Ive started to finish

The last few weeks have found me rushing around to get the boat weather tight, and starting to organize my thoughts on  how best to manage the build to the finish. Like most things on this project, a lot of work needs to be done in a certain order before progress becomes visible.

With winter sneaking up on us, I had to get the barn put back together. The  mornings are getting colder and with the heavy dew making its way in to the barn, some of my tools are showing signs of rust. It took me a weekend to frame the opening back in, find the correct insulation, and trim the door opening to be ready for the crew who were re installing the door. I have to be able to fabricate much of the wood work for the interior in the barn, so having it weather tight and able to be heated is a big deal to keep the boat build moving. As I write this post, the barn is now back together, and while its still a mess, it sure feels good to have all the space back.

The dry exhaust stack for the engine room is one of those deals that not much else can be started  until this part is finished. Getting this finished turned out to be a bit of a pain as some poor measuring on my part  had me doing a few  things over. I framed access panels  on both the port and starboard side of the stack. The port side panel is larger as to allow me to install the exhaust pipe through the panel. I also had to configure the panel opening to work around the microwave cabinet so I dont have to remove the cabinet to replace the exhaust pipe.

The  exhaust stack was the last big welding job I  have to do inside the boat, and it feels good to be able to take the big generator out of the back of my truck and leave it in the shop.

Now that the foam is all finished, I wanted to get the ceiling in the master cabin, and get that room pretty much wrapped up. The ceiling is 3 1/4" pine bead board painted an off white. To make things easy on myself, I primed and painted one coat of top coat paint on the boards to prevent bare wood from showing once things start moving around. The ceiling  job was pretty straight forward, and the only tricky part was building the removable access panel on either side of the center beam. The access panel is for throttle and engine controls, hydraulic lines for the anchor winch, hydraulic lines for the steering system, and some conduit. The center beam is about 3/8" lower than the ceiling, and instead of wrapping it in bead board, I decided to wrap it in Cherry. I needed a board over 10 long, and instead of joining two together to get the length, I found a long one on the bottom of my now air dried stack of lumber. The longest boards I have also  happen to be the widest boards. As you can see from this picture, this particular board is over 19" wide and dried pretty darn straight. After I finish milling the faux beam, Ill install it in a day or so, and the master cabin will have a finished ceiling in it.After the master cabin ceiling is finished, another day of work should have the guest cabin dressing room ceiling completed which will also mean all the ceilings below will be finished.

Another small detail I needed to get squared away was building a proper set of steps to get in to the boat. Ive been using a ladder, and given the amount of trips and quantity of material I have to get on the boat, the ladder was the old accident waiting to happen. I  also have a lot of people who like to stop by, and any thing I can do to prevent them or me from getting hurt helps everyone in the long run. I also want to do right by the boat yard, and keep my operation in such a way as to minimize any exposure.

The tooling I need to finish the job is also getting to the point where Im comfortable. I wish I would have built all the engine room cabinets before we move her, as it would be nice to be able to start organizing the floating shop. Once in a while I do find myself borrowing a tool off of my truck, but for the most part the boat is now tooled up.

Boat building and schedules dont seem to get along in Conallville, but I"m going to take another stab at it. My plan is to have the bulk of the wood work finished by sometime in January. Once the wood work is finished and coated with urethane, I can focus on getting the needed systems up and running for our May/June launch. Without going into a bunch of detail, the systems Im talking about are AC/DC electric, hydraulic, and engine controls.

Cheers

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I started the super structure interior

Because I am swamped with paying work, Ive taken a few days off of the build. Hurricane Sandy has changed that, and caused  major slow down in my work, so Im back to the important things in life... the boat build. I have to say that while we are four or five hundred miles from Sandy, we had 25 mile per hour winds sustained last night while  she came ashore.

To begin the interior, bolting lumber to the metal frames is the first order of work. To make it seem like I was getting something done, the first attachment I made was to bolt lumber to the ceiling frames. Because of the camber of the ceiling frames and not wanting to piece things together, I had to use a 2x6 for the ceilings. It seems like a lot of waste, but all the off fall was ripped again for the side wall frames.

The barn is about as full as it can get and the only place to set up my table saw is under the roof of the aft deck. I had to position the saw so I can make long rips through the door of the salon.

The basic method of getting the ceiling beams done was to clamp the 2x6 to each end of the frame. I then used a scribe set for the gap between the 2x6 and the frame at the center of the frame and scribed the top ( roof  ) side of the cut. Because the frames are so long, and the curve not that radical, I was able to use a circular saw to cut shy of the line. The cut put the saw in a bit of a bind, but it was not too hatefull, and thats what tools are for. Once the roof side was cut to shape, I re clamped the board to the frame, set the scribe for 5/16", and scribed the interior side of the cut. Once again, I used the circular saw ( vs the band saw ) and made the cut. All the boards are being held proud of the steel frame about 5/16" so foam remains on the frame flange after the foam is trimmed. With the board now cut to fit, I applied a bead of polyurethane adhesive and re clamped the board. I then use my right angle air drill, and drill through the existing holes in the steel frames. Next I use a hammer to drive the 1/4"x2" carriage bolts home, followed by a flat washer and a nylock nut, then tighten all the bolts using a 3/8" air ratchet

Gluing the lumber to the frames in addition to bolting might seem like over kill, but bolts have a funny way of working loose in lumber, and since the adhesive is not that expensive, I think it to be good insurance to prevent a squeak.

