First Step!!! Yay, I'm building a sailboat!

[tomstock]

The same saying echoed through my head all week... "The hardest part of anything is starting". So I did. I went to the lumber yard and came home with 5 1x12's in clear kimberly (absoloutley clear... very nice) and a 1x6 in the same. I first priced pine and was searching for good boards but found only 3 good boards in 14ft length, the rest had holes in them and cracks.... so after some thought I called up to the office and got the price for the clear kimberly and expected it to be $$$ but no, it was only 10 cents more per linear foot for the 1x12 and the same price for the 1x6!! Ok, so obviously I went with the clear kimberly.

I also picked up a 23ft tarp, a surform, and rip guide. This weekened I'll be cutting the keel and next weekend glueing it together (still have to order the DAP weldwood resin).

My only concern now is having to build outside. I dont have anything particulary flat to assembly the keel on (no hard garage floor, etc). Can I do this in the grass? If not I'll haul it out to the street and do it there.

-tom

[Jan Williamson]

Tom-I have been searching for 1x12 stock. clear vertical grain doug fir is 6.99/bf, which I calculate would be over 400 for the keel. Ouch!!!What is kimberly?What did it cost you per bd ft? I wonder if it is available on the west coast. I am considering have our local milling company resaw some 2x12 regualr DF stock , but that is considered "green", and I would come up short about 1/16 per board in width from kerf. I would think I could make this keel for less than 400 bucks. :? I have seen #2 pine, but it has some knots.

[tomstock]

Tom-I have been searching for 1x12 stock. clear vertical grain doug fir is 6.99/bf' date=' which I calculate would be over 400 for the keel. Ouch!!!What is kimberly?What did it cost you per bd ft? [/quote']

I *think* this is the kimberly I have:

"Kimberly Bay Pine

This wood is farm-raised in New Zealand, and is very different from North American varieties. The grain is much finer and much more subtle; when properly finished, it produces a quilted effect similar to that seen on quality guitar tops. Cabinets of this wood are slightly more conventional in appearance and sound than those of antique pine. Kimberly Bay pine's smooth grain lends itself to stain quite well; as such, it is our first choice for finishes that require artificial color."

The color is much lighter but not as light as white pine or something like that. Over here on the east coast it cost me around $2.89 per lineal foot (around $200 for the keel). I didnt see a single cracked or warped board in the pile (unlike the C&Btr yellow pine which was full of holes and cracks).

One more thing, when I went the the lumber yard, the first person that helped me had me looking through what he *THOUGHT* was yellow pine. After 10 minutes of my saying "this doesnt look C & better to me" another guy comes over and says "Thats not yellow pine. Thats Spruce! The good woods are upstairs!". Yeah I'd have been pretty upset since they already printed up an invoice.

-tom

[Dave R1]

Jan, I had a heck of a time trying to find lumber for my keel. Saying the words "one by twelve" in the local yards made the employees laugh and wander off looking for their coffee cup.

I finally got hooked up with a small mill that specializes in reclaimed lumber. He didn't have what I wanted in reclaimed but he was able to get hold of some wide yellow poplar that was absolutely clear. I gave him my cut list and he cut all to dimension. When I went to pick up the load, I found that the long 1x12s were better than 17' long and that he had bundled all the drops and rips and included those in the pile.

The rips yielded all my stringers plus some other stuff.

I made an error in my order and wrote down 4x4 for the bowsprit timber. I got a 4x4, not a 3-1/2 x 3-1/2 like I really should have had. He couldn't get 4" thick lumber so he laminated the 4x4. I am guessing it is stronger than it would have been as a single piece.

Total cost was about what I had calculated had I bought from a local yard with 2x12's for the keel. Had I done that, I'd have had to plane the 2x12s down and they wouldn't have been clear.

Another alternative would be to laminate by edge gluing narrow stock to get to the 11-1/2" dimension. Stagger all the joints and you'll have a nice strong keel. You could work it out so you have little waste to cut away and if you wanted, use bisquits to joining the edges.

[Jan Williamson]

dave- I thought about lamentating narrow stock. So you think that would be OK. I have a bisquit cutter too!! I didn't want to appear foolish by asking. I could just see my keel delaminating while out on the public lake.

:oops: The cost would be about half.

