DONE!! (mostly)

After two years of work my Skerry is complete, except for a few hardware and rigging issues.  It's one of those things where you work and feel your way through an unfamiliar project until one day it hits you that you're finished, which is a very good feeling.  

My finished Skerry, as yet unnamed

View of the rudder assembly with blade in up position

Another view of the rudder showing the blade pull-down rope

The modified mast partner on the forward seat

Over the winter and next spring I will be working on rigging the balanced lug sail, yard and boom.  I'll post some new photos when she's launched.

Daggerboard and Rudder Assembly

Daggerboard after sanding

Drying varnish with shop lamps

Although very straightforward to construct, the daggerboard and kick-up type rudder assembly were the most time consuming parts of the sail kit.  The daggerboard was the simplest:  glue on handle cheeks, then feather leading and trailing edges with the sander.  Three coats of epoxy and three or more coats of varnish.  I decided to oil the handle which provides UV protection and feels better to the hand.

The rudder blade went in similar fashion:  feathering, epoxy, and varnish.

Rudder blade after sanding

Rudder blade pull up hole

 In order to bring the kick-up rudder blade back to vertical position a rope has to pass through the rudder head and be attached to the blade by means of a knot hole.  Following some advice on the CLC Builders' Forum I over-drilled the rudder blade knot hole and then filled it with wood powder epoxy, let it cure, then drilled the half inch hole through the epoxy.  This insures the wood around the hole doesn't deteriorate from water saturation.  Because I feathered the trailing edge of the blade above the hole position ( a screw-up on my part) I had to thicken and reshape the edge adjacent to the half inch hole with epoxy and then drill the quarter inch rope hole into the edge radial to the half inch hole.  Once again wood thickened epoxy comes to the rescue.

Glueing the rudder head

 The rudder head consists of two external "cheeks" and two internal pieces that form the rope channel.  All are glued together, epoxied and varnished.  The tiller fits on the top and at right angles to the head, glued then the contact is filleted with wood thickened epoxy.

Oars

All that had to be done with the oars was add the leathers which was a lot easier than anticipated.  

Mast, etc.

 Finishing the mast, boom and yard (for balanced lug) went pretty smoothly.  I made a couple of changes, though, from plan.  First, I was a little worried about the strength of the mast scarf joint so a couple of dowels were drilled and epoxied into the joint.

       
Because of the way I plan to rig the balanced lug, I decided to form a round rather than square mast, as supplied by CLC.  After some calculations I planed enough of the square corners and then the resulting angles off the mast to create a close approximation of a round mast.  I ended up with a little less than a two inch diameter, which may or may not be strong enough for 57 square feet of sail.  If it doesn't work (punt) there is a plan for making a more stout mast next year.

One thing I discovered was that the use of these V-shaped rests really help when planing and sanding to steady the spars.

No epoxy was applied to the spars.  When varnishing the spars they rested on a couple of half inch dowels to keep them off the bench.  That way I could varnish the entire spar at once instead of in two or three sessions.  Three coats of varnish and done.

A belated update

I've been working all year on the boat but have been remiss in updating this blog, so here is the progress I've made on my Skerry:

When I resumed work in the spring 2011 I finished sanding the epoxy coats on the interior and began to sand the epoxy on the exterior of the hull which proved to be a lot quicker and easier.

After sanding, I applied two coats of primer and then three coats of Interlux Brightsides paint to the hull, with sanding in between each coat.  I thinned the paint with 10% thinner, applied with a thin foam roller and tipped all bubbles with a foam brush.  This process seemed to work pretty well with minimal runs and brush marks.

I made the decision to purchase the sail kit, but decided to go with a balanced lug rig sail instead of the sprit sail.  For this configuration the sailmaker recommended that the sail be lowered on the mast and that the standard mast be raked 7 degrees aft to keep the sail CE directly above the daggerboard.

To accomplish that end I installed the mast step per plan, then designed a new mast partner on the forward seat lip, moving the hole aft about 1.2 inches which will rake the mast the required amount.  Once glued and screwed in place it's really solid.

Next I applied three coats of varnish to the interior.

Seats are IN!

I was really dreading installing the seats because of what I thought were some wide gaps between the seats (especially the aft seat) and the hull sides.   I spent a lot of time trimming the seat supports and seat slots to try to minimize the gaps.

However, after weeks of agonizing over the issue, I found that mixing the fillet epoxy so it was really really thick was the answer.  This helped to hold it in place in the wider gaps until it hardened.  I got this trick off one of the online boat building forums, which are proving to be invaluable for the project.  In this case, many cooks enhance the broth.

