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Showing results for tags 'The Big Orange Boat'.
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My son saw me building my brothers coaming and decided he would like to have a boat also. Looking around I saw the FreeB12 and thought it would be just the right size for a 12 year old to start in. The first coaming I made cleaned up at 1 3/16" high due to my "first time" problems. It should work fine on a smaller boat. I've started another for my brother that will clean up at the full 1 1/2" height. The coamings are of 5 layers of 3/32" ash and a 5 layer lip on the top. I was amazed at how strong the finished product is. I did a much better job on the second coaming, having had some practice. I drew the plans from the coordinates on my cadd program and had them plotted at a friends architectural office. Glued them on the ply and started cutting. I tried sanding the paper off and boy what a mess. The heat gun will peal the paper right up and with a scrubbing with mineral spirits, the glue residue came right off. Much easier to sand. The strong back is built and ready. I used 2 2x6x16 screwed together in a "T" and built sawhorse style legs for support. The shelf is the piece of ash for the coamings. Multitasking material! The brackets are leveled and aligned to a string. Tomorrow I plan to sand the frames and cut out the stringers. Hopefully, Sunday afternoon I can start mounting to the strongback. Jordan is a big UT fan and decided his boat must be orange. So off to Lowe's we go for Rustoleum. You would think in Knoxville orange would be a staple color. Nope! But if you take two quarts of Safety Yellow and slowly add Safety Red, presto, UT Orange! Needless to say, It feels great to see your boys eyes light up. I can't decide what boat to build for myself. I like the look of Jeff's Shad. Maybe it will be ready by the time Jordan's and Scott's are finished. If anyone is on the fence about starting one of Jeff's boats, I say go for it. I haven't enjoyed a project this much in a long time.