Posts

Image
 Seats and Plastic Parts The seats are built! All of these seats (benches, really) are removable to reduce weight when moving the boat around on land.     There will be a small floor in the cavity in front of the tank so the bow seat will have almost normal height leg room. I expect this seat to be the most comfortable of all. It is also high enough so our little dogs can put their back feet on the seat and front feet on the breast hook so they can see out. I'm leaning now towards covering the main floor with a grey low pile outdoor carpet rather than wood. Carpet is WAY cheaper, lighter weight, more comfy on bare feet, and less slippy. Turns out there is a whole industry for bass boat carpeting so there is a lot to choose from. Who knew. There will be 2 additional wicker folding seats that are free standing that can go anywhere on the front floor. Like this maybe? Made by me, or purchased? I have been making plastic parts for the helm station and other stuff. Here is the...
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
 Ballast Tank, Ballast Pump, Bilge Pump, and Rear Seat Lot's of progress!   The ballast tank is closed in. The floor is 3/8" AC plywood. The dark hole above the charcuterie table post is access to the tank. The hatch that goes over that hole is gluing up in the upper left. The front edge of the rear hatch is unsupported so I added a small oak board (eventually two boards) under it. That's what all those clamps are for. The rear floors are also installed. I cut the slot for the ballast tank fill/drain port in the wrong place in the rear hatch and had to fill in the goof. The end result is probably a better fit than if I had cut it correctly in the first place, and the grain in the plywood patch miraculously matches almost perfectly! Here's what it looks like with the rear hatch removed. The bilge pump and float switch are screwed to a piece of plywood that is set in an epoxy puddle. The grey hose at the top is the bilge drain hose. The blue valve and pipe below it are c...
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
 Outwales: Bending Wood the Hard Way A little review. The top most part of the hull, the part you would grab when pulling yourself from the water into a small boat is called the gunwale, pronounced "gunnel". On a wooden boat, it usually consists of an inwale and outwale. On my boat, the inwale was installed when the boat was upside down because it supported the final run of the strips used in the hull. Now that the boat is right side up (why is it "upside" down but not "upside" up?), the outwale can be installed. Because the inwale had to support the hull before there was any other structure, I wrapped it around the stern as one piece, then scarfed in second pieces on both sides to extend up to the bow. But the outwales were installed from stern to bow in one piece: 16' of 3/4" X 2" ash boards with their ends butted together on centerline at the stern. First the paint had to be sanded off the hull where the outwale would go. These two picture...
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
 Timbers? Ribs? Frames? First off, we had seven great days in France! TL;DR: There seems to be no consensus on what the things are called that run from the keelson (if there is one) athwartships (across the hull), curving along the inner hull and up to the inwales (the inside part of the gunnel). One very old source has no entry for Frames and says this about Timbers and Ribs: Timber. A general term for all large pieces of wood used in ship-building. Also, more particularly, long pieces of wood in a curved form, bending outward, and running from the keel up, on each side, forming the ribs of a vessel. "Ribs. A figurative term for a vessel's timbers." What?!? I choose to call them ribs for no particular reason. But I also call them sticks because that's what they are before they go into the hull. As usual with this project, there was a bit of trial and error and lots of how-to videos. Wood softens when heated up to a certain temperature. Fortunately that temperature f...
Post a Comment
Read more