Build Time: 3+ Months

August was a pretty uneventful month for boat building. With moving out of my old apartment and into my new one for school and studying for summer finals while working there was little time for anything else. The total amount of time I have invested so far is about 3 months of actual labor. As it sits now the framing is complete as well as the fairing, except for where the stem meets the breast hook, and some plywood panels are cut. Below is a picture of the new batten that I had cut when the other one broke. In the picture you can see the side that was cut, which is all black from a dull blade on my table saw; a reminder that good equipment does make things easier.

Back To Work

It's been a while since I have had time to work on the boat but I'm excited to get back into it. The past week I was in Boyne City on vacation with my family and then this weekend I attended the Tough Mudder event in Wisconsin. Tough Mudder is a 10+ mile obstacle course with proceeds going to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project. They are a group who are helping the service men and women of the United States who have been severely wounded.

Anyways, I was able to start the 1957 Evinrude 18 hp that I will be using for the Squirt. After I replaced the starter prawl I gave it a few pulls and got it start up. It sounded pretty choppy at first but after it quit and I read the instructions under the hood about the starting procedure I turned the dial for the high speed control nob and started it up again. This time it sounded great and ran a lot smoother. My dad and I took it out to the lake on our 13' Zodiac hard-bottom and again it ran great. It even got right up on plane with no problem.
More to come soon.

Looks Like More Fairing

After fitting the plywood and scratching my head a few times, concerning the joining of the side and bottom planking from the second frame forward, I went back to my trusty Boat-building With Plywood book. I thought that I understood the lap joint procedure and how the plywood would fit on the chine but once I had the side planking on I realized the bottom planking wouldn't have anything for the screws to fasten to. Everything fit well up until the second frame forward where I ran into this problem. I researched the topic in the book and after rereading it the procedure seemed to 'click'.

What I was suppose to do when fairing the chine from the second frame forward was too find a spot on the chine where the wood began to start to twist toward the stem, and then draw a line down the middle of the chine. On the lower side on the line would be where the side planking would lay and on the top of the line would be where the bottom planking laid. This meant I had to re-fair the chine and sheer; though most of the wood on the sheer had already been taken off so it was a quicker process than before. Overall this makes a lot more sense to me and makes me want to kick myself for not seeing what is the most obvious way to fasten the planking. I guess it all goes with your first build! The picture below shows the chine and the line drawn towards the center to which either side will be faired.

Re-Fairing Chines, Sheers, and Stem

 

Edit: Fairing (Not) Complete, Plywood Cut

Today I did the final fairing on the boat and was able to get everything ready for plywood. Once I went through all the transition points I realized I could improve in a few spots so I spent some time going back over the sheers and chines; it didn't take too long though. I have plywood pieces for the sides cut out and a few pieces for the bottom but I can start the bottom planking until I reinstall the batten that I had break. Below is a picture of the fairing I had to do and it shows how much wood I had to take off of the sheer. You can see a line through the wood and that is the space from the lamination I had done. This picture is from last week but it's hard to capture all of the fairing process.

Fairing Sheer

Evinrude Trouble

This past week I have been working double and with my online classes I haven't had time to work on the boat until today. When I arrived home though my pressurized gas tank finally arrived and looked great. Of course before I started any work on the Squirt I needed to start up the Evinrude. After running to the gas station real quick for a few gallons and adding the oil I put the motor on my dingy and primed the gas tank. Before I started it up I took a step back to see how the outboard looked on the dingy since it's about the same size as my Squirt and I wanted to get an idea of how large the motor would be. To say the least it looked great; very classy. Anyways, I get in the dingy and take my first pull but when I have the rope about halfway out I here something break. Crap!!! (I may have censored that ha) I go to pull it again and there is little to no resistance. I decided to take the hood completely off and then took off the starter housing and found a few pieces of broken plastic. When I saw this I realized it was going to be a cheap and easy fix so I put everything back together and found the piece online which had it named the "starter prawl". It was under $10 with shipping so I'll have it next week and will get the motor started then.

Broken Starter Prawl and Friction Spring

Concerning the building process, I'll try and have all the plywood dry fitted soon and will post pictures when I get a chance. Fiberglass will be starting soon as well so I'll be continuing the research process on that too.

