The Rabbet

Another picture of the keel on it's side getting a coat of thin epoxy. This shows the rabbet which I cut with a skill saw, lots of chiseling and lots of grinding with a 4" grinder and course flap discs. The rabbet is a notch in the keel which will receive the planking at the angle of the bottom of the boat, which changes as you go from stem to stern. To make a rabbet in a keel you first mark out the rabbet line taken from the keel patterns at each station. Put a finishing nail at each mark and run a long batten spanning each nail, scribe the batten and you have a rabbet line. Next figure your planking thickness and and measure up that amount and repeat the process you did for the rabbet line, scribe it and you have the bearding line. Then you cut along the bearding line at an angle you get from the lofting and plans to the ghost line. That line is an imaginary line which is at a 90 degree angle from the rabbet to the bearding line. Once the bearding line is cut, you cut or chisel from the rabbet line at a 90 degree angle up to the bearding line and like magic the rabbet is formed. Then you take your grinder and grind away the bumps and make it nice and even. It's sort of like the old question:  How do you carve an elephant out of a rock? You chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant!

Keel Bolts

Once the keel parts all fit it was time to bolt them together with homemade keel bolts.For this I purchased some 3/4" galvanized rod and  threaded both ends. Each rod would go through the center of the keel at each location of a floor. So each rod measurement changed due to the varying height of the keel at each station location. The rod was the height of the keel plus the height of the floors which are 2 - 2"x10" laminated together. I added about 2.5" for the the ogee washer and nut. Drilling the holes through the keel is a nerve racking labor. First it requires a lot of hunting to locate a bit long enough to drill through  2' to 3' of keel and at some points 5' of keel. Then if you are not plumb with your drill and bit it can blow out the side and that sucks. Around the shaft log is  another "hole" issue. I elected to put two 1/2" bolts on both sides of the shaft at each location thus doubling the amount of holes to be drill and upping the potential for a disaster. Fortunately I only had the bit wonder one time and come out about an 1.5" up the face of the keel from it's bottom. I simply plugged it with a dowel and glue and re-drilled it. Worked fine. Once all the holes were drilled I separated each keel part and placed a layer of roofing tar between the parts, clamped them down and using a pipe to fit over the top portion of the bolt where the floors will go, tightened each keel bolt. This picture shows the keel on it's side and the keel bolts in place, tightened and ready for the floors. The keel is on it's side so I could hold the bottom nuts of the keel bolt to tighten the top nut. While on its side I coated it with thin epoxy and it's proved to be beneficial. Have no cracks,checks or gaps to date.

Take Help When Volunteered

You can never have too much help when building a boat. Here is Toby applying some added pressure to a pipe clamp on the keel. You also need a lot of C clamps and pipe clamps when building. Toby also say's some days: "going to work? work on boat?"

Lets Get Framing

The frames are beveled, cut to length and ready to be put together. Again since room was still limited to the garage, I only assembled half of the frame an would put them together out in the boat shed. The bottom and the side parts were put in place on the frame table and the large 1-1/8" thick plywood gussets on both sides of the frame at the chine were glued and bolted. Once both sides where done they would be primed and numbered. The boat being 44' long requires 21 frames spaced 24" apart. I did not build the forward 2 frames for reasons I'll explain later. Since I took my time measuring and cutting the frame pieces they went together with no problems. After putting the frames up I found only one out of the 19 frames I made on the table needing some adjustment.     

Frames

In the last post you could see the half sections of the frames leaning against the out shed wall.  I used 3" by 6" #1 Douglas Fir for the frames. The first thing I did was to build a table out of 2 - 4' by 8' plywood sheets to layout the frames from the table of offsets George provides on the plans. A little math is required for this operation. You must subtract the rabbet height from your baseline and always measure from the center of the keel. All measurement are in feet,inches and eights 5-0-4 would be 5 feet 0 inches and  4 eights (4/8"). Once the table was made I marked out all the frames for one side. Since I built them in the garage space was limited so I simply made two sets for each frame and made sure after they were beveled that the short sides of the bevels lined up. Worked well. This shows frame parts cut and getting beveled. The amount of bevel varies for each frame and it also varies from the bottom section to the upper frame section. Marking each frame in many places is a good idea.

More Keel

     Here is a photo from fore to aft. Still not put together. Need to put tar between the keel parts, drill the keel bolt holes, cut the shaft log for the Verna tube, put the stem on and cut the deadwood for the stern post seen in it's rough stage on the floor. The fitting of the stern post will be discussed at a later time. That operation ended up being a positive mistake.

