sscoville

Wojtek: I cut the diameter of my wooden masts too narrow as well. I decided to do the following - I went ahead and finished my first attempt with all their imperfections. This will get me sailing. Later (although i may get lazy or more likely start a new project) I plan to build a second set of masts, hopefully bird's mouth fashion. Then I will have a back up set of spars.

Tom: where do you get Devoe?

That's great. It's been a helluva year for them. Tom, I thought you had more hair than that.

Did you put 6oz all over and then add the bias up to the chine, or bias up to the chine and 6oz on topsides only? Also, what is your "leveling cloth?"

That's great. It's the way I thought it was. Thank you for the pictures.

One of the things I'm trying to understand is the holes in the rudder blade.

It appears the rudder downhaul is routed through the top of the tiller, down the channel in the upper part of the rudder (for lack of a better term) then through the edge of the rudder itself, out through a whole from the side of the rudder connected to the whole through the edge. A figure eight knot is tied and then tucked back into the whole on the side. Is this correct?

I wasn't sure if the cap had to be removed to remove the centerboard.

Does the centerboard cap need to be removable?

I'm considering using shellac to seal my wooden masts before painting them. I was going to coat them in epoxy, but I have some shellac and it seems this may be a good alternative in this application.

http://brs-pelican.blogspot.com/ Bay River Skiff 17'

Great job! Clean, neat work. Much neater than mine. And I like the red. What kind of paint did you use?

Go here: http://www.epoxyworks.com/indexprojects.html and scroll down to the articles about the Sharpie. I'm pretty sure this is the one. It's an Egret.

Thanks Steven. Bob: It's cool to see small wooden boats being put to work. Sounds like fun work too.

Any idea which issue this was in? I've been trying to find it. Bob: do you use those scows for some kind of gainful employment?

I am very impressed with how fast y'all have made to this point. If you do the interior as originally designed, I think you're over half way finished. Did you loft full size? How much faster has it gone by having a partner to work with?

I was going to cap the bottom with a more rot resistant species of wood anyway. I think I'll just make the cap oversized and make an epoxy bearing on the mast where it bears on the top of the tube.

Correct.

I do have the tape. Maybe I will redo it. I would think that using tape would leave a spiraling ridge all the way down the inside and outside of the tube. On the inside this seems undesirable as this would scrape the mast every time it was stepped and unstepped (these are wooden masts), no? I'm going to need to order some more glass to sheath the bottom anyway, but I wanted to be finished with this step in the build.

The boat is a BRS 17. I have not installed the fore deck or the tube - I have only fabricated the tube. If I had the fiberglass on hand to do it over, I probably would. The fg bearings seem like a very easy fix. So the function of the tube is just to keep the forward compartment watertight?

Solution other than starting from scratch? Will my idea of fiberglass bearings on the mast at the base and top of the tube work? Or am I missing the function of the tube? I think I used too much plastic around the mast. It did not get stuck though! :-D

How much play should I have in my mast tube? I think I have about 3/8". Too much? I suppose this is easily remedied by building up the mast with some glass at the bottom and where it bears on the top of the tube.

On the left is a link to my blog for my build. I agree there are few pics on the BRS cd. You definitely ought to have a cordless drill. I have used my dad's table saw a few times during this project, but my favorite tool to borrow is his band saw. Maybe you know someone with these big tools you can borrow. And if I was looking at buying a table saw that costs the same as a quality band saw, I would go with the band saw. You'll need clamps and sanders too. I think you could build the entire project with only a circular saw - get a rip guide attachment, cordless drill, block plane, and power sander. Maybe a coping hand saw too. I also bought a makita sander/polisher off of ebay when I started my first boat. I use this fairly often with a 36 grit disk.

I think Graham quoted me about $600 total for both BRS 17 sails. I hope that's not each. I obviously have not reached that point in construction yet. If you don't get a clear answer here, I'm sure you can get the materials lists from Graham. Another thing, being that it's your first boat, I'd say you'll use at least twice as much epoxy and general supplies as necessary - unless you've worked with fiberglass and epoxy before. I could of probably reduced a lot of waste on my first boat if I had someone experienced show me how to fillet and glass my first joint.

I'm building a BRS 17' and it's a lot of boat. I would consider the 15' if I was to do it over. I have never sailed either, except once on a Sunfish this summer. I built a 12' rowing skiff before I started this one. No question you could build either one and have fun doing it. The sails are a very significant cost - make sure to factor that.