Batten Broke

While doing some last minute fairing my batten broke. I posted on the Glen-L forum for some help on what I can do to not break it next time and got a few good ideas. First I'm going to trim of the edge of the frame where the batten sits and bends on which should relieve some pressure. I'm also going to wrap a towel around the end of both battens with a hot towel to loosen up the wood. One reason for the break was that the stress point was at a knot in the wood. There are also times when a good looking piece of wood will break from a crack unseen to the eye. I'm going to reattach another batten which shouldn't take long, and then add the plywood this week. Here's a picture of the broken one and the one on the side still intact.

Broken Batten

 Broken Batten and Intact Batten

Fairing Sheers

The last part of fairing I have to do before planking is the sheer to chine area. I saved this for last so I could build some confidence up doing the smaller parts after I started it didn't seem nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be (this seems to be a re-occurring event). I have the sheers faired up to the second frame on one side and then almost to the breast hook on the other. Last summer I purchased the Boat Building With Plywood book from Glen-L and haven't used it until this process and it has been extremely helpful. I'll be reading that more as I learn the best way to fasten the plywood.

Sheer Fairing to Frame #2

Fairing Continues, Pressure Tank Purchased

I have finished fairing the transom through frame 2 on the top side. To do this I used a hand planer and then quick sanded everything down after it was level for a smooth finish. I took the 90 degree angle out of the edges on the downward sloping sides on the battens and keel and this made everything fit nicely. There was a major relief when this portion was done because after first having a leveler across the chine to the keel and the frames, there where a lot of gaps. I was thinking I was going to have to do some re-cuts but the hand planer took out the high spots with ease. This again goes to show that a little confidence goes a long way; you have to start somewhere. I tried to take the best picture I could to show the process, so the one below shows frame 1 level from chine to keel.

Frame #1 Faired

I have also been looking for a pressure tank on eBay and Craigslist, with not much luck locally on Craigslist, and was patient enough to get a newly repainted tank with a new hose, connector, and some new fittings. I had seen quite a few in rough shape that were pretty expensive, needed a hose or parts replaced, and had high shipping costs. (I'll post the price of the tank along with all my other costs in a post at the end of the bill). The tank I won will be ready to go and I am very excited for it to arrive as I still haven't been able to run my new-to-me outboard. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have an update on it's performance on my 13' Zodiac.

Pressure Tank

 2-Line Hose and Air/Gas Fitting

Control Box and Fairing

It's been a while since I have had any updates and I can now see why it takes some people a few years for some of the projects; anytime I had a full day planned of work, an event would pop up. I have still been making steady progress though which has mostly consisted of sanding and making everything true and flat. This is a process called fairing and at first it was a little intimidating because of all the work I had read that goes into it but after finding the right tools and having some practice it made more sense. The best way I found to do it is using a leveler as a flat edge. It's hard to take pictures of this because your only removing small amounts of wood but I'll take more pictures after the fairing process is complete.

Fairing Chine

I have also been looking for a control box and found one for a decent price with working cables. I'm not sure what year it is but it's and Evinrude brand so it will go with the motor nicely after a new paint job. Concerning the outboard, I bought the gas tank on Craigslist from a nice guy who restored outboards and after telling him my motor's year and horsepower and the need for a 2-line pressurized tank, he said the motor actually used a single hose gas tank; which I ended up purchasing from him taking his word. Well when I arrived home I checked the fittings and they did not match. I called the guy and he said that most people changed to the single hose. He was nice about it though and we are going to do an exchange for some cleats and other hardware.

Evinrude Control Box

Gas Tanks and Fiberglass

When I bought the outboard it didn't come with a gas tank so that has been one of my missions to find during this past week. After a few looks on eBay and deciding hipping was going to be too much, I put my faith with Craigslist and found a few no problem; though there weren't any that came with hoses. I made a call about an ad where a guy was selling five or six 1950's and older outboards and the same amount of gas tanks and we set up a time for the next morning. The reason I'm explain this is because when I arrived at his house he had a ton of old boating equipment. He had cleats from old Christ Crafts, steering setups, throttle cables, etc. He gave me a great deal too, and I left with a brand new hose, a like new 6 gallon gas tank, and a smaller 3 gallon tank (I think it's 3 gallons at least). He also had an Evinrude throttle and shifter box that I would have also picked up if I would have brought enough cash with me. Anyway, he'll be another resource for some more equipment when I need it. I also received the fiberglass kit from Glen-L this week so I've got some more inspiration to keep things moving. I read over the how-to sheet that came with the kit and it seems fairly simple but I have a video an book I'm going to look over too. I don't want to make any mistakes in this part because it's already been an expensive 2 weeks and another fiberglass kit would help that. It looks easy enough though so I'm not worried.

