More clamps

Bought 10 more clamps today so that I can do more batch glueing. Continued to work on #1, 2 & 6. There was some head scratching involved today as well. It seems the frames I bought have been cut considering stitch-n-glue between the bottom and first plank since there are no cutouts for the stringer, so now I need to figure out what I want to do. I am leaning towards making the cutouts my selves and build according to the drawings.

Have also started to think about how I will do the masts since I want to build them from wood (birdsmouth) instead of the specified aluminium masts.

Time today: 2.5 h

Starting on the frames

Today I started to glue up the frames, finished most of #2 & #6. I am going to need more clamps!

As I now have started to build the boat properly I will try to keep track of the time spent a bit more in detail. So far I assume I have spent around 10-15 hours getting organised and putting together the building jig.

Time today: 2 h

On even keel

Got the strongbox right side up, it was actually a lot easier than I expected so I guess my weight estimate yesterday may have been slightly exaggerated.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was also level! (enough for my purposes)
I was so happy that I had to get a little reward, as you might see in the middle picture.

The rest of the evening was spent on sorting an marking the solid timber, so that I can find the right pieces easily.

Step one done

Finished with the strongbox! All that is left is to actually turn it right side up, but that will have to wait until tomorrow, it is heavy...

It turned out a bit bigger than expected, 0.75 (without the castors) x 0.6 x 4.3 m. Built from 9 mm ply, 40 x 40 timber, snot glue and screws. I am guessing the weight is around 50 kg. A challenge for tomorrow.....

Stormy weather

There is a storm blowing over northern europe today, quite nice to be in a warm garage and hearing the wind howling outside.
Today I am assembling the strongbox, hope to finish later tonight. If that is the case I will update the blog again.

Strongbox progress

Glueing stiffening to the sides of the "strongbox". Hopefully I can do the assembly tomorrow or Monday.

More glue

I promise there will soon be more boaty pictures. Just a quick shot of my snotty glue as it will soon be replaced by epoxy. It is not all bad actually as soon as you get used to it. It is strong, bridges gaps, accepts fairly long opening times before setting but it is really smelly (some strong solvents in there). I still have no idea what it is but it does not matter.

Taking good advice!

Continuing to glue ply sheets together. I got some very good advice from "Rational Root" about my lighting arrangements, so now we should see a marked difference in picture quality. Agree?

Glue station

Not much time today so I took a few minutes to set up my glueing station. Very simple just a cut off cardboard box covered with cling-wrap and a layer of sand to catch any spills. I hope it will work since I am no fan of cleaning up the mess of unmixed hardener or resin.

Glueing with strange glue

The first scarf joint was not very successful, I wanted to save on the expensive epoxy so I got some cheap construction glue for the strong back. I have now idea what it is, feels like glueing with snot (yellow an sticky). The joint is not pretty but feels strong enough.
For the second joint I decided to screw the plywood to the workbench to get a tighter join (you can see one of the screws in the picture), and a few buckets of water on top just in case.

Again sorry for the picture quality it is actually a lot brighter in reality than what it looks in the pictures. In addition to the 60W bulb in the ceiling I have three 150W spotlights. I will keep blaming my phone camera (if anyone has any good tips I will listen).

Puttting the pieces toghether

While waiting for the glue in the first plywood joint to cure I decided to put the frame pieces toghether. After finishing the strongback the first thing I need to do is to glue up the frames, so it is about time I figure out what goes where an mark them for the future. It took a bit longer than I expected since the kit I bought have some differences compared with the drawings, but now it is done!

Planing scarfs

This weekend is dedicated to making the parts of the strongback box. As mentioned earlier the size of the plywood is a little unusual so I will have to join three sheets to get the lengths I need. I tried first to plane three at a time but found it was quicker and easier to do them one by one.

Back again

I have been travelling a lot lately so there has not been much progress. Tonight I spent a few hours sharpening chisels, they are old and in extremely bad shape.