Blade building project..

Sounds like you have been trough a

labour of love

once and still need psychotherapy to get over it <img src=

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These two guys obviously have an experience waiting for them <img src=

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Hi Gary

I like to live on the edge......of insanity <img src=

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I won't commit myself to doing it just yet, but certainly like to consider it.

Regards

Quote

That picture is just asking for a caption contest! <img src=

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Have a go at it, could be fun, but please do it in another thread. It should not be too hard to guess what we discussed, but that would be no fun. <img src=

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Building is fun when you can not sail.
Just have a look at the lastest updates on our building blog. <img src=

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Hi Rolf (Darthvader)
It looks as if you're cutting 4mm strips off your approx 25x450mm spruce plank. In my experience I would definitely be using the table saw I've seen in earlier posts. You mentioned previous amateur builders using 'Skilsaws' (your DeWalt) but this may be because they didn't have access to a table saw? I only mention this as you'll have to cut close on 200 strips for 6 hulls I would imagine.
Being a qualified joiner I'm very interested in your project so please keep posting and don't let your family commitments hinder you too much <img src=

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Mark,

the skilsaw vs. tablesaw isse have been much debated. The person I know who has the most experience building small strip plank boats reccomends using a skilsaw instead of a table saw. His experience is that the skilsaw produces just as good strips as the tablesaw for less work (setup, running planks trough it, breaking strips while handling etc). The short experience we have with the skilsaw is pretty good. We will at least give it a serious try.
Strips are 5mm btw. We expect to remove a full millimeter while sanding.

You are a professional woodworker? Whow! We will keep on posting updates to the blog and do a reminder her from time to time. Please keep comments, suggestions and everything else coming.

I left school and became a qualified Joiner, worked my way up and off the tools, went to university and completed a Bsc (Hons) degree in Project and Construction Management. Worked in management roles for various National Construction companies but really missed the feeling of producing things with my own hands instead of the pen. For the past two years I have been self employed as a Joiner, Carpenter and Builder and I'm loving it. There are certainly different pressures involved but the benefits far out way being just a payroll number in a National Company!!
By the way, I hope to design and build a Cat this year I have a lot of ideas in my mind I just have to put them onto paper and tell the wife and I'm sure the later will be the hardest task of this project!!

Why have you not spoken up earlier? We amateurs at woodwork need all the advice we can get <img src=

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What kind of cat is it you want to design and build? F-16 or something completely different?

Ok Mark, last night we ripped a respectable sized pile of strips. After the first 5-8 strips we really got the hang of it and from then on cutting perfect strips was a no-brainer. It was very easy to just walk the skilsaw along the plank. Dont think we will bother with setting up a table saw after this experience. Our kayak building/designing friend was spot on with the skilsaw. Hopefully the rest of his

easy-strip

building methods are as good. I.e. we are not going to glue the strips together individually but do them all in one go once they are in position. <img src=

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Next up for ripping are a few 2x4, to make up the sides. Hopefully they are as easy to do as the thin strips.

Hi Rolf
You appear to know exactly what you are doing and are working to a good plan which is the key. I have no experience in boat building so I'm not of much help but your blog is extremely good. To answer your first question I'm not planing on building a F16 but something a bit smaller to start off with. If I'm happy with the results then who knows!!!

First hull half is now mostly planked. Putting the planks in place is satisfying work, if demanding at times. I suppose it will become routine when we get to the last hull.. Updates are in the blog.

BTW: For those who dont know, I am the stern guy with a green shirt and a caps on. Frode is the tall guy with the woolie.

For those interested, we just pulled the first strip plank hull half off the mould and did a quick weight calculation.
I stepped on to our bathroom scales and got my base weight. I then picked up the hull half and we found the difference. Came out at 7.7Kgs. There are obviously several problems with this method to find the weight, but that is what we have got for now. Hull half is glassed on just one side with regular weave 200gsm glass but will now be sanded and glassed on the inside with 163gsm twill weave. We have learnt a lot from the process, so we fully expect the next half to be finished a lot faster with a better result.

So, if we say the finished hull half will weight in at 8.5Kgs that puts on a target weight of 26.5Kgs for the complete hull according to Marcus. Target should be 24Kgs to be close to min. weight, and I think we can achieve that. Phill and others have come up with some tips to further reduce weight which I dont think have been tried in other boats yet.
Even with just one side glassed, the part was very stiff. It will be extremely interesting to see how this project turnes out or if we will have a huge pile of firewood once we sheet in <img src=

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Don't we all just love the amount of different topics and info available here on this forum ?

