Nearing the End

On December 22, 2006 I entered the following to introduce myself at the Passagemaker Dinghy Builder's Forum:

"Well, I have officially joined the ranks. I just ordered a PMD with the sail kit. I also ordered a trailer from Harbor Freight and a trailer hitch/wiring kit. I've read these postings over and over and over again and I have to build one of these. I'm a physics/math teacher with 30 years experience from Grand Rapids, MI. I love to work with my hands, I grew up with boats, and, when I saw the kind of results you could obtain with one of these kits by visiting a guy in Holland, MI, I just couldn't resist. Unfortunately I'm a little (OK, a LOT...) obsessive compulsive. While the motto at CLC is that aircraft tolerances are not required my motto is why should I settle for aircraft tolerances? Yeah, my dad was a tool and die maker. I may get over it or it may take me two years to build the boat, but I can't wait to get started. My daughter lives near Baltimore so I intend to visit CLC in Annapolis this spring. Whether there, in Michigan, or online I hope to meet up with some of you."

"it may take me two years to build the boat" - part of me was kidding and the other part of me was being honest. In one respect it has indeed been two years - at leasty it has involved two summers. On the other hand, the weather in Michigan doesn't provide temperatures and weather that are conducive to a long garage-based building season. On the other hand, (apparently I have three hands!) there are stretches when you just don't feel like using the three thousandth piece of sandpaper while breathing through a respirator and sweating profusely.

On Wednesday Woodstock will have her maiden voyage if weather permits. The inside still needs to be lightly sanded once more and the final coat of varnish needs to be applied. Then there's just a few fittings to be mounted, a name and registrations numbers to be applied, and a couple knots to be learned.

I had occasion to go back over this blog and I was profoundly struck by how much of a project this has been. Most of it was immensely enjoyable but fillets, varnish, and primer were NOT. The combination of geometry, physics, woodworking, design, procurement, and ingenuity involved in this project fit me to a tee. In these final days I have also been struck by how narrowly focused I have been with each task as it came along whereas now that the boat is nearing completion I have more of a realization just how cool this boat is and how close the finished product is to what I envisioned at the outset. Up until now it's been like the old saying where you can't see the forest for the trees. Well I'm starting to enjoy the view of the forest, I just need a lake to complete the picture.

The final cost is about $5600. I originally thought I would spend about $3600. It strikes me that my cost estimates were off by about the same amount as my time estimates.

Can't wait for Wednesday!

All Those Ropes (and tacks, and loops)

As the light at the end of the tunnel appears more likely to be daylight than the headlight of an oncoming train I get to engage in some of the final preparations for the boat.

Last Sunday I took on the task of installing the oar leathers. Not being well versed in classic boat outfitting I didn't become aware that some oar leathers are sewn rather than tacked until well after the tacked version had been delivered. The sewn version appeals to me visually and structurally but it's too late now. 122 little brass tacks later the result is decent.

I do have one issue with the oar leather kit from CLC in combination with the oarlocks and oars they sell. The thicked portion of the leathers, the button, is supposed to 'trap' the oarlock on the oar. After I had completely installed the oar leathers I discovered the oarlock could slide over the button. The oarlocks don't exactly fall off but not much effort is needed to get the oarlock over the button.

I had all of the ropes figured out last summer when I made the purchases but organizing them now into their proper place and cutting them to appropriate lengths requires a bit of review. I've only sailed once before so this doesn't come second nature. "Dry rigging" everything in the basement helped me sort it out.

I tried to anticipate the range of configurations for each line (like running with the main sail full out to determine the length of the main sheet) and I cut each piece a little extra long just in case.

After I finished cutting thge ropes in the basement I actually rigged the sails on the boat in my driveway (Sorry, no pictures.) Those who have built their own boat will probably understand my reaction. It was a beautiful blue-sky day with a bit of a breeze and seeing the two sails fully hoisted was just way cool.

The reason I rigged the sails on the boat was to properly rig the stays. The instructions suggest that instead of using turnbuckles on the stays you can use about eight loops of 250# synthetic line. It's stronger and cheaper the instructions say. Perhaps I'm not familiar enough with the various lines available and perhaps the line described in the instructions is more common on the ocean shores, but here in the center of Michigan the best I could do was some 200# neon colored yellow/green line used to tow lures in sportfishing. I gotta tell you, trying to hold a mast in postion while adjusting ten loops of line makes turnbuckles look pretty attractive. And, since the line is about 1/16th inch in diameter, wrapping the 5" length of loops takes some patience. (And I wonder why it took me two years to build this thing!)

When I placed the motor on the transom I discovered the transom doesn't provide sufficient thickness for the motor clamps. The motor clamps wouldn't tighten down enough to grip the transom. I wanted to protect the transom from having the motor clamps dig into the finished wood anyway so I took the opportunity to make some larger diameter oak pads that were thick enough to fill in the gap. The pads have rubber backing.

