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Building a Two-Paw 8 in Baltimore


Crazer

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With everyone sheltering in place, it seemed like a good time to get some uninterrupted work done on a new tender for my beloved Cape Dory 28. I chose the design because when it's nested, it will fit between my dodger and the boom vang on the cabin top, avoiding the need to awkwardly tow the boat or store it on the foredeck. Since I intend to take the boat to Bermuda and across the Atlantic this was important to me. This will be my first boat build since I was a teenager and I've found a lot of inspiration and ideas in the other Catspaw builds documented on the forum. I've spent a lot of time working on boats, first doing systems (which I loved but found I was not suited for professionally) and then marine canvas (which I was) so I'm pretty good at planning projects and working with tools. That said I've never had anything but ten thumbs when it comes to woodworking so this will be a major learning experience for me.

 

I've started out lofting the hull sides and bulkheads, trying to be thoughtful about the use of materials. I'm currently waiting on additional lumber, Chesapeake Light Craft is supposed to be quoting me on lumber for the gunwales and framing but I haven't heard back from them yet so I'm just puttering along in the meantime. Not much to show yet, especially in my dimly lit basement but I'll share some photos once she starts to take shape.

 

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy out there.

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I completed my Two Paw 8 last year.  It is a great little boat.  
 

May I suggest that rather than buying your dimensional lumber from CLC, that you get it from Lowes or Home Depot?  Chick and I are starting to use Poplar for this.  Most others are using clear Pine.  You’ll save a bundle over what CLC is going to charge you.  

 

Whatever you end up doing, good luck!  We’re here to shell out lots of advice.  Just remember that free advice is worth every cent you paid for it.  LOL

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Not to just be contrary to Don, but I never go to Home Despot or Lowes unless I absolutely have to.  They are destroying the full service lumber yards. I will find out soon enough what buying lumber in the south is like, but there has to be a better way.

 

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Welcome to the forum and I hope that it will be a pleasant experience.

 

There is not of solid wood in the boat but I consider the gunwales to be the most important. If you look at the fiberglass tenders with some age, besides being very heavy you will see that some have the gunwales rotting out under the fendering material. The fender is very important on a tender as we do not want it to tear up the mother ship. And it is not very polite to come along side someone else's boat without protection. 

 

The fender keeps the gunwales wet and it seems to be impossible to prevent moisture from penetrating around the fastenings.

 

I have had such good success using treated pine for gunwales that I will not use anything else. It is inexpensive and readily available. The trouble is that if you are building a nesting version you need a table saw to rip the lamination's. The rest of the solid wood is based on dimensional lumber that you can obtain from box stores as others have said. It is better than available hardwoods and lighter.

 

The only caveat is that it must be dry to get a good bond. It is often wet when it reaches the store. It is so readily available that I would go to another store until I find some dry wood. If you go to a wholesale lumber yard that supplies the building trade, they have different grades including very clear wood as you do not want knots. I would buy a 10' 2x4 and take it to someone with a table saw and have then rip 6 laminations, 5/16" thick. I would do this early in the build so that those thin laminations will dry even further. I would sneak them into the house and stack them so that they get some air flow and they will be perfect by the time that you are ready to install them.

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Thanks for the advice and information. Years of lurking on certain forums and reading certain magazines (coincidentally of the same name) has gone to my head and I'm fairly determined to use the finest materials I can afford. That said, we have a stack of very dry pressure treated 2x8s in our garage so if I can't get or can't afford hardwoods I'll go down that route. I do appreciate the egalitarian philosophy of using readily available materials. I am lucky enough to have recently acquired a fairly powerful Jet contractor's saw at a good price so I have the capability to rip my own lumber.  CLC has quoted me on some Cypress and while it's several times the cost of pressure treated pine I think I'll go for it provided I can get it here for a relatively reasonable cost. This is the only boat I'll be building for a while and I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it in the middle of this crisis. And it'll make me happy which counts for a lot I think.

 

New blades for my jigsaw arrived today and the weather is supposed to be unpleasant for a couple days starting tomorrow so I hope to start making sawdust soon.

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Thanks for the advice on lumber yards, Brad. I did make it to Exotic Lumber in Annapolis-that's where I got my plywood before this all started. I talked to them about lumber for the rest of the project as well but they seemed reluctant to ship and I'm trying to be a good citizen and avoid going out as much as possible. Plus, I really wanted cypress because I've liked working with it in the past and CLC, being a big advocate of cypress as a boat building wood, has it in stock.

 

Don, your boat is beautiful, as are the poplar gunwales and seat. Your build has been really helpful for me, clarifying some questions I had about the finished boat.

 

I started cutting parts this weekend, so far i have the hull panels and transoms cut and I'm laying out the nesting bulkheads, doublers, dagger board trunk and foils now. I'm eager to start stitching the boat together but I still have to do transom framing and assembling the nesting bulkheads. I've got quite a bit of momentum now that there are boat shaped parts lying around. I'm also going to go ahead and order the kit for the sail from Sailrite so I can get some sewing in. I miss my job! I do have one question about the construction of the boat. One the plans sheets shows three seats with the mast stepped through the forward seat. Some of the other drawings, and most of the completed boats I've seen, have a built in plywood tank instead. I think that's my preferred option, but I don't see any detailed information about it on the plans and it's mentioned only in passing in the instruction booklet. I think I can figure it out but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something.