Gas Tanks, 3 & 6 Gallons

Glen-L Fiberglass Kit

On a side note, my grandpa had an older Evinrude outboard, early '60's I think, that he didn't want anymore so he let me pick it up from him. It's a 3 horse, 2 cylinder, and it hasn't been ran it in the 20 some years he's had it. It was previously used on a sailboat and only used to get in and out of the slip. When I have some time  I'm going to try and get it to start.

3 HP Evinrude

2nd Sheer Screwed and Epoxied

I epoxied the last sheer laminations today, though I'm still behind the schedule I had planned out in my head. The lamination process was pretty easy because I pre-drilled all the screw holes and did any work I could before I started to mix the epoxy. I made a big batch of it since I wanted to do both laminations at the same time and still have enough to coat the inner sides of the sheers. I would recommend doing this with at one other person though. I was hurrying because I didn't want the epoxy to set and it would have been easier if someone was there to hold the sheer in place while I added to screws. The pictures below show the 2nd lamination and you can see the two by the difference in wood color (both are still African mahogany).

2nd Sheer Lamination Epoxied, Looking Towards Transom

 Sheers in Frames 1 and 2

On another note, I finally purchased an outboard; a 1957 Evinrude 18hp. I was originally looking for a 1950's 25hp so I could get the older style but still with speed. When I went to look at a 1957 Johnson 25hp I  quickly realized that was not going to work; the motor was HUGE! Then I decided on a newer 25hp but after I found this one on eBay I fell in love with it. I'm not worried about speed anymore because I'll still go plenty fast with the 18hp and it'll fit the boat better. I'm going to do the hull of the boat from the chine up a light blue to match the outboard and then leave it white below the chine (I'm thinking of making the transom completely blue but I might still change that). My uncle was nice enough to check out the motor before we bought since he lived near the seller but I'll have it at my place by Friday. I still need to find a gas tank for it but after a little research I found a lot on eBay and Craigslist. Below is a picture of it from eBay but I'l post more when it gets here.

2nd Sheer Lamination Fitted

Tonight I was able to attach the 2nd and final sheer lamination. It took longer than I was planning on because I wanted to make sure all the notches where the first sheer went in were faired enough o the 2nd lamination would fit snug. After doing this I went to get the sheers which had been soaking for a good 2 days and was expecting them to go on easier than the first ones. Surprisingly they did not and were actually a little hard to bend. I attribute this to the fact that when I had put the first laminations on it was around 90 degrees outside and I think the water which they were soaking in was pretty warm as well. Tonight it was about 60 degrees and I think the cooler water didn't give the wood as much bend. Anyway, I will complete the lamination tomorrow and start on fairing. It also looks like I'm going to need some more clamps. I ordered the Glen-L fiberglass kit for the bottom and sides and must have the plywood on by Sunday if I want to complete the boat anytime close to my goal of the beginning of July.

2nd Sheer Lamination Fitted, Side View

 Front View

Chines and 1st Sheer Lamination Attatched

While having the day off I was able to re-cut the chine notch in frame 2 and epoxy and screw it to the frame. I wasn't sure how to re-cut the angled notch in frame 2 so I just ended up sanding it until the chine fit snug. This actually worked pretty well since I was able to make a nice fit. One of the things about the chine is that the placement on the stem isn't mentioned in the plans so you have to just go with where it you think you want it. If you attach it too close to the breast-hook though you could cause the plywood to have a cavitation  when it's attached. I looked through a few different blogs that had good pictures and made my decision based on an average of theirs.

I also epoxied and attached the first sheer lamination. I was a little worried when I was unscrewing the sheers since they had dried and was afraid they would revert back to their straight shape but to my surprise they held the curve. On a side note, I have been having some trouble screwing in the bronze screws (I would pre-drill a small hole first but sometime I still had trouble) so I put some wax on them first and this help a ton; I highly recommend doing this. I have the second sheer laminations soaking overnight in the PVC pipe so they'll be ready for tomorrow. Below are pictures on the frame after today's work.

