Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Look And A Small Bit Of Progress

Been pretty busy with things other than the boat but I have managed to get a couple of things accomplished.

I havent ordered the lumber yet because I havent had time yet to sit down and figure the best way to buy it, nor to find the best deals. I hope to do that this weekend so that I can purchase next week. But I have been thinking of how I want the boat to look. This actually has a bearing on the lumber purchase as well because Ive decided to go with a natural wood finish on the sides and cabin.


Thats significant because the boat is skinned with plywood on the hull and cabin and plywoods wood grain is inadequate for the look I am after. The boat is supposed to be skinned with 3/8" plywood. After careful consideration and checking around, Ive decided to skin her with 1/4"  plywood and then laminate 1/8" mahogany strips over that for a total thickness of 3/8".

The lamination of these two wood products will create a strong skin and give me the grain on the exterior that I am looking for. The process is similar to another boat building method called cold molding in which three or four layers of thin plywood and solid wood strips are epoxy glued to the boat frame for a total thickness of whatever the boat design calls for. Cold molding is used on the very nicely done wooden speedboats seen at Lake Tahoe, so it will work as well for my boat.

Since I will need additional mahogany not called out for in the plans bill of materials, delaying purchase will give me time to figure out much I need.

The other bit of progress isnt directly boat related, however it is part of the project. The blueprints for the boat are quite large and need to be hung somewhere for easy referencing. I havent got any free wall space in the right places in my garage, so I decided to build a wheeled easel to hold them. I will be able to move this around as needed and the plans will be at a comfortable height for viewing.

For the easel, I needed some legs, a base, four casters, and the easel itself. Fortunately I had enough scrap lumber around to do this. Tonight was spent cutting that lumber in preparation for putting it together this weekend.

Finally, here is a poorly done image illustrating the look I am after with the boat. The brown represents the wood finish. The light blue strip and small ovals on the sides represent a chrome rub strip with two oval windows for the forward berth area. The rest of the colors are painted.


Updated 8/6/2014:
The desired look of the boat was changed last year. I now plan on making it look like the picture at the top of the blog.

No comments:

Post a Comment