Here's the nylon washer I used in the mast step - an arrangement I mentioned very early in my blog. I embedded it in epoxy so it would stay put. Now that I look at it I suppose I could have just poured some extra epoxy in the hole and just forgotten about the washer!

In any event the end is near!

And Then There's the Motor

The other day my wife fessed up that actually sailing in the Passagemaker was a hurdle she might have to overcome. Rowing - fine. Sailing - maybe not so fine. So she wondered if I had considered a small outboard. Considered? No. (I thought I was pushing the boat 'budget' pretty hard already.) But now that you mention it, I'll do a little digging. Whoosh! Check ebay, check local newspaper, visit motor dealers in the area, 2-cycle vs. 4-cycle, air-cooled (Honda) vs. water cooled (everybody else except Briggs and Stratton), compare specifications, recheck those 'Watched items on ebay'.

You'd think I was researching a 35' cabin cruiser with twin I/O's. But I didn't find that all elusive great motor AND great price. Then, the thing I have to work on - don't be afraid to ask questions. I'm in Gander Mountain and I notice they have some small Mercury outboards (no mention of this on their website). But they didn't have anything under 4 hp on the display floor except for electric trolling motors. So, expecting a deadend (and fighting against my natural tendency not to ask questions) I ask, "Do you have any outboards smaller than 4 hp?" I fully expected them to say no, and if they did have the motor in stock I expected the price to be the on north side of MSRP. Now by this time I had done my background work and scoped out the small outboard market pretty well so imagine my surprise when they said they had a 2.5 hp in stock. "And what's the price?" Ah,..it's $699. Whoa! Mercury, Nissan, and Tohatsu are all the same engine and the prices ranged from $800 to $850.

"So, is that a 2008 or a 2007?" That's a 2007. What the heck do I care what year it is, it's a brand new engine for cryin' out loud and it's at least $100 less than anything else I saw. But as a savvy customer (wink, wink) I had to resist the temptation to appear SOLD!, ABSOLUTELY SOLD! and the question about the model year was just a veiled attempt to appear as though I was doing a thorough investigation. I finished with a question as to whether the 'other' Gander Mountain in our area had any in stock and the salesperson said they had two.

There was a little discussion at home and we decided the two of us would spend more time in the boat together if another means of propulsion was available. So we decided to buy the motor for my wife.

We walked into the other Gander Mountain and I asked if they had any 2.5 hp Mecury outboards in stock. They said NO. Isn't that typical? You zero in on a good deal and it vaporizes. But I persisted a bit indicating the other store had said this store had two - would you please check? Sure enough they had two in stock.

But, while we were waiting we saw an application for a GanderMountain MasterCard. 10% off your first purchase. Hmm? My wife and I have developed an automatic NO response in the dozens of other situations where the checkout clerk asks if we want to save 10% on your purchase today by opening a (fill-in-the-blank) charge card. But, now we're talkin' $70. Does that apply to an outboard motor? YUP! Besides that you get a $25 gift card.\

I absolutely love it when a good deal gets better!

Repurposed Trailer and The Beginning of the End

For some reason the boat didn’t ‘call’ to me this spring. Of course here in Michigan the weather and temperatures don’t really lend themselves to varnish and epoxy and sanding until May or so. And maybe I was still getting over my primer episode from last summer, but a different project caught my attention.

The boat trailer I had purchased had potential for more utility than just transporting a boat. There was, after all, that ‘finishing off the basement’ project I had started three years ago and never completed. But, in the meantime, the vehicle types in our garage had changed. Transporting sheets of drywall and sound deadening insulation wasn't a possiblity. Perhaps, for less than the cost of one delivery I could transform my trailer into something that would work for small projects that were bigger than my vehicles. I played around with some ideas and finally decided to incorporate the grid concept I had used in making the work platforms from earlier in the boat project and make a platform which could be secured to the trailer with the same four bolts as my customized bunks. Here’s the result -

The entire gridwork is made from 1/4" plywood (with a couple inserts of solid woods blocks to beef up the mounting locations) and everything is glued together. By the way, the second set of ‘cutouts’ allows me to reverse and/or flip the platform if I need fresh mounting locations on the platform.

And here’s a shot of just how useful the platform was -

After this diversion of my construction talents and some initial efforts to get my head around the basement project my wife and I decided I better get back to the boat.

As of this date I have three coats of varnish on the exterior 'bright' surfaces of the boat. In the pictures below you can see that I chose to make the rub strips and skeg bright. I really like the slenderizing visual effect this has on the boat profile.

I also found a method to suspend the ‘loose’ wood parts of the boat so I could varnish all sides at once.