Chines and 1st Sheer Laminations Epoxied and Screwed

 Front View

 Rear Side View

Sheers Fitted

After letting the sheers soak over night I came home from work to find most of the water had seeped out the bottom of the screw attachment on the PVC pipe. The bottom 1/4 of the wood was still wet though and looked like it had still some what soaked so I tried to attach them and to my surprise they went on extremely easily. These are the first of two laminations that I will be using. I've got them fastened on to dry and when they are fully dry I take them off, fit the ends accordingly, and epoxy everything. I'll be ordering the Squirt Fiberglass Kit from Glen-L's website tonight so I'll be ready when it comes time to start planking. I also ordered a book and dvd on fiberglassing from Glen-L last summer so I'll be using those to prepare. I also have to finish the chines which I'll start on tonight.

1st Sheer Lamination Fitted

 Side View of Sheers

Chines and Sheers

After receiving advice from the Glen-L Forum I decided to go ahead and epoxy a piece of wood to the spot on frame 2 where the chine notch was (on both sides). Once the epoxy cures I'm going to re-cut the notch for the chine but this time make the cut on an angle so it will better fit with the bending chine. I'm not completely sure how I'm going to make this cut yet but I figure I'll just take a little off at a time and judge it that way. I also put the sheers (4 pieces which will be laminated together in pairs of 2) in a 10' or so PVC pipe filled with water. Tomorrow I'll screw them into place and let them dry before I make any final cuts and add the epoxy. I also finally epoxied the transom  knee on with the carriage bolts. Before I just had it dry fitted because the carriage bolts weren't long enough to hold a bolt on the exiting side. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make quite a bit of progress but we'll see what how much time I'll have.

Piece of Wood Added to Chine Notch

 Transom Knee Epoxied With Carriage Bolts

 Sheers In PVC Pipe Filled With Water

Chine Trouble

After dry fitting the chines I have been having some trouble getting them to fit tightly against the second frame. I posted my confusion on the Glen-L Forum and have received a lot of helpful advice. Below the pictures show the chine placement against frame #2 and the gap that I'm worried about. I'll post how I fix this after I decided which route to take.

Chine Against Frame #2 Notch

Above View

View Looking Towards Stem

Chines Part I

I had some time tonight so I decided to start getting the chines in place as well as the transom knee bolted to the keel and transom. The transom knee went into the keel pretty smooth, although after putting in the first screw, the knee moved away from the transom, leaving a slight gap. I made a change in the angle of the hole though and everything worked out. Next, I faired out the chine notches and nailed the chines to the transom and frame #1. In the first picture you'll see I cut a small piece off the end of one of the chines and used it to trace out the angle it will will need to fit. Once I got the chines on I used some string and tied them around the stem and will be leaving them there over night so they will go on easier tomorrow. I'm also going to look at a 1950's 25hp Evinrude tomorrow, which I'm hoping will work out because I'd like to get it running as soon as I can.

Fairing Out Chine Notches

 Chines Temporarily Attached

New Transom Knee

Between the weather, school, and spring cleaning it's been a while since I have had time to work on the boat. Yesterday though I did have time to cut a new transom knee out, as the one I had made last summer didn't have the right angle to fit tight against the transom. I was also able to install the carriage bolts from the stem to the keel and do some fairing in the spaces where the battens crossed over the frames. Since the weather looks promising for all this week I will be attaching the new transom knee tonight and hoping to get the chines on tomorrow; we'll see though. Below is a picture comparing the new transom knee to the older one. The new transom knee is the much wider one (I need to trim a bit off still), though I will be using the bad one as extra support after I re-cut it to the right angle. By the way, I just saw my finger was in the way of the picture so that's the cause of the blurriness on the left side of the picture.

New vs Old Transom Knees

Battens Attached

The build is starting to get addicting as things are coming together and it's been hard to focus on anything else. This afternoon I was able to attach the battens but before I did so I cut the ends at an angle as I have seen other builders do. I tried to get everything as level as possible to help with the upcoming fairing process so it took a little longer but it will pay off in the end. I was suppose to install the transom knee before adding the battens but I'm still studying up on how I'm going to add the carriage bolts and fair them down. Next will either be the transom knee or chine. I hope to have the planking started this weekend.

Making Sure The Battens Fit Tight

 Battens Installed, Rear View

 Battens Installed, Front View

Keel Attached

Progress continued today as I added the keel. The keel is screwed and epoxied to the frames and transom and then carriage bolts are used to connect it to the stem. The screws that were used are bronze and they aren't very strong, especially going through the mahogany, so I drilled a hole for them before screwing them in. Despite this I still had quite a few break while drilling them in which left part of the screw in the wood. I drilled a fairly decent sized whole before I attempted to drill them in and they fit well but about four of them I had to re-do. I guess this goes with the whole never-built-anything-before skill level, though for the most part things are going pretty smoothly. Next up comes the transom knee and battens.

