| First
week of August, 2001 This is the building my last boat, the Glen-L design "Zip" which you saw on the last page. She is a 14' 4"outboard runabout of the style popular during the first half of the last century (doesn't it seem strange to say "last century" when you're talking about the one containing the year you graduated?) The boat was framed in cypress and a little Douglas fir in some areas and the hull is mahogany plywood. A 1958 Mercury Mark 55 outboard, at 40 horsepower, will powers it. It took ten months to complete The first parts made: The transom knee and breasthook, respectively
Here are, clockwise from top left, the three frames, the stem, and the transom. What you see here is, believe it or not, two weeks work in my spare time (such as it is). All are cypress. The transom is 2 inches thick, and the framework and motor board are screwed to the back panel. The screws are covered by 3/8" mahogany dowel pins sanded flush. The frames are all assembled with mahogany dowels, and the stem is screwed together. Gorilla Glue was used on all the pieces so far, because of it's water-proof nature and powerful bond. Next, I constructed the building form out of 2x6 lumber to start putting all these pieces together. |
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 8/21/01
Well, things were coming together. The keel was laid a few days
before. Laying the keel was a first for me, since the previous
boat I built didn't have one. It was, shall we say, a
"character-building experience." It was also a
"vocabulary-building experience" because I invented
all-new and creative expletives along the way. The keel is two
pieces of 1x4 reclaimed cypress, jointed together about 24 inches
from the transom. In the old days, "laying the
keel" was cause for a celebration, and everyone would have a
little party. So I had a Diet Coke and stood around staring at it
for awhile. Nobody appreciates a good keel-laying anymore, I
guess.
Next, I'll be installing the sheers, chines and battens. These will be 2" by 1" cypress, wrapped around the top of the boat at the deck line (sheers) and below where the side meets the bottom (chines). The battens run on the bottom from the transom up to just before the steep bend into the stem. Rather than try to bend the wood without benefit of a steam-machine, I'll laminate half-inch layers together because it's much easier to bend to shape. And yes, that's durn near every clamp I own! I'm using Gorilla Glue for most of the construction. It's one of the new polyurethane glues, and it supposed to be water-proof. Boat builders in Europe have been using it for decades. For the hull, I'll be laminating two layers of 1/4" mahogany plywood with Weldwood glue (the old standby!) for a total of just under a half-inch hull (since quarter-inch plywood isn't really quarter-inch, go figure.) The entire boat will be encapsulated with clear epoxy, making it virtually water-tight. |
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