Misread the Drawing,Duh! -- 127 Hours

In my last post I said the drawing of BH3 had an error, not so, I had the error. I mistook the line drawing of the floor bearer for the plywood joint. The 287mm is to the top of the bearer and the elevation of the ply joint is not given. If I’d realized this I would have been forced to look at other drawings to get the needed info where I would have found the proper sequence, to draw from the top down.  But no harm no foul, BH3 is fine, just needs that floor bearer.

It’s turned out for me that just using weights to clamp the various bearers works better than the small bar clamps. The bar clamps hang off one side imparting a torque causing the wood piece to move. This can be stopped by either using small nails or clamping down harder but then too much thickened epoxy squeezes out.  So I raided the panty and the cans of chicken, tuna, turkey,and clams do a decent job. Also since I leave the bearers long initially I can use the overhanging part to position the bearer.

Build Schedule Note:
I had been thinking I’d get this Tiki done in a 1-2 years, but other commitments makes it look like 3 or maybe 4. As it was we are planning to leave Maine and head for warmer climates early December, but now my other interest is going to be taking up much more time. 
I love bicycling(Trident Stowaway 2 trike really) and have decided to celebrate my 50th birthday by riding my trike from Belfast Maine to Anacortes Washington generally following the ACA Northern Tier Route. I’ setting aside May-Aug 2012 for the trip and in the lead up I’ll need to do much training so naturally boat building time will suffer.

3rd, 4th try is a charm -- 112 Hours

I’ve spent the last several hours drawing and cutting out bulkheads (BH) and wasted a few hours with vague directions and errors in the drawings.

I began by drawing BH2 then working across the 6mm plywood drew BH1 and then BH3 and this is where problems began.

1st issue. The parts layout sheet shows the center line of BH3 to be 1300mm from the opposite end of the plywood sheet from BH1. When I did this, it became apparent that there was not enough room between BH3 and BH1. Finally on the third try I found that 1100mm was a better number giving space for every BH. 

2nd issue also had to do with BH3, this time it was the dimension of the lower part that is cut out separately then joined to the top piece to create the whole BH3. The drawing show the lower piece to be 287mm tall but there’s the error. I built using a baseline method from the keel as shown in the drawing and ended up missing 6mm at the top of my plywood sheet.

After scratching my head awhile I read the example on the layout sheet of how to draw BH3, should have done this first but it looked pretty straight forward. To my surprise the example starts at the top and works down. There is still the error but it’s an easy fix when you get to the bottom. As shown in the picture that lower part is  287mm but it should be 293mm then the top part fits in the standard 48 inch with of the plywood specified. 
Starting at the keel, BH3 is 1217+295 tall or 1512mm. The top piece is therefor 1512 - 287 which is where the ply joint is shown, that is 1225m. The problem is that a standard piece of plywood is 48 inchs wide which equals 1219mm. There is the missing 6mm. So the bottom section needs to take up the slack.

Lower Hull Sides almost ready -- 106 Hours

All 30 clamps I bought from Harbor Freight and a few extra C-clamps were used attaching the stringer along the upper edge of the lower hull sides. Getting that 27ft length aligned with the hull edge was a little tricky. I finally settled on using small nails to first tack the stringer in place then used the clamps to apply even pressure along the length. After two days of cure the nails are easily removed leaving on small holes to later fill.

Scott Williams on his Tiki 26 uses drywall screws for this type thing but I found they tend to push the two pieces apart before joining. The screws need to be screwed down to pull the pieces together but that seems like too much pressure. The small nails work good for me, your mileage may vary.

My next task is up in the air. The build plans show stitching the hull sides to the backbone, stem and stern post then on the next page show installing the bulkheads. I think I’ll build the bulkheads first so I don’t have the stitched hull taking up space.

First Scarfs - 98 Hours

Inside that mass of clamps are the joined scarfs of two 16 ft and two 12 ft long 20mmx45mm stringers for the lower hull sides. I guess it might be a little overkill, but no worries if it works and the great news is that these stringers are the last pieces needed to get me off page one of the build manual!!!

This was also the first use of the newest tool to enter my collection,
a Ryobi AP1301 Planner, cheapest one I could find at Home Depot:). I rough cut using the table saw then send the stringers through the planer to get the exact dimensions. Then I used the Ryobi Hand Planer I picked up a few weeks ago to make the scarfs.