On a different topic, rather than use the generic black block letters from Home Depot or Ace hardware for the registration numbers I wanted to use the same theme I had in mind for the lettering for the name of my boat. Here you can see the solution I came up with.

As I gathered quotes online and from local sign franchises some prices went over $150. Fortunately what you see here only cost $37 from the FastSign franchise. As with most lettering outfits these vinyl letters are mounted on a translucent positioning sheet which allows you to remove the protective layer from the sticky back side of the letters while they remain stuck to the translucent layer. The whole group can then be placed in position. Finally the translucent layer can be peeled off the top.

Next Phase - finish the fillets inside and varnish/sand, varnish/sand, varnish/sand.

To Prime or Not to Prime?

(Written fall of 2007 - Posted Summer 2008)

The process of coating the outside of the boat with epoxy was complete and the prospect of actually applying paint was at hand. I had the outside of the hull looking nice and I wondered whether using a primer coat was really necessary. I used Google, I emailed CLC, and I read the really, really small print on the Interlux paint cans at West Marine. One builder even indicated the epoxy served as the primer and the finish coat could go right over the epoxy. All things considered I decided I would use a primer coat of Interlux Pre-Kote before the Interlux Brightside Polyurethane.

Next, do I brush, do I roll? I decided to roll. Of course the surfaces between the skid rails and the first side panel would have to be brushed but that shouldn’t be a problem. Do I apply the paint thin or do I go for a thicker coat? One of the reasons for putting this primer on is to allow for some sanding to smooth out irregularities in the shape of the hull, so let’s go for a thicker application (this in spite of the fact there was very little I needed to “hide” with a filling primer coat).

And then the “it’s my first time using this paint” monster reared its ugly head. Rolling this paint allowed me to lay a generous coat on the hull but when I got to the areas where I need to use a brush there was no way I could match the coverage of the rolled portions. Brushing the paint resulted in a much thinner coat. But hey, this is the primer coat. I can feather the brushed area into the rolled area by sanding carefully, right? Keep painting.

OK, I’ve got some sanding work ahead of me but at least I primed the hull. That’s the important thing. How long do I have to wait? I think the can said 16 hours but I waited a good 24 hours. Let’s try a small spot to see if it’s dried. Nope. The sandpaper is gumming up. I’ll wait another day.

It’s a new day but this 220 grit sandpaper is still gumming up. I’ll try something coarser like I did with the epoxy. Nope, the 100 grit gums up too. It’s been humid, let’s wait another day.

One more try, maybe even a coarser grit. Oooh, that’s not working well at all. The paint is globbing up like cottage cheese. No way I can possibly smooth that mess out. What about over here? Nope, this section of the hull is just as bad.

Note: At this point seismographs in several parts of the country recorded the shock waves from the explosion that occurred when I realized that all of that paint was going to be removed from my boat.

You know, if there was a problem with humidity and the drying time of this paint there should be a warning on the label. If you are supposed to apply it in thin layers then put that in the instructions. I had many hours and an extra coat of epoxy invested in that hull and the prospect of removing this gummy paint mess was,…well,…kids might have access to this blog so I will forego the language that adequately describes my emotions. To say I was furious is putting it mildly. While Interlux products come very highly recommended, and there are many boat builders who have obviously used the Pre-Kote product with success, I WILL NEVER APPLY THAT PRIMER TO ANYTHING.

This was the hottest part of August and my enthusiasm for sanding was at its lowest point. So it took me several days to accomplish the paint removal. Of course it also took many, many sheets of sandpaper and everything in my garage was coated with a thick layer of white paint dust. It took a day just to clean up the garage.

The sanding was accomplished with 60 and 80 grit sandpaper. As a result there were numerous areas where the epoxy coat was removed with the paint. That meant buying more epoxy, coating and recoating the bare areas, and the sanding that goes along with it.

I painted the bottom with white Interlux Brightside Polyurethane. The first coat left a bit of a blotchy coverage and there were a few runs. I made a small sanding block and put a layer of thick felt on it to produce a surface that would follow the subtle contours of the hull. The second coat covered very nicely and dried to a beautiful finish. There was only one set of runs and they will remain as evidence of my novice boat building status.

(My apologies for the lack of pictures of my painting/sanding episode.)

Here's how the boat looked at the end of August:

The summer was quickly drawing to a close and the primer experience had put a damper on my enthusiasm. The main goal now was to get the cars back in the garage before frost and snow aggravated the level of inconvenience my project had created for our parking situation.
I finished coating the bunks I had made for the trailer with epoxy and covered them with automobile carpet I had purchased from Menards. The boat was loaded on the trailer. After rearranging my storage shelves into a tall tower to create some floor space the boat was tucked into the front corner of the garage.

The finish work will have to wait until spring.