As I type this post on this rainy Tuesday, I have all the ceiling beams finished in the wheel house, salon, and aft deck. I also have the wheel house walls and windows complete, and am getting ready to start on the salon. Another full day, and I should be finished bolting all the lumber in place.

I have an insulator  showing up in the morning to give me a price on foaming the interior. Im going to foam the interior down to within a couple of inches of the weld zones.

While I still have the boat in the shop, Im going to also install the Cherry plywood at the window opening so I dont have to deal with that at the cold boat yard. Im  using a clamp ring for the window installation, so I have to have the finished wood in place in order to install the windows. The window installation is also complicated by the fact that  the maximum wall thickness at the window is 2 1/4", while the frame thickness of the boat is 3 7/8". Its kind of a strange deal to describe, but on the salon windows and the side windows of the wheel house, the windows will be set in by the difference. The front wheel house windows will be flush with the  interior as I was able to make the tabs work out to 2 1/4" wall thickness.  It will look OK as Im going to spend a righteous amount of time getting the trim right, but it does add a whole bunch of work to the window trim job. Im not quite sure how the finish window trim will look, but Im going to use each clamp ring as a template before I install and make a pattern out of paper board for future fabrication of wooden trims for the windows.

The weather had for sure turned  here, but I have plenty to keep me busy getting the super structure in a more finished state. Taking the super structure as far as installing the windows before shes landed and welded in place has entered my mind, but I think it too risky. I can install lots of the trim, some of the ceilings along with some wiring and a host of other items before I have to commit to taking her out of the barn. While Im aching to have her assembled at the boat yard, all of this work goes much faster while shes in the barn.

Cheers 

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Started ballast

Anyone whos thinking about building a boat, take some advice from me and dont wait until a few weeks before your anticipated launch to start pouring your ballast.

I dont think I could have picked a worse day to start pouring lead ingots. At noon today the temperature in the shade was 94, and the dew points seem to be in the 70s making for oppressive humidity. I consider myself a pretty tough guy regarding manual work as Im in decent shape, and Ive been doing physical work all my life. I have  no problem admitting that todays task of pouring lead ingots kicked  my ass.
 
The design of the boat calls for 4300 lbs of ballast  under the forward sole. For our ballast, Im using lead that came from the demolition of an MRI machine. The material is as clean as can be, and with each lead shingle weighing 30 lbs, its relatively easy to handle.  I must have messed up somewhere at some point, because I only have 3000 lbs of lead on my site. I could have sworn I had 4500 lbs, but I now know for a fact that Im going to be lite.

Having a skid steer loader at our place made this nasty job a wee bit easier. Moving the lead from the storage area to the melting area was made easier with the loader as was handling the fire wood and moving the freshly pour ingots in to the shop for cleaning up and weighing.

I made a melting pot out of a piece of 12" pipe and framed a stand for it to sit on giving me room for the fire. Lead melts fairly easily, but it helped immensely by using my back pack blower to force feed the fire. The melting pot comfortably handles 200 lbs of lead.  The pour spout is a 1" nipple welded into the melting pot with a 1" 90 and a short length of pipe to get the material to the molds. Before I pour, I have to use a propane torch to heat the pour spout so the lead from the previous pour can be melted in the spout.   I made two molds to try to  help speed things up. Each mold contains six ingots, and once the mold is full, it weighs about 100 lbs. After a pour is made and the lead has set up enough to pick up the mold, I drop the mold forcefully into a spare bucket for the loader to part the ingots from the mold. The problem is that if the lead doesnt part on the first throw, picking up the 100 lbs mold a few times gets tiresome.

Using a circular saw to cut the thin piece of lead between each ingot is how I process the ingots prior to weighing each ingot. I write the weight on each ingot so I can keep track of how much lead is going into each ballasts compartment.

I  now know Im going to be  lite on the ballast, so the question is how will this effect my launch. Out of the 4300 lbs designed, I think Im going to end up with 2700 - 3200 lbs installed for launch. Because the boat is going to spend the rest of the season on the Ohio River ( about as tame a mill pond as one can find), I think Im going to be OK. If I was launching at the Ocean or Gulf, Id feel a lot less comfortable being lite, and for sure would not try to go off shore without the designed ballast.  Im going to run this scenario past the naval architect and see what  he says.

For some reason, I thought Id get all this ballast poured in one day. Todays pour netted me 1300 lbs of ingots.  

Cheers

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