pics.

The motor in the well as it would be while underway.

the storage compartment lids are up and the motor can be unmounted and stowed for sailing.

The motor has been stowed in the rear compartment in preparation for sailing.

the lids are folded down over the compartment.

And the center cover is back on over the motor, let's go sailing.

A few pics of the boat out in the sun with the first layer of the deck on. The deck will be 2 layers of 1/4" plywood with fiberglass set in epoxy sheathing. A nice coamings will follow the inside deck opening and come to a point in front of the mast.

Today I added a forward sole, this is where the cabin would have been. Now it is a place to lounge and do whatever. Sit in a folding camp chair, sit on the floor, stand or whatever.

Still trying to sort out the coamings.

Progress is slow of late.....

It has been really hot, I have been working quite a bit and I have lots of projects so time has been thin.... But I bought a new sewing machine that is suitable for sailmaking and all kinds of other heavy type sewing. I had a nice set of patio chairs that were about 7 or 8 years old and sitting in the sun for most of that time (except in winter) and were starting to rot and fall apart. If memory serves, the set of six chairs and a table were about a grand when we bought them. I really don't want to have to replace them so I found a video online showing how to repair them, cost not counting the machine of course, $70.00. But it won't take to long to make the machine pay for itself and when I am done with it, these machines have pretty high resale value. So here is that project, it is in the boat blog because I am practicing my sewing for the sail and because it is keeping me from working on the boat.

The chair on the left of course is just worn out. The chair on the right was but now has a new seat sling and is ready for more years of fun on the patio!!!

Here is my new sewing machine. It has a walking foot does zigzag and straight stitching and can sew thru 8 layers of sailcloth or heavy canvas. There are several projects related to the boat that I can use this for as well as other things around the house.

I have been working on the forward deck area, getting it ready for the plywood deck material. I framed up a hatch opening and the anchor locker right behind the bow.

The anchor locker.

Another view of the anchor locker

And from the outside showing the anchor locker drain holes. There will either be a hatch cover for the locker or some kind of pipe stack to feed the anchor line in with. I guess it should really be called and anchor line locker as the anchor itself will either be attached on deck at the bow or stowed somewhere else.