Marked the lines on the rudder in preparation for cutting, cut out the rudder, and tapered one side of the rudder.

Marked off the reference line, the station lines, and the measurements for the first piece of the keel.

Lofted the curves on the keel, and the two stem pieces for the first outer layer, and cut the keel and two stem pieces for the first outer layer.

Transferred the first outer layer of the keel and stem to the inner layer and the second outer layer, most of the time vanished trying to make the pieces fit together in my limited space without running into walls, boxes, and furniture.

Posted this website after "quiet time" (read as child trying to sleep, shut off the saw!).

Built the frame for a boat dolly so that things are a little easier once I go 3-d.   Now I just need to build the boat supports for the frame, and attach them.

Anyway, that out of the way, I assembled the deck properly, and once again, ran out of power to the drill ... this is getting to be a habbit.  I did get that job done first though.  I set the drill to recharge again, and proceeded with other tasks.  I widened the gap between the keel stern and the hull bottom to allow for the transom, sanded down that surface to ensure a good fit, dry fitted the bulkheads and transom, and spent some time going over the stem with the belt sander to fair up the underside a little.

I managed to borrow a drill  from a neighbor a little while later, and was able to put the stringers on the deck.  To complete the day, I dry fitted the deck onto the bulkheads, transom and stem, and it looks like it will be a good fit.  After making sure that it won't be going anywhere, I rolled it back to the top of the driveway, and covered the whole thing up with the tarp again as my weekdays don't usually see that much activity, and I have things to work on inside to prepare for another big weekend of boatbuilding fun.  All in all, a very productive weekend.

I also created the three bits that will attach the bowsprit to the deck, and the tiller, and put on the first layer of varnish for all four pieces.  I also ran to Home Depot to pick up so miscelaneous materials for the project, including the varnish used today.  As predicted, we've got rain, so small projects are on the books for this weekend, unless it clears up.

Who would have thought that one little baby could eat up so much free time.

I couldn't cut the hull sides as baby and her brother are now sleeping, so I lofted the pieces, screwed and glued the lazarette stringer in the basement, put another coat of paint on the rudderbox pieces and another coat of varnish on the bits and tiller.

I ran out of time, so attaching the lazarette stringer and mounting it on the boat, and assembling the second mastbox will have to wait until after the sides are on.  Luckily most of this can be done in the basement so temperature isn't as much of an issue.

Having seen how little space there is in the single forward access panel, I think I'm going to have to trust my pixie of a wife to caulk and paint that area.

I also glued up the steering wheel, and put a couple of coats of varnish on this as well.  I have also sanded off all the paint on the rudder and started putting coats of varnish on this.  So far I'm at five coats and it's really shiny.  While doing that, I figured why not and added another coat of varnish to the tiller arm.  I'm glad I've got lots of sandpaper for my orbital sander so I can get everything to a nice smooth finish.  More of the same until I can get more wood next weekend.

Today I broke in the new boatshed.   I've moved, so now the boat resides in a nice big garage.  Since I've decided that the cabin bulkhead's not going to remain where it is now, I cut it down significantly, making it level with the bottom of the cabin entry and the aft mastbox.   I then lofted and trimmed the deck to make it's new cabin bulkhead location match the appearance of the previous one.

After the destruction was done, I got to work on a few constructive projects.  I made the plywood plugs to fill in the gaps where pieces didn't quite fit (such as the hull sides up front).  I also made the left side piece that will hide the aft mastbox, and lofted the match to it on the right.  By now, it was getting too late to run powertools, so I made a cardboard template for the new cabin bulkhead, including a raised roof.  This ended a very satisfying night.

Headed home from work to get my checkbook, then half way back to work to look at, and probably buy the trailer.   Trailer looked good, and would serve well, though it ended up needing some work.   The spare was on the right side, with the original tire resting on the trailer, and the lighting didn't work ... re-wiring is something I'll be doing when I get a chance.   Anyway, on the way home, I blew out a tire on the freeway.  I jacked up the car, got 3 of 4 bolts off the tire, but the last one wouldn't budge, so I started kicking the tire-iron.  On the second last kick, my foot slipped off the tire iron and tore a chunk of skin off my ankle. 