      Below is the stem and it's deadwood. To fit the stem required moving it up and down a lot of times. To make it easier I attached temporary hinges to the keel and the stem so I could fold it back onto the keel, make the adjustments by grinding, planing or sanding, to the stem or the keel as needed and then flop it back into place and brace.

  

Dry stacking the Keel

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After all the keel parts were fitted, I stacked them all together to make sure they fit properly. The top picture is viewed from the stern to the stem. You can see my batten patterns tacked to the keel side which were made from the lofting done very early in the building project. I used these patterns to confirm that the keel size and shape was correct. Also the vertical strips of the patterns gives me the location of each frame, keel bolt, floor and the rabbet. The bottom picture shows the forward portion of the keel where four pieces come together to hold the stem. A lot of fitting went on here.

The Backbone Comes Together

All of the keel parts  I made in the basement and garage. And as soon as the boat shed was completed I could not wait to get these parts in the shed and put together. The part to the left sets on the shaft log and the stern post attaches to the  long point. The part is upside down here. The part below is an uncut deadwood that will backup the stern post or stem.

In my new shed I'm fitting the keel together. Lots of planing and sanding and heavy lifting goes into the portion of the project, but watching the backbone come together is a real exciting point in the boat building process. Behind me BTW is the half frames which I built in the garage over the last 8 months.

Boat shed complete, for now!

Frames are up and the tarp is on. Wow the boat shed looks big and for a while it is but as the boat grows the shed get smaller. I set up a nice work bench, some tool cabinets and shelf's. To the right you can see some leftover lam beams I tarred and placed every 6' to  support  the boat. Next I need heat, set the keel and get building.

Frames up (boat shed that is)

    Well with a lot of help from my son's Joe and Mike and a worker Ken we were able to get the frames into position. The gables were the heaviest and the hardest to get in place. In fact the rear one fell over and broke and had to be built in place. The next step is to brace the frames which are 32" on center. On the roof you must brace front to back with 5/4 by 3 about 24" on center to hold the tarp. The sides should have diagonal bracing and too much is not possible. I put ply wood on the corners for added support. I even ran some braces from the top of the wall to a stump and one to the small tool shed behind the boat shed for added support.  It rocks in the wind in all directions but it's been 6 years and 4 tarps and the shed is still standing. Total ceiling height from dirt to collar ties is about 14 feet. It is 24' wide by 52' in length and still not big enough. They never are! 

Shed Frames

Once the foundation was completed I built my frames using 2" by 4".  Side walls were 12' long and the rafters 16' and a 12' ceiling or collar ties all put together with plywood gussets to form a truss. I built them one on top of the other in three stacks spread out close to where they would be raised into position.

Starting the Boat Shed

As I mentioned in a previous post there was a delay in building the boat shed. Partly due to my work load in my business and also due to a n excavating contractor not showing up as promised. Once I had all the trees cleared I ran across an old friend  Bob Bridger, who had just moved back to the area and he had a front end hoe. Bob is a local and was more than willing to do the required excavation and he even helped move the large old micro lam beams which Strober Lumber gave me as long as I paid the delivery charge. Although they were different sizes and dimensions they made a good foundation and partial wall onto which I will place the shed frames. Here Bobs hoisting one of the beams to the front wall area. As you can see the side foundations are complete and stand about 2’ high.

The Shaft Log

Since this boat has a motor it needs a shaft to move the propeller. The shaft in this design goes through the keel. That section of the keel is called the shaft log. I used two 3" by 8" clear Douglas-fir planks which will be hollowed out and put together. Sandwiched between the two, making the shaft alley, will be a Vernatube made of fiberglass which I purchased from Centek Industries. To hollow out the  shaft alley  I ran the each plank through the table saw working from the center, out and lowering the blade with each pass. Its easy  if you do both pieces and both sides before you adjust the blade and move the fence. After the cutting I put a large key hole saw in the drill and ran it back and forth the length of the shaft alley making it smooth. Pictured is both parts of the shaft log coated with epoxy and the Vernatube in place  just before they where clamped together. Note I have already drilled the keel bolts  on both sides of the shaft alley. More on those buggers later.

The Keel the Backbone of the Boat

I decided to laminate my keel out of 2" by 8" Douglas-fir kiln dried wood as opposed to larger sections of wood or timbers. The wood was easily hand picked and I could cut out the bad sections if needed. Each piece was run through the planner to make a nice flat joint when put together. Both faces where covered with resorcinal glue clamped every 8 " or so and left to dry in the shop or basement which were kept at 70 degrees for the drying duration.  This is a photo of the two main sections of the keel. I laminated each section separately but here they were stacked on top of each other for spacial reasons. Later as we will see these two parts will be tared together and bolted down. And by the way still no boat shed!