[Dave R1]

Jan,

If you use good gluing technique, it should work fine. I would use Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue instead of epoxy because you want good, tight joints and epoxy is the sort of adhesive that doesn't like a lot of clamping pressure.

You could rip a bunch of strips 2 -1/4" wide and as long as neccessary. Then stack them to build the keel. I don't think I'd do it that way, though. Instead I would work with, maybe 4" and 6" wide by 3/4" thick pieces and laminate individual layers, making sure that longitudinal joints will be staggered also. This will create a very strong keel and you can go ahead and assembled the layers as shown in the plans.

Probably the biggest challenges I can see with this type of construction other than the time required to glue up the three layers, are getting good joints between individual boards (use a jointer to make sure mating edges are straight and square) and keeping everything flat.

Obviously, if your edges aren't square to the faces, the glue-ups won't be flat. Don't rush the glue up if you go that way and make sure you can work on a truly flat surface. Prep all your lumber carefully and you should have no trouble at all.

[tdrown]

"The hardest part of anything is starting"

How true. You don't want any curves amd warps in the keel so find someway to keep it flat as posible. Mine was off at dead abeam buy an inch or so, I don't know how that happened, I kept it flat. Sounds like you are ready to do some serious building. Do you have a launch day goal?

[Frank Hagan]

Tom-I have been searching for 1x12 stock. clear vertical grain doug fir is 6.99/bf' date=' which I calculate would be over 400 for the keel. Ouch!!!What is kimberly?What did it cost you per bd ft? I wonder if it is available on the west coast. I am considering have our local milling company resaw some 2x12 regualr DF stock , but that is considered "green", and I would come up short about 1/16 per board in width from kerf. I would think I could make this keel for less than 400 bucks. :? I have seen #2 pine, but it has some knots.[/quote']

I had 2 x 12 douglas fir construction grade lumber resawn, and it works. There are three problems with it.

1) The lumber is green, so you have to do your layup right away. Otherwise, you could get warp and twist happening. Once the three layers making the keel are glued and screwed together, they don't want to warp!

2) Resawing is done in a giant bandsaw, and the resulting 1 x 12s (well almost) come out slightly thicker at one end than the other, or from top to bottom. And, the rough cut of the band saw makes the surfaces "furry" looking. It takes some work later to smooth things out.

But it is CHEAP. I made my keel and stringers from three 2 x 12 x 14 for $89 in 1999.

3) Green wood shrinks as it dries. It shrinks more in width than in length, so at the stem, where the width of the stem meets the "length" of the keel, you get a prominent line showing after the wood shrinks. Not a disaster, but if I was building a coffee-table quality boat with a high yacht finish, I would have been disappointed. But I'm a cheap, work-boat type of guy!

My page on making my keel is at http://users2.ev1.net/~fshagan/keel.htm. Others have used 2x12s and had them planed down to the 1 x 12 dimension. That would be a better way to go if you were looking for a better finish/less work, and would still be fairly cheap.

[Tom Holder]

Jan,

Some folks have made the keel from ply and had success with it. I'm wavering myself on which way to go - certainly there would be no warpage and any delamination would not be as severe. It might not look as nice but if you are planning on painting it anyway . . .

[capt jake]

Jan, keep looking! There is some pretty decent looking Hem-Fir out there. The prices aren't nearly as high as VG DF. Hem-Fir will work out fine.

I don't know why DF is so blazin' high out here, as this is where most of it comes from. :?

[High C]

IF you have a planer, how about using 2x12s, laminating 2 together. Plane each of the 4 surfaces about 3/16". This will gve yoy the same 2 1/4" total thickness, and give you good, flat mating surfaces for glueing.

The issue of getting the faces of the boards to meet one another nice and flat is important. I suspect most delaminating problems are caused by cupped boards that have voids where they mate up.

[Frank Hagan]

The three plies are pretty integral to how the stem attaches to the keel assembly, so some thought has to be given to that. I suppose a simple lap at the front (with two laminations) might work as well as the three laminations, but it would take some thought before guing up the keel.

[High C]

True Frank, and you would lose the advantage of the overlapped seams that you get with three plies. That joint would be less strong with two plies.

Thanks for your help on the mast boot, still pondering my navel on the one.