Next kick got the bolt loose, so the tire came right off, and the spare went on.   When I lowered the car, I found that the spare was flat.  Go figure, it's never been used as long as I've owned the car.  Luckily, a few weeks earlier, I had bought an air compressor (primarily for my other car, but it happened to be in this one and I wasn't about to compain about the blessing).  The tire held air, so off I went, back home, two short miles from where the mishap occured. 

The next morning I had the tire replaced, along with another, and was informed that the rear suspension needed to be completely replaced, both springs and struts.  The springs were actually broken in half on both sides.  Go figure, I think the car's been like that as long as I've owned it, because it's always behaved kinda funny.   Now it's really handling well.  Ah well, quite the adventure.

Once the trailer was home, I spent a few minutes going over the differences in the size between Weekender and Vacationer with Pete, as he isn't sure which boat he's going to build.  I was originally going to go the Vacationer route, so I have both plans handy.

As to the boat, I basically did a lot of little prep-work for tomorrow's full day of building.

After this, I spent a lot of time measuring, checking for level, marking and cutting stringers and attaching them to the hull sides and transom.  This was complicated by the fact that I discovered that the trailer itself isn't sitting level.  Apparently, the spare on the right side is about an inch smaller than the original tire, or 1/2" at the hub.  I'm just glad I noticed before I did anything permanent.  It was kinda funny when I first noticed as I spent time getting the port side of the cockpit just right, then added the bridgedeck pieces again ... the level showed that things were all set only when the starboard side was almost level with the deck ... not exactly idea.   I may not be much of a carpenter or boatbuilder, but geez, I'm not that off.   I threw the level on the deck ... just as bad.  hmm, checked the driveway ... nope, things ok there.  What gives?  after measuring the boat, checking everything I could, it dawned on me to check the trailer itself.  Ah ha, there's the problem ... but why.  Ah well, I just threw in a 1x under the boat on the bunk to quickly throw the boat back to level and continued.  After dinner, I came running out with a eureka-like exhuberance.  Tape measure confirmed my flash of insight. 

Ah well, back to the boat.  At this point, the port side cockpit is completely set for panels, but I found that the pre-fabricated seat that Scott and I made last weekend wasn't wide enough.  I dry-fitted the seat and bridgedeck to see how things would work anyway, and it seems like I'll be in good shape when I get another 3/8" sheet of plywood for the seat bottoms.  Tomorrow, even though it's a holiday, won't be spent building.  Instead, we're going sailing with Scott Widmier, Jim Stumpf, and their respective families.

The remainder of my evening was spent making updates to my website.

After returning home from several errands, I spent about a half hour cutting out the pieces lofted a few days earlier.  After being called away for more errands, I returned to see about getting the forward mast stump into the mast box.  It was a little too tight, so I had to sand down the end that would be below deck until I got a good fit.  I started to chisle out the notch for the first of two hinges that will be mounted on this stump, but again got called away.

A few hours later I returned once more to the task at hand ... got half way done, was called away to dinner, and a short while later, finished the job.  Now, from the side, you can't tell the hinge plate is there at all, except for the spot where the hinge pin goes.  The mast stump is sitting prominently in the mastbox, making the garage look very short indeed.  It will just clear the garage doors if I'm lucky.

I was going to laminate a few 1x4's together for my bowsprit today, but it's just too darn cold now for the glue to set properly.  Instead, I placed three together and put them in place to get a feel for just how long the bowsprit will be, as I'm extending it an extra foot, giving a 32" overhang from the stem rather than 20".  I think I'll either have to remove it for trailering, or get a trailer tongue extension of a couple of feet.  Ah well, that's a worry for another night.

With the bulkhead adequately supported, I brought the mast stump and mast box back to this location to see how closely I got everything to fit.  the mast leans aft of vertical by about 5-6 degrees, exactly as I wanted it, but I do need to adjust the side to side alignment of the mastbox.  The mast stump wants to lean to one side slightly, so I'll have to hit the base with a belt sander to fix it.

First off, aside from varnishing, my bowsprit is now complete.  What started as four separate 4x4's of #2 pine is now a single 2.5x2.5" octagoned length of 6' long bowsprit.  All in all, it turned out quite well, which even amazed me.  Also, we finished taking measurements for the cockpit, which I didn't get around to doing earlier in the week, lofting the seat fronts and seat bottoms and cutting them out.  We dry fitted the parts into place so that the cockpit looked presentable, minus the bridgedeck and the seat backs.

