| Date |
Description |
| 5-Aug-2007 |
Glue up the mast out of 2 2X4s and some shim pieces. The inside of
the mast was routed to allow for a tube to be glued in that will act as a wire chase.
After some effort a string was fed down it to fish the wire later for both the
masthead light and the "all around" light.
The top part of my over-sized tabernacle hinge was installed and tightened in place.
I forgot the make sure that the nuts were embedded in glue so hopefully it doesn't
loosen on it's own.
T-Nuts were put in the inside of the 2X4s to support eyebolts for the standing rigging. |
| 6-12-Aug-2007 |
Round over the sides of the mast, down to 2 1/4". The mast is
not actually tapered, but it's certainly smaller. Since my mast is longer than
designed, the completely rounded over bit - done with a router, then wood rasp, then block
plane - is above the fastenings for the standing and running rigging.
The mast was then test fit and I discovered that I accidentally ended up with a space
between the top and bottom parts of the mast at the tabernacle. This will need to be
shimmed in some fashion. Without the shrouds in place, the mast was also somewhat
wobbly. Unfortunately (and this was expected) with the mast stub in place, the boat
doesn't fit through the door so for the time being the mast will have to be stored
somewhere safe. The tabernacle did work as hoped though, allowing the mast to rest
on the transom. Most standard hinges don't open past 90 degrees.
I also test fit and rounded over the bow sprit - it also is longer than designed will not
be able to stay on the boat until I can move the boat permanently outside.
 |
 |
| Pointy End Goes Up |
Bowsprit test fit |
 |
 |
| Heavy-Duty gate hinges |
Strings to fish wiring up tube inside of mast |
 |
 |
| Rounded over and masthead light wiring termination |
An all-around light will be installed here |
|
| 11-Aug-2007 - 9-Sep-2007 |
I've forgotten to update for a while. Currently (October 8) the
boat is covered with plastic and more or less stored for the winter. The
chainplaties, hatches and handrails are built, the mast and bow sprit finished and
painted/varnished.
|
 |
| The bowsprit is a foot or more longer than plan, but the
fastening for the forestay is according to plan. I'd like to keep the longer length
to allow for a potentially bigger headsail and it's such a lovely piece of oak that it
feels like a shame to cut it. |
The mast is finally hoisted. There is a bit of
"wobblyness" to it despite the extra work in re-working the tabernacle joint to
make a tighter fit. I used some cheap rope as shrouds and forestay and that seemed
to stiffen the rig up. |
 |
 |
| I had great and complex plans for the chain-plates.
In the end, I went with the designer's suggestions (more or less) and used some fairly
heavy mending plates. The aft edge of the chain plates have been rounded over for
saftety. |
Another shot of the chain-plates. They'll also bolt
into the planned toerail |
 |
 |
| Grab-rails milled out of some nice oak. It took a
lot of fiddly fitting due to the complex curve on the cabin roof to get them to fit
properly. |
All my hatches are built. The companionway hatch
required some trimming after the grab-rails were attached. |
 |
 |
| I put a raised lip around the mast box to try to reduce
the amount of water that gets in. |
Here is my transom hatch (not to plan). This will
allow easy access to the steering components. |
|
| To Jan 12-2008 |
Not very much at all has happened with the boat since my last posting.
The boat was decorated up for halloween and was quite enjoyed by all. I had
another dolly failure (almost). The boat is now under a plastic sheet beside the
garage waiting for spring.
I did get the boom shaped and finally found the parts (today) for the gooseneck. I
had to go with a non-standard setup for the gooseneck because I built the lower part of
the mast with a wiring chase before reading the bit in the plans that would have had me
install eyebolts for the gooseneck. After much head-scratching, including trying to
come up with a method for using boom jaws that would work on my square mast, my repeated
trips to TSC have resulted in the gooseneck shown
below. The brackets for the mast are used to suspend pipe normally. Since
they're pretty light, I've chosen to double them up.
 |
 |
| YAAAARRRGGHHH! |
A few plumbing parts and some headscratching later ... |
|
| Feb-Mar |
Slow building time. There's not too much left that can be done
inside. I did make up my boom and gaff. I made the gaff jaws slightly longer
than spec as I have heard of others having problems with them binding. They're
easier to make shorter ... The boom has a bit of a twist to it, but I don't expect
that will cause much problems under sail.
For eye-bolts, I've overdone things (as usual) and used solid eye-bolts from TSC and made a trip to Brafasco to get eye-nuts. This should work out
well. I drilled a hole through the eye-nut and attached it to the eye-bold with a
cotter pin. To thread the eye-bolts on, I used a T-Nut from Lee
Valley.
|
| May 17-19 |
The "May 24th" weekend. Time for boat building.
Unfortunately it was raining and cold so there wasn't a lot that could be done.
 | The door hinge I had on the tabernacle proved to be too weak - when storing the mast,
the screws holding it gave way so I replaced the hinge with a larger strap hinge (like in
the plans) that I lag-bolted in place. I also attached the gooseneck to the mast. |
| The gaff jaws turned out to be too narrow for my mast (which wasn't tapered a huge
amount) so I made them a bit wider. |
| The bits of the mast around the tabernacle got a coat of brown paint as did the gaff and
boom. |
| I used the last drips of resin from last year to put a small strip of fiberglass on the
top of the stem. It had been just exposed plywood and over the winter I saw some
small cracks forming so figured I should do something to prevent that. |
|
| To Oct 31 2008 |
Not much at all done on the boat this summer - very sad about that. Three
things of note did get done - I fabricated a set of spreaders out of angle iron.
This, in addition to raising the point where the shrouds attach to the mast should
eliminate any chance of the gaff binding up. I also - with the help of my son
Trueman - fabricate the standing rigging out of aircraft cable. Finally, I built a
cockpit cover out of scrap lumber to try to keep the cockpit free of debris and much
water/snow.
|