I find Rolf's and Frode's efforts to be extremely interesting.

26.5 kg as a conservative estimate for the first hulls ? I find that pretty promising.

Thanks for the update !

Wouter

Wouter,

that is a very rought

guesstimate

. Once we get closer to a finished boat, we will be more certain. But the building method is not way off at least.

Rolf, if I remember correctly you were planning clear coat for the hulls. This way you would be saving maybe around 1.5 kg's of paint too, have you calculated that to your estimate?

I have been a naughty boy and forgotten to update you all on our project. I'll try to do better in the future.

We have not worked on the project during summer. Too many other projects and keeping the wife happy is important too. Now we are back at it. The building blog is still at: http://woodastic.blogspot.com/

I have two tips to share which was posted here recently during a debate about why homebuilding is important to a growing class. We have to be careful with the costs we incur on our boats, so we are always looking around for deals. Being able to use your own work as a way to get an affordable boat is a good way to help grow the class.

Tip 1: To get epoxy resin at a good price, dont buy in a store but do a phone session to industrial providers. If you have your own company you can easily score epoxy to 1/5th the price in a shop. We dont have a company, but were able to find an industrial provider who would sell us what we wanted anyway. The same providers often supply fillers, thickeners and fairing compound as well. Just make sure you know what you get so the epoxy is suitable for your project and your workshop. We found supplemental products to have a markup close to 20 times the cost price in shops!

Tip 2: If you need carbon fibers at a reasonable price, get to the phone and start calling carbon fiber weavers or manufacturers. We managed to buy 40kgs of carbon, at a very reasonable price compared to store prices. In fact the carbon and epoxy is so affordable that alu beams are much more expensive for us.

Some have called us nuts, so we had to find a way to block out the negative waves. The solution was obvious:

Rolf,

That picture is proper funny.

Keep up the good work

We have a good time in the workshop, when it is possible to talk over the noise from powertools that is.

Rolf,

I am curious to know what you mean with

reasonable price

since I also found a good source for 1st choice 370 grs/sqm HS carbon cloth.
For small quantities (1-5 Kgs) the quotation is EUR 20 per sqm or EUR 54 per Kg.
Besides for very special INTERMEDIATE modulus they ask EUR 35 per sqm.
I bought some of both

We did a little better than you <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" /> Sent you an PM.

Just in from Interpol:
Large quantity of carbon stolen from warehouse.
Suspects wore tinfoil hats and where last seen driving in an easterly direction. <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />

What do you get when you let the boys off to play with the chemistry set without supervision? You get a mess to clean up <img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" /> <img src="<>/laugh.gif" alt="laugh" title="laugh" height="15" width="15" />

Frode and Omar was to glue the rest of the bulkheads at frodes place last week. Turned out they had a small mix up when measuring the epoxy. It is suppsed to be 100 parts resin to 32 parts hardener. Suffice to say that 50 parts hardener to 16 grams resin dont promote a good result. Frode have to clean the parts, do some sanding and try again.

What did we learn? Mark the tins for resin and hardener with a big marker! I feel partly responsible as I did not mark or leave instructions on what was in the unmarked containers, but as the tins was very different, I knew what was in them.

And even in your story you are potentially adding confusion when you refer to 50 parts and 16 grams....mixing units could lead to a bad mix.

But I got your point.

I live in Norway and here we use the metric system. The scope of all epoxy measurement is grams for us. The important part is that the ratios are correct.

Rolf, you have to rub it in, do you... We promise to learn from this- and do better next time. Promise

Uh-oh, now that you are active here on CS the nag about me refusing to get on facebook will never cease..

Good to see you here Omar, you can keep me to the straight facts <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />

Nice to be here as well:) I need to work on my postings so I could get a better and cooler rating than just

stranger

.

Rolf, I was laughing pretty hard on the 50 parts harner, 16 resin, because I've done something like that many years ago when I was working on a wooden deck for a 505. It did get hard, too fast though!

And last week my 12 yr. old daughter was telling me she didn't need my help to make a cake, and then she added 1 1/2 cups oil (recipe said 1/2 cup) ummm, not so yummy cake...

Anyway, the DVD arrived yesterday and I put it in my laptop and watched it all.

Thanks for that!

Omar, welcome aboard, was that you in the foil hat or Frode?

Thanks Timbo for kind words and support during difficult time of messing up! I must admit it was me wearing that foil hat, next to Rolf. Good to be amongst friends here by the way;)