Keel From Front 

 Keel From Rear

Frame #1 and Transom Attached

Today I finished getting the last of the framing pieces on the jig which included the first frame and the transom. This was fairly simple as the only hard part was deciding how to lock the transom in place so it wont move until the planking is finished. I have it pretty well locked right now but I will probably add some more just to be safe. Progress has been decent though and I made a goal to have the hull complete in two weeks for the Spring Lake wooden boat show where they are accepting pretty much any wooden boat and older fiberglased ones as well. Stay tuned to see if I get any where close to this goal.

     Framing From Front View

 Framing From Rear Side View

Frame #2, Breast-hook, Stem Attached

Today was productive as I was able to first attach Frame #2 to the jig and then after add the breast-hook and stem. If I wasn't o excited to get this boat done I probably would have nailed and laminated the stem and breast-hook today, and then waited until tomorrow to nail and laminate that piece to the second frame. What made it hard by doing both processes back-to-back was that my mixture of epoxy was starting to set in my mixing container while I was making sure everything was level on the first piece. Then when I went to do the stem to frame #2, the epoxy was starting to thicken but it turned out not being a problem.

I took a break after I did this to let everything set a little more before I add frame #1 and the transom to the jig. It's starting to look like a boat and it's getting really exciting to get an idea of what the body will look like. Putting the transom and the first frame on the jig won't take long so I'm hoping to have time to add the keel. After the keel is added then the transom knee is next followed by the battens, chine, and sheer. After those are added its a solid few days of faring everything and then to add the plywood.

Frame #2 Attached

Breast-Hook and Stem Attached to Frame #2

Jig Finally Complete

Tonight I finally finished building the jig in which the boat will be built on. I had it built last summer but the wood had warped and it became untrue (I ended up re-building the whole thing and replacing a few pieces with new wood). It's important for the jig to be true from all sides so the boat isn't crooked when complete. Being that it needs to be true, I had to think of a way to keep it in place so it wouldn't move if someone nudged it or accidentally ran into it. It also sits near the lawn mower and the garbage-can so the likeliness of it getting bumped is pretty high. To do this I glued a few spots with gorilla glue where the jig was touching the cement; hopefully that will hold. Tomorrow I plan on getting the frames nailed or screwed to the jig so I will have more updates tomorrow or not long after.

Last Of August 2010

 The transom sits on a 12 degree angle and because of this you have to cut the transom at such an angle. With the help of my dad we set the fence on the table saw and went to cut but we finished with a bad end result. It turns out the fence had moved when we were cutting which left us with about 1/2'' cut-off on one side and almost 2'' cut-off on the other. In the end this turned out to be a good thing because I hadn't realized it before, but after reading a post on the Glen-L Forum I found that the transom had a slight V in it which I had not made. Since school is out and I'm back on the build I made a new transom so I have a total of two at the moment. I have decided that instead of trying to scrap the bad transom, I will instead finish it and make it a piece to hang on the wall. I'm going to use some scrap 1/4'' mahogany plywood to extend the sides an inch or two and then put two exhaust vents on it. I'll put pictures of that when I am done putting the plywood on the squirt and know how much scrap I will have left.

July - August 2010 Building Time

I had originally started this project during early July of 2010 but with work and online classes through WMU I could only do so much in a week. Besides that I had to move back to WMU and get ready for my junior year at the end of August so these first pictures are from that first month of building. I had never cut any wood or built anything before and this was my first time using a table saw, jigsaw, circular saw, etc. I was pretty intimidated once the wood came because I wasn't sure how I was going to turn it all into a boat. Though with every cut I gained a little bit more confidence, and as the first frames were made and placed on the floor it was comforting seeing how they resembled pictures I had seen of other builds.

 Picture of the Squirt from the plans

 These are the frame pieces that mount to the transom

 This is frame #2; gussets are not yet nailed

 Transom pieces, Frame #1, Frame #2

 Epoxying the two pieces of the stem together

 Transom with framing piece epoxied on; epoxying the motor board

 This is the wood before any cuts; it's African Mahogany

 I transferred the plans to the mahogany using wax paper

 Frame #1