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Hey Crazer, 

Thanks for sharing your build with us! I can answer your last question. The Two paw 8 design underwent a small face-lift at the end of last year. I think you got your plans just before this. In this face-lift we added the forward bulkhead and the rear triangular shaped "aft seat tanks" to the kit version of the Two Paw 8 in an effort to add some buoyancy to the kit boat. Then a few months after that we added these details to the plans. Not big changes mind you but that explains the difference you see in your plan sheets.

 

I can send you the updated plan sheets if you would like for the cost of printing and postage but I don't want you to worry that yours are "lesser". You can easily pattern a forward bulkhead at the aft edge of the forward seat which is what I would recommend doing anyway that is assuming you'd like to also have the forward compartment. You'll note that Don fashioned his own custom seat which is very hansom and not at all in the plans either. Custom mods are what it's all about with a home build. There are disadvantages of the extra stuff. mainly, extra weight! 

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I have some problems finding good wood in “da south “.  I find if you buy 2X12 you can rip them into useable sizes.  Keeping in my mind the 2X12 likely comes from larger trees and you can find some good stock either side of the center heart wood.  Also small sawmills are a great resource for wood,  I am willing to pay a premium, (still less expensive than big box stores) to chose the materials I need.  I have a local saw mill that the owner has gotten interested in my current project and helps with choice wood, so some networking is a good thing. 

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Well after a week with my jigsaw I've replaced my two sheets of plywood with a stack of vaguely boat shaped plywood parts. Thanks to Alan, I should have updated plans tomorrow and hopefully some lumber shortly thereafter. In the meantime, I'm ordering fasteners and hardware in abundance. I'll be getting some epoxy supplies on Saturday so I'll be gluing up the transoms and doublers shortly. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be going 3D, assuming the lumber gets here. I'm really bad about stopping to document the build (and I'm self conscious about my dungeon/workshop...) but I promise I'll have some photos soon!

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Still waiting on parts, but I've finished cutting out as many of the plywood components as I can right now.

 

IMG-3792.JPG.71dc20f86cefb3a45f7ef46ac320c7ac.JPG

 

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I have the sail kit from Sailrite on the way, along with most of the rigging hardware from Viadana and Duckworks and the lumber from CLC. Hopefully she'll start to look like a boat soon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My lumber has arrived, along with mast tubes, sail kit and boxes of screws and other hardware so I've finally begun to make real headway. Annoyingly, I'm still being slowed by an early decision to buy slow epoxy hardener, which is taking 48 hours to cure fully in our unseasonably cool basement. Oh well, I'm continuing on and I have a bottle of fast curing hardener on the way. I think the slow stuff will be great for fiberglass layup and probably even the final overall coats of epoxy but in the small quantities needed for gluing up parts it just takes way too long to set up enough to handle.

 

The boat went 3D today, a dry run with one of two nesting bulkheads and some zip ties before committing to the final thing but I think it went well and everything fit so I'll press on tomorrow with the bottom and gluing up some more sub-assemblies.

 

One question for the group. I made a mistake earlier, laying out the rudder the wrong way on the plywood so the grain runs horizontally instead of vertically. Not my finest moment. My question is, since I was planning on putting a layer of glass over it for abrasion resistance will that make up the difference in strength or is the grain direction so fundamental I should just recut it? It would be a no brainer except I'm squeezing to get all the parts out of the plywood I have on hand so I'm trying to avoid wastage as much as possible.

 

 

Dinghy-1.jpg

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Looks good from here. Personally i think the rudder will be fine with a layer of glass on it. You could rip it in half vertically and glue in a stick of wood which would add stiffness. Sort of like a spine. A solid wood rudder blade is stiffer since all the wood fibers run one direction of course unlike plywood but then again on this boat the loads on the rudder are miniscule. You are more likely to break it by accidentally stepping on it or backing the boat into something with the rudder up. 

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Thanks for the quick and definitive answer, Alan. That's where I was leaning but the reassurance is good.

 

It's also never too early to think about finishes, and tonight I was trying to parse the difference between one and two part finishes and the benefits of each. I've searched the forum and found some information but I'd love to hear some first hand recommendations and experiences from people who've had their boats for a while. I'm leaning towards a two-part because I expect to use my boat hard as a tender but it's a little intimidating and, of course, more expensive.

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I screwed one of the nesting bulkheads in and stitched the bottom on today, taking advantage of the nice weather we had here. I'm aware I did things a little out of order (not gluing the two bulkheads together before installing) but my ongoing issues with epoxy curing kept me from being able to install the forward nesting bulkhead at the moment. Over all, everything fit really well and I'm quite happy. I do have some wrestling to do at the bow to get everything to line up, but I think it'll work out fine. I also cut out the framing for the centerboard case so I can glue that up once my faster epoxy hardener arrives in a few days.

Dinghy-3.jpg

Dinghy-2.jpg

Dinghy-4.jpg

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