Making Sawdust

20.13 in Boat Plans, boatbuilding, for, how, make, making, man, not, old, organization, questions, sawdust, suck, the, to

The whole process of building a boat involves cutting a lot of lumber, but at the beginning there were whole days of doing nothing but.

The plans called for kiln-dried or air-dried lumber of no more than 12% moisture.  I live in the hills of Northern California which at times is like living in a rain forest, so that seemed unlikely.  In terms of what species of lumber, what tree: there was a long list of species that would work and a long list of ones that would not.  Doug fir is the most commonly available light, strong construction lumber on the west coast and was on the okay list.  So this began with a treasure hunt to find just the right lumber to build the frame of the boat that would not be ridiculously expensive.

The reason for the specificity of tree and moisture content of the lumber had to do with the epoxy that would be used to bind it all together.  Every joint and every plywood seam and every place where plywood contacts a member gets epoxied. Epoxy wont bind well if the lumber is green, wet, or is of a species of wood that is high in natural oils.

After a little research, I found that our local lumber company, what used to be San Lorenzo Lumber (now ProBuilt), had in one of their yards kiln-dried Doug Fir that was not much more expensive than the green wood they normally sell for construction.  Sweet.  Three hundred dollars of wood later, my old work truck was loaded with boat lumber and headed up to E. Zayante where the boat was being built.

Generally, I had big long 16 and 20 foot 2x4 lengths.  The boat has a 20 foot long top deck, and because of the rake at the ends, is 16 foot along the bottom.  There are also 8 foot long beams across the boat ("athwartship" in boatbuilding-speak) and a bunch of little stuff that would be ends, posts, etcetera. 

But the plans called for ripping every piece to some new width, some 3 inches wide some 2-1/2.  A finish 2x4 from the lumberyard is actually 3-1/2 x 1-1/2 with smooth rounded corners.  Instead of taking a half inch off of a side to make a 3 inch thick piece, the plans called for taking off a 1/4 inch on either side.  The reason for this is sensible:  Cutting off the rounded edges of the lumber makes a better joint when it is epoxied.

So we spent a whole day feeding 16 and 20 foot long lengths of lumber into the tablesaw... twice. We made lots and lots of sawdust.

Then we cut a bunch of stuff to length, labeled it, and voila.  At the end of the day, we had a pile of lumber that we intended to turn into a boat.

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Organization How To Make Boatbuilding Not Suck

07.08 in and, boat, Boat Plans, boatbuilding, build, building, choices, day, first, form, how, made, make, not, organization, plans, suck, to

Boats are made of lots and lots of funny precision parts that all look more or less the same but are subtle different.  A bow skeg stringer end accidentally exchanged for a stern skeg stringer end and its all over.

The previous build day, in my excitement I threw together the dead simple building form, and assembled it wrong.  The building form is just made of 2x4s nailed together, but the boat members will be screwed and epoxied.  Theres no going back on wood parts epoxied together.  A serious error could mean having to start completely over on that member. 

 

So the previous build day was a lesson in the need for precision.  Before going further, I created labels for every piece of every member of the hull.  As I ripped pieces and then cut them to length, I stapled my sturdy cardboard labels directly on to the boards.

This way, when it came time to assemble, say, the starboard skeg stringer, I would only have to gather up all the pieces that said SKEG STRGR 1 (top, bottom, fore post, aft post, fore end, aft end) and bring them into the barn for assembly.

I also got a quad-ruled comp book and started taking detailed notes.  All the things youd normally scribble down on scratch paper as you were calculating angles and measurements and offsets went into the notebook.  All my little sketches of what pieces should look like before I cut them, lists of procedures, materials I needed to get, and a detailed journal of each day of work went into the comp book.

Along with a place in the barnyard to build the boat, Lawrence let us use an unused horse stall in the barn.  This made a perfect build office, a place to layout the plans, organize all our tools, and most importantly keep snacks and beer.

Having the right tool at hand when you need it, is not only convenient but can be critical during the stressful build process, especially when you are dealing with epoxy.  We spent time making sure that every tool had its own place.  This also had the benefit of making daily clean up more fun.  It felt good to do a lot of hard work and then have everything all neat and tidy at the end of the day.

Here Kai, one of my co-builders, in a goofy moment, models the first photo for our Little Shantyboat Pinup Calendar.  This also helps make boatbuilding not suck.

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