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Okay, sounds like I should leave it octagonal. I may go ahead and round it every where but the bits. Charlie, yours looks great. . Bill, most of the ridge beam on a GP medium is done up in short sections with metal sleaves. I think the longest part is about 6' +/-. Got some of them also. Chad

Its a solid piece of clear Doug Fir. It was a tent pole for an US Army GP Medium tent. I would think if it was going to warp it would have by now. The only issue that I see with it being rounded is having to make the partner (?) where it ties to the deck match the profile of the bowsprit. Chad

The plans for a the bowsprit on the weekender call for it to be 2-1/2" square. Now If got an octagonally shaped piece of clear Doug Fir that is 2-1/2". I was thinking about rounding this off for the bowsprit. Can anyone tell me why this wouldn't work. Chad

Here is what I planning on doing with my rub rails. The lower rail will be laminated straight to the side of the boat. On the upper rail I will put blocks about every 12" or so, and than screw the upper rub rail to these blocks. This has a two fold purpose. First is will make replacing the upper rub rail easy, just unscrew it and screw a new one in place. Second it allow you to be able to secure a line at any point along the hull. Chad

Hello Mike Donlin. I'm glad that things are getting back to normal for you and your son. We were honored to have your boys come join our unit. Tell him thanks from me. Chad

Making a new bulkhead would be the ideal thing, but I don't want to remove what I already have in place. I have thought about adding piece on the side to cover this area. I need to add seat supports anyway so maybe I can fabricate something to support the seats and cover the hole. Whathca think? Chad

After cutting and putting in the forward bulkhead I have decieded that I don't want the box seats as shown on the plans. I want to do an open slat seat design. I have noticed though that the forward bulkhead is cut to allow access underneath the seats from inside the cabin. Using an open seat design will leave a hole underneath the seat in the forward bulkhead between the cockpit and and the cabin. What is the best way to handle this? Chad

Oopps I feel like an idot. If I had only looked at the next page I would've seen that the plans call for an access hatch in the lazerete. Chad

I like the idea of an access hatch in the lazzarret. I think that I will add this to mine. Chad

I've had it out on the water once this, but alas there was not that much wind. I plan on heading out today for a meeting of the SouthEast Boat Builders & Beer Drinkers and hopefully will get some more sailing in. Last night I finished the patch and all that is required now is to re-paint and get it on the water and make sure nothing else is broke. As far as the Lug rig, I love it. It is 10 times better than the sprit rig. Chad

I just wanted to post some photos here of my SH14 that I built a couple of years ago. She is slightly modied to include Doug Fir seats instead of plywood, front breasthook built far enough back to carry mast as designed, and altered for lug rig. But the purpose of this post is the toughness of the boat. We had a pretty good storm roll through and downed a 30" oak tree in my neighbors yard which fell on my boat. Now granted I didn't get the 30" part but about the 12" part. It bent my trailer and destroyed my fence and here is the photos of the damage to the boat. As you can see the rub rail got seperated in place and some of the plywood crunced, but that appears to be the extent of the damage. I've already started the repair process by re-laminating the rub rail and using thickned epoxy to build the plywood back up. Chad Since these photos I have re-laminated the rub rail and patched the plywood with thickned epoxy. I now have a glob of goop that needs to sanded and painted.

Not a problem Frank. You're doing an outstanding job with this site. I'll try to re-post it. Chad

Hey Frank what happened to my post about the tree falling on my boat? Did it get lost in the shuffle? Chad

I had a templete that I got from Mike Field and I used the copy machine to scale it up and down to get the size I needed. As far as tools I used a drill to bore out the round parts and than rough cut it on the band saw. After that I used a cheap Stanley rasp to form it up. I then used a dremall moto tool with a sanding drum to do some of the final shaping and than cleaned it up with some sandpaper. From start to finish it takes about an hour to make one. A good way to spend a rainy afternoon. Chad

Yes it is mahogany. When putting the epoxy to it it turned a reddish brown. The photo here does not show the redness as much and this is un-varnished. I don't have any photos of a varnished one. Chad

http://a0.cpimg.com/image/B2/89/12908210-6ba1-02000155-.jpg' alt='12908210-6ba1-02000155-.jpg'> Chad

Mike I got your e-mail last night. Sorry I didn't reply. Those big e-mails take a while to download at the house. You doing alright? Are you going to make it to the Southeast Beer Drinkers and BoatBuilders get together? Yes Frank has a nice site. I was one of his early members back in his MSN days and this is the first chance I've had to really come back and visit. Even had to re-registar for this new site, but I like it. Chad

Hey Mike this is Chad Smith. Sorry I didn't get to see you when you came to Ft. Campbell to visit your son. I wanted to ask if he made it home okay. How did he like being in the 1/181st? We sure did appreciate your boys coming down and filling in the empty spots. Chad