Between boatbuilding sessions, we also hit garage sales, ate, and watched movies.  Not a typical day in the boatshed.

First on the agenda was taking apart all the dry-fitting I had been doing.  Wow, lots of room to walk around again.  After the pieces were taken apart, I vacuumed up the boat so that I could get a good bond between the pieces.  Next, I started assembly of the cockpit, including bulkhead, seat fronts, and stringers.  I left the seat bottoms detached for now, as I still need to seal this area for leaks, and paint the enclosed spaces.  With this assembly done, I finished permanently attaching the cabin sides, so that it's ready for the rafters, stringers, bulkhead, and roof.  I'll paint inside before attaching the roof though.

With this done, I set to work with bondo again, this time filling in a couple of nicks at the tip of the bowsprit, and filling in the outside screw heads and corners of the cabin.  Next, I put a coat of varnish on the upper half of the bowsprit and the one shelf I have already cut to fit.  I need another 1x8 for the second shelf still.  After the varnish had   set a while, I put another coat on the bowsprit and shelf.

Between coats, I took my rough trailboards, and cleaned them up a bit.  I rounded the edges with my router (well, router attachment to my spiral saw), and made swirl marks along them.  I did a fair bit of sanding on these pieces, but still need some minor sanding in the nooks and crannies before I'm satisfied and ready to varnish them.

I cut the pieces for the forward hatch, and dry-fitted them together, checking for fit against the hatch and sanding everything smooth so that it's ready for proper assembly the next time I mix a batch of glue ... probably tomorrow night. 

I also cut out the second bit chock, to replace the one I broke last week when testing for fit (the grain was going the wrong way and sheared off) and rouned the top outer edges of both chocks, as well as sanding them smooth.  Another task I dealt with was to replace the broken shelf end, and make a match for the port side shelf I'll eventually make.

Just for fun, I also took the full round pieces for the two gaff's and the clubfoot that were delivered last week and put them in place.  They were oversized and will need trimmed down, but it gave me the general idea.  The boom was delivered as one long piece, which works out well, as I may hit the water as a sloop once at the local lake to make sure it's water tight and to keep my momentum going.    Also, the rigging of one mast is probably faster than two, and I'm really hoping to be able to sail with friends in Ohio in three weeks.  Talk about a rush job.  If it's not ready, it's not the end of the world, as we've already been offered a ride on a Stevenson Pocket Cruiser.

All in all, I got quite a bit done tonight, and I'm satisfied.  Lots of little projects at this stage really help to keep the momentum going, which is good because I'm really pressuring myself to get done in a hurry.  The summer's a wasting.

In the end, I ran a series of 1x 4 x 8 " cross pieces under the panel joint.  This did the job of making sure that the grain wouldn't just snap under stress.  To support the flex in the opposite direction, I ran a 1x4 the entire length of the panel joint.  This did the job of keeping the panels stiff, but didn't do much to prevent the sag in the forward middle.  In the end, I placed a 4x4 under the forward center, and this took care of the remainder of the sag, and went a long way to support my weight all by itself.  I'll be placing a 2x4 along upper edge of the bridgedeck, screwed to the hull sides, the bridgedeck, and the cabin bulkhead.  I may need to run a stringer or two under the bridgedeck, half way between the center and hull sides on each side to stiffen it a bit more, but I'll see how it turns out as is.

All of this work was dryfitted only, as I wanted to be able to take it apart if something didn't line up correctly.

Perhaps I'll hire a child to climb in and paint ... nah, their parents might complain, since this stuff doesn't wash out easily.   After I was done working on the boat for the night it took me an extra half hour not counted here to clean me up.

I didn't get as much done as I could have, but I had my family around me for most of the day, and enjoyed interacting with them as I worked, which was a very pleasant change.

After dinner, I returned, and was able to get one half of a pair of gaff jaws lofted and cut, and used it as a template to mark another three that the schooner rig will need.  I put another coat of varnish on the bowsprit, the bit chocks, the cabin shelf (still need to cut one), and the shelf ends.  I also temporarily mounted the rudderbox and rudder to the transom.  I still need to modify the rudderbox for tiller steering, and with this in place can take the measurements I'll need.