Abyssdncr

Getting closer!

Ok, fabric starts in the morning! I contoured some spare stringer stock to reinforce things for the foot braces and glued it in place against the stringers. Seems stout enough. A couple shots of some mistakes, oops, and inconsistencies too. The bow didn't fit right with the deck and keel stringers and I made some shims to fill the gaps and lashed them in place. You can see the gaps on the mid frames from where I had to adjust the angle of the gunwales. And in an effort to recess the lashings, I file notches in the gunwales, but not for the stringers. The front frame also got a little thin at the top after I sanded it down after adjusting the gunwales. It's all character, right? Coaming still has a ways to go, but it might get wrapped up tomorrow since I have all morning to myself. Coleman seat looks like it will work wonderfully. Going to try the double corded stitch, we'll see how things go...

I think I'm gonna have to reconsider my position. After ripping $20 worth of oak into more sawdust than ripped boards, it's not looking good at all...

Foot braces showed up today.

The Attwoods have three mounting lugs, so I think I'll use all 3 of them with a shim in the middle so it doesn't flatten out the natural bow on the stringer. Coleman seat showed up today and it looks like it will work wonderfully. Foot braces arrive Wed. The girls are doing a great job of applying the Formby's tung oil / wiping varnish / whatever it is every night while I work on the coaming form. Hope to get that finished tomorrow evening and see it my first attempt will take the curve. At this rate, I should be sewing by the weekend!

The vertical posts don't mesh well with the FreeB frame unless I wanted to attach via screws with some artfully notched posts. Is there any good reason not to just screw the straight to the stringer?

Maybe this is in the book & I just haven't read that far yet, but any recommendation on the mix ratio for thinning the first coat? Thanks!

Good idea, Rich! I'll look at that tonight. That'll save even more space internally. I also like your little footrest fabric area!

Got the seat slats lashed in today and cut some foot brace mounts from leftover stringer stock. Picked up some tung oil and Rustoleum at Lowes today and started baptizing the wood with the tung. I ordered some 15" Attwood footrests like the CLC kayak came with. Not particularly fancy, but definitely cheap enough and I won't be adjusting them very often, so the Sea-Lects at almost twice the price seemed like overkill. This brings me to several questions: The space for your feet is somewhat limited, so has anyone attempted to mount the foot brace attach wood on the outside of the frames like a stringer, but just recessed inside where the covering will sit? That would save a lot of interior room, but would require cutting notches on an already assembled frame. Pretty sure I can drill the notch corners and make some clean cuts with the Japanese saws, but it's still a little stressful just thinking about it. Second, I bought Jeff's cheap 6 oz poly. Do I just running / whip stitch it, or try the double corded stitch? I also opted to try a Coleman stadium seat for this boat - anyone have a report pro or con on this idea? At $13, it seemed like a very cost effective alternate to a $28 backrest + ? for a "kayak" seat. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003399114 Lastly, on the double corded stitch, how does one anchor the cords when starting the stitch? Thanks!

Frame lashed and ready for seat slats.

Got things adjusted and fit. Should be able to get it lashed up tomorrow.

Well, damn... Now I'm getting an appeciation for all the "work" that must go in to designing one of these. Went to dry fit the gunwales with zip ties tonight and both tips want to touch about four inches above the bow and stern tips. Guess it's time to check and adjust the angles of the frame notches a bit...

Might be a little out of order on the construction, but making progress:

Started putting the strongback together today. Got the keel stringer set in place and started fitting some frames to the stringers and doing a little mockup. Starting to get exciting!

No progress tonight, but got a smidge of progress in last night. The daughter that "promised" she'd help finally showed up in the shop. Got her running a couple frames through the router and cleaning up the cuts with some 60 grit. 3 more frames and 2 more coaming pieces to go before we can put the jigsaw away.

Poorly worded... I'll gladly do it again. We're in a pseudo-foster situation right now, and the poor kid has just been completely raised on electronic entertainment so far. Doing my darnedest to engage him in some real world activities, but it's definitely a struggle... Plus 8 yr. old arms tire of sanding quite quickly, lol. Hoping he's still around to actually harvest the fruits of his labors in the warmer months, regardless of how small they might be. So far he's been the biggest contributor to the cause, but my youngest is certainly vying for some daddy time herself. Good times!

So, genius me orders a mag switch feather board for a saw with an aluminum table...

Finally picked up my 4'x8' special order from Menards yesterday. Also got a sweet piece of cedar for the tadpole! Got the bow and stern cut last night and the frames cut today. Wasted a bit of time trying to entertain the boy without getting either one of us in too much trouble. I don't think he was to terribly entertained, but we both still have ten fingers and ten toes. Borrowed a basic router to help clean things up a little. Still some sanding yet to do, but many back and knees have had enough for today. Obligatory progress pic:

Not to play devil's advocate, but if we trust this type of joint because cured joint is stronger than the natural wood, why would the cross grain cut make the stringer any weaker post-cure?

Mag switch feather board shows up Saturday courtesy of Amazon.

Well, another hiccup today. While researching various plywood recommendations, I found out that the sheet of plywood I got from Home Depot, while very pretty, is made from CA approved eco friendly hippie glue and delaminates quickly in wet conditions... Special order Baltic on order from Menards. On the bright side, that should cover both the Tadpole and the FreeB. I am getting all the stringers cleaned up in the mean time. Probably need to shave down the gunwales a smidge more as they're still 13/16" wide and quite stiff by comparison to the other stringers. I plan to use the stiffer stock cut from the rough cedar board for the keel and the $7 Home Depot offerings for the chine stringers and deck ridge. The 2x6 yielded the gunwales in 13' lengths once the knots were all sawn around with the scarfs in symmetric locations. I did my scarfs at 8 degrees with a quickie jig on my chop saw. Perhaps not quite as shallow of an angle as what I've seen recommended, but it certainly was easy and appears to have done the job quite nicely. I really hope Menards moves faster than the USPS though, because my order from Jeff that was supposed to show up yesterday still didn't show up today... . With Monday being a freebie from work, I was really hoping to have some progress before the weekend was up. However, the Hatch for the Wood Duck did show up, so at least I can get that one moving forward again.

That sure is looking purty! For a sanity check, because all these pics can start to make things appear what you think they ought to be and not necessarily what they actually are, are all your frames 1/2" ply? What size of gunwales are you using?

Wow, a feather board...that would have been useful yesterday.... Dang USPS dropped then ball on both my deliveries today, but it did give me the opportunity to focus on scarfing tonight. All the longerons are acarfed together now, but there's stil a lot od sanding and planing left to do to square everything up. I didn't fully appreciate all that I didn't know until starting this, but I suppose that's part of the process, right? Got the frames all drawn tonight, and had a kiddo start the bow and stern loft drafts tonight, Hopefully I'll have something lashed soon!

Got the stringer stock ripped tonight. Sadly, my table saw-fu isn't impressive, but I ought to be able to get them cleaned up alright. Pretty sure I understand the purpose of a power planer now though... Need to figure out the scarfing business now. Is it better to scarf in the middle, toward an end, or does it even matter? Tadpole plans & materials and the SEA-LECT hatch cover for the Wood Duck show up tomorrow, so happy days!

Thanks Rich, I see where I misinterpreted the plans calling for the frames ti be a minimum of 1" thick. Those $7 2x2s are what I got 4 of...ouch. I don't know why, but I didn't even think about Menards. I'll try to take a peek in there over lunch.