Birder 2 progress

[Jim Robinson]

I finally made some real progress on the Birder 2. Thanks for all the tips from Charlie and others. I was concerned that I had missed some critical dimensions as it looked nothing like a birder before today. However, after inserting the temporary spreader and bulkheads it shaped up nicely.

I did a a few things not mentioned in the plans but which I found helpful. First, the sides had to be pulled up to meet the temporary prop and also the bulkheads. I actually bolted the prop to the sides with a small crew. The hole is just below the inwales at the seem where the sides join. Its a small hole and that area will be fiberglass taped anyway. I used a single copper wire tie at the top of the bulkheads on each side to pull the sides up to them. I had to move them slightly from the plans to achieve both a good fit and a fair curve. The wires gave me very good control over the shape. The hull trued up very nicely.

Currently the interior filet and taping is done. The boat might actually see the water before it gets too cold.

Jim

[Charlie Jones]

Sounds great.

You are finding out something about building boats that they can't really TELL you. Graham can design a fair line, draw that line and tell you what the measurements should be, but he can't know what that piece of plywood you have is going to do. Or how that inwale is going to bend exactly. Or how thick the pencil line was you drew.

That's where the builders eye comes into play.

Once you've done every thing you can to be sure your panels are to the correct sizes and every thing else is as it should be, you have to check things over and be sure the hull has those "sweet" lines. Even if you have to shift things a tad one way or another. When things are where they are SUPPOSED to be, if those lines aren't smooth and fair, then you just HAVE to make the boat LOOK right, make the lines "flow".

Even building our two boats totally at the same time, there are slight differences between the two. You'd have to lay a tape on and check against the plans to SEE those differences, but the wood more or less has the final say. There's a lot of science involved- the plans and measurements, but there's also a lot of ART involved- the builders eye