John Teetsel

AquaSignal has some very nice equipment. http://www.aquasignal.de/aquaeng/shipping/lightonboardnavi2.html

Couple of questions Mike. How many pieces will be used to make the mast? Are you going 8 stave birdsmouth or just a couple of pieces glued together? Coating w/ CPES isn't necessary. In fact it may impair the adhesion of the glue unless you go with epoxy for the glue up. Regardless, I'd skip it. Epoxy vs PL is your call. I haven't used PL but I've seen it after application and it looks messy which means it's good for a "loose" joint. I'm an epoxy guy, but that's just my preference. On the stagger business, you want to make sure the weak spots (joints) are not adjacent to each other. This is a ROUGH idea of what you're aiming for. No joints in line. __________________________________________________ ________________________|_________________________ _______|______________________________|___________ _______________|_____________________________|____ ______________________________|___________________ Hope that helps.

Bruce, have a look at this, a two sheet skiff called "Summer Breeze". It won the Duckworth's contest in 2001, though I can't find anything about it there. It's a nifty use of materials. The designer built it, including sails, in less than two weeks. TWO WEEKS! You can do it. My daughter, one of her friends and I are going to build a pair of them when I visit her this summer in Ft Lauderdale.

Rockler calls them "gallery spindles", about $5 for a package of eight. http://www.rockler.com/findit.cfm?page=1349

If you want to have a sharp chine, glass the bottom as usual then slather some thickened epoxy on the edge and sand it back down to a sharp edge.

tdrown On my first boat I considered using plastic ties but had some 14 gauge copper so that's what I used. To remove it, I clipped one side of the stitch close to the wood then heated the long end with a small propane torch to melt the epoxy and pulled the stitch out with linesman's pliers. Quite easy when using heat (a soldering gun would work too), and all but impossible without it. When the stitches are out, go back and fill the small holes with some thickened epoxy (pancakes again) pushed through a small syringe. Once I got into the project, I realized that ties wouldn't be strong enough to do any heavy bending unless they were a pretty large size. Then the large holes would allow even thickened epoxy to leak out requiring lots of cleanup and/or sanding. The advantage is you save the pulling and filling steps but a some cost. It's always a trade off. Lefty Tape on both sides of the joints, glass cloth goes only on the outside. The real function of the glass cloth is to prevent checking of fir plywood and provide some abrasion protection. I

Hehe. One thing I've always admired about you is your ability to multitask. Build, click and write. Build, click and write. Sail, click and write. Sail, click and write. How many cameras and keyboards did you gunk up with epoxy and saw dust? Your site is an absolute chronicle of building and sailing and prose. Very impressive. Thanks for all that effort. It really is inspirational. I'm sorta the "one thing at a time" kinda guy, but I'll see what I can scare up.

Phil

I'm building my Weekender S&G style. It's coming along just fine. I chose S&G because it gives a cleaner look in the cabin. I did the transom and lazarette with stringers because stringers are easier to work with when you're doing that heavy duty bending and they don't show in those areas. The technique has it's advantages and challenges, but it's very viable for any of these boats. I'd suggest you get a copy of Sam Devlin's book, "How to Build Any Boat the Stitch-and-Glue Way". As you read it, keep in mind, Devlin builds his boats as ocean cruisers. I'm skipping a layer of tape on some joints as I don't plan on rounding the Horn in this boat. The book is available through our generous sponsor for a paltry $16.07. http://www.messing-about.com/cgi-bin/amazon_books.pl?input_item=0071579907&input_search_type=AsinSearch Regarding the chine and extra headroom - many of us have just extended the mast by a foot or so and added 6"- 8" to the cabin sides. The additional chine seem like a lot of extra work, IMHO. And do spend some time at Phil's site. It's a source of many ideas and a real inspiration. Thanks Phil.

Dave, if I may impose, could you send me a copy of the clamp plans too. BTW, does the dog know you've posted that picture on the net? If that old sweetie turns on you, you'll know what happened. Thanks. Added - How do you get the aerial shots in the shop?

How about a small automatic electric bilge pump mounted in the companionway box and pumped out the transom? Just drill a couple of holes into the box to let the water in and put a false floor a few inches above the hull bottom so you can still use the box. More complicated but if you ever swamped, a little 500 gph pump gets you dry pretty quickly. I got a nice little Rule on sale at West for about $25.

Not a good idea, IMHO. The only time I've heard of spraying epoxy, it was done with a little spray bottle to get to an area that was too small to get at with a brush. I don't think it's a good idea to spray it on fiberglass. It would have to be severely thinned, making it runny, very difficult to wet out the glass properly and, worst of all, weakening it chemically. Have you read the West System manual? I think you'll find it time well spent. http://www.westsystem.com/webpages/userinfo/manual/

Isn't that some extreeeem make over Frank had done?? Wow!! I'd always thought, "Well, I'll just try to grow old gracefully. Suck up the belly and a little vaseline on the wrinkles now and then, and I'll be ok." But after seeing the NEW Frank... I'm thinking," Hmmm, maybe a something a little Redford-ish might be nice." :wink:

I decided to try ratcheting tie downs to lift the boat and flip her by myself. I knew the tricky part would be letting her back down because I'd have to release the ratchet with one hand and support the boat with the other. Before I went any further, I tried lifting first the stem then the stern with one hand. I'm no 98 lb weakling but I'm no muscleman either so I was surprised how manageable it was. You're only lifting part of the boat's total weight, so it's really quite easy. I hooked one tie down to the lower rudder eyebolt and the other to a looong eyebolt through the stem that I'll use as a bow eye. Leave the bolts loose enough to rotate as the boat rolls over. To keep things really simple, I attached the upper ends of the tie downs to the brackets that hold the garage door guide rails. In my case, each bracket has two long lag bolts holding it into 2x6 rafters and since the boat weighs less than the double garage door, I was confident the weight wouldn't be a problem, but I was cautious none the less. With the door closed, (no weight on the rails) I hoisted the boat an inch or so off the dolly and then slowly added my weight to the rig by holding the overhead rail and lifting my feet off the ground. If anything was going to fail, I wanted it to be now. Everything was good and solid, so I hoisted the boat to clear the dolly, held my breath as I moved the dolly from under the boat, and rolled her over. She was so well balanced, I rolled her with one hand. I padded the dolly with carpeting foam, moved it back in place and lowered the stem back down easy as could be. I added some supports to the back of the dolly so the boat would be supported under the keel and eased her back in place. Start to finish, an hour and thirty five minutes. It was amazingly easy.