Monthly Archives: October 2014

Building Short Shot – Part 5 – Skinning

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I am at least a week and  a  half behind on this project. Yet another sinus infection has stolen any strength or will to work I have had. Today was the first time in well over a week I have been able to be productive. I have gotten in an hour here and 30 minutes there, but you don’t get much accomplished that way.

As of tonight I have about 75% of the skinning completed. I am using the Double Corded stitch with the 11.7 oz fabric. This has become my go-to fabric/stitch combo. As I have said before, the fabric is a little stiff and a little hard to get the needle through but the weave is so tight you can really pull it tight around the frame.

ss-17I ended the stitching by just wrapping it around the end of the boat so that is just out of sight. Sorry, I didn’t get a photo. On the ends I trim the fabric and staple it in place with stainless staples.  This will all be covered the with bronze rub strip (stemband) screwed in place. ss-14Because the fabric has such a tight weave I was able to try something new. I laced the fabric inside the coaming and then pulled it tight. I could easily over tighten it and deform the lower coaming ring so I clamped the top ring of the coaming in place and then tightened it. With it tight, I could how everything fits and if I have any problems.

ss-15The only problem I have is some wrinkles at the back corner. This fabric doesn’t shrink like the 8 oz. does, so I want to keep wrinkles to an absolute minimum. These shouldn’t be a problem.  What I can’t pull out I should be able to shrink.

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Here she is when I quit. Assuming no relapse of my sinuses I expect to finish skinning tomorrow.ss-18

I wanted to post my chart of the time and cost so far.  I still have to adjust a couple of the cost figures, so this will change a little bit. But the time stands at 37 hours so far.  I expect to be in the low 50’s when all is said and done.

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Building Short Shot – part -4 FROG photos

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No build is complete with FROG photos. FROG is term I coined because everyone always takes they finished frames out and takes a photo of it in the yard.So much so that is practically a requirement on my forum now. It needed a name so FRame On the Grass photo.

ss-8ss-9If your paying attention, yes, you see sections on the frame with no stain on it. We just stained the areas that will show when you look through the cockpit. It’s such an annoying job we took the easy way out. Next time I will stain everything before assembly or I will spray on an aniline dye. Brushing on stain is no fun!

I decided to take the easy way out and I bought two cans of spray polyurethane rather than have to brush on the poly. The cans are expensive at $10 each but it is well worth it to me!

So far the costs are $229.90. Labor stands at 31 hours (rounded).

I am about to start skinning and I remembered to weight the frame, I think it is showing 23.5 lbs but I am going to call it 24 lbs. That is heavier than most because of the mult-chine design. Therefore there is a lot more wood in this frame than a typical single chined boat.  By the time it is skinned and rigged I expect it will be pushing 35 lbs. Just for fun I will predict 33 lbs, ready for the water.   ss-10 ss-11 ss-13

 

Building Short Shot – part 3

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I want to start by clearing up something. I have received a lot of suggestions, comments, ideas, etc. about how to fix the problem with lashing all the stingers at once. Obviously I was not clear in my last post because I don’t see a problem. I used to be concerned about ‘What if’ a lashing broke, but in all the boats I have built I have never had a lashing fail. So, there is no need to glue the sinew. Tie of a knot between the lashings or any other fail safe. It should work just fine the way I have done it. So everyone calm down and stop worrying. 😉

Now, back to business. I finished lashing the frame today.It is ready to come off the strongback but I was tired and didn’t want to fool with it. And it is easier to do some things with it still tied down.

When I quit tonight I had 27 hours of labor into the frame. Materials costs are around $160. As I said in my last post this price is close but will change a bit. I had a lot of the materials in my shop and I have to check on current prices and adjust these.

Speaking  of costs, I ran out of sinew and had to ‘buy’ a second roll. I started with an open roll so I probably could have gotten by with one roll. But most people use to much and end up buying a second roll. so that was included in the cost. But I bet I didn’t use more than 30′ off the second roll.

ss-4 ss-5I ran into a problem at the stern. The keel decided that it wanted to do an impression of a banana. It was causing the stern to twist out of alignment. It wasn’t to hard to push it back into shape but I was concerned it would, over time it would get out of alignment. I decided the simplest way to stop this was to insert a couple of dowels through the stringer and into the frame. This would keep it from sliding around and twisting out of shape. Then I lashed it all together as normal.

This will not fix with all alignment issues but it was a good solution for this one. Here are a couple of photos. And just to be clear, I DO NOT recommend this for all joints. There is no reason to do it unless you just have an unruly stringer as I did.

ss-6 ss-7After these photos were taken, the dowel was cut flush and the joint was lashed as normal.