 Next the boat was flipped over to make the fillets on the underside of the seats.  With almost all the basic components in place the boat is now approaching its full weight and feels very stiff.  Even though I didn't get as far in this project as I had hoped this year the impression of substance gives me a great feeling of satisfaction.

Shop lights keep things warm while the epoxy fillets cure.  It's getting down to the freezing mark at night now.  After about 24 hours of curing with the lights  we had an 18 hour power outage due to the  upper midwest "landicane".   I think (hope) that the curing had progressed enough that the cool off didn't cause any major problems.

It's not even making it to 50 degrees F. during the day.  My boat building season is drawing to a close.

So this is where things will end for the year, unless I order the sail kit and assemble some of it in the warmth of our Minneapolis townhome.  Next up for the hull in the spring will be sanding the exterior.

The Daggerboard Trunk

Finally!  With the help of friend and neighbor Dave the daggerboard trunk was installed.

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Fitting some parts require more than one set of hands and the trunk is one of them.

After the center seat was glued and filleted into place, I cut the hole for access to the trunk.  This was a second good excuse for buying my router.  The saw rasp trimmed the slot up along with my Dremmel.

A slot also needed to be cut in the bottom of the hull for the daggerboard using the same equipment.  

 You get one shot only so this was a little bit of a gut check to cut a hole in the hull I labored on for so long.

But all went well.  Skeg and daggerboard slot line up just like they're supposed to.

The Daggerboard Trunk

For a pretty straightforward item, assembling and finishing this part seemed to take forever.  The main issue was not realizing that there is supposed to be a very slight curve to the bottom of the trunk to conform to the bottom of the interior hull.  I didn't realize this right away and had to back up a step in the assembly, which took a couple of extra days.  I had epoxyed the wrong side of one of the planks and had to coat the other side before gluing it together.

Night time temperatures are now down in the 40's and 30's again which really slows up the cure times.  Epoxy that would cure and be ready for sanding overnight a couple of weeks ago now has to sit for 48 hours due to the low temps, even with the help of my incandescent shop light.

Anyway its now done and ready for sanding and installing under the center seat.  All three seats are also sanded and ready for installation.

Lots of Sanding and a Little Wildlife Diversion

The dog days of summer have given way to the dog days of epoxy sanding.  In order for the varnish or paint to properly stick to epoxy and look smooth the entire interior and exterior of the hull, frames and seats must be sanded to a dull gray finish.  Before the seats go in is the best time to do this to the interior and that's what I spent the better part of the week doing and it's not finished yet.  Starting with 80 grit then 120 then 220 the object is to flatten the surface, eliminating all small circular shiny spots that indicate small depressions.  

This is all easier said than done.  As you sand a film of white epoxy dust builds up and it's tough to see how much progress is being made.  You have to remove the dust with a shop vac after each effort.

It also involves lots of bending at the waist to reach the bottom of the boat.  Every once in a while you accidentally go through the epoxy to the wood.  That area then has to be recoated, cured and re-sanded.

The random orbital sander works great for the open areas but I had trouble getting into the interior stems, the upright frames and where the planks come together.  For a while I thought I was condemned to hand sanding for these areas.

                            

Thankfully I discovered the Black and Decker Mouse which weighs a fraction of the ROS and has a narrow enough sanding pad to get into most of the tight spaces.

                              

I'll probably have to go over everything with 220 grit the next session, but I feel pretty close to being done with the interior.

Meanwhile, back in Nature:  Cheryl took this shot one morning of our local eagle dismembering a fish on our dock.  You'll notice he isn't fazed by the scary plastic owl on the upright.

Starting on the inside

I now had to flip over the boat.  This action is turning out to be somewhat problematic since I can't do it myself.  Because there are seldom any people around who could help me (or any people period) I have to time the "flipping" when my wife is around.  The boat is getting a little heavier with each step, so I hope she can continue to help me with this.

This is the part where the grunt work really begins, I think.  I couldn't reach the middle of the interior of the boat because the saw horses I have are too tall, so I had to cobble together a couple of supports that were no more than 18 inches or so high.  I sanded the entire interior, then vacuumed the dust out.  Fillets were applied to the joint between the bottom and number one panel.  While the fillets were still wet I dropped in four pieces of fiber glass cloth, one in each of the four compartments separated by the seat supports.  Straight epoxy is then applied to the cloth until it's pretty transparent.  After it stiffens somewhat I trimmed off the excess cloth.  This was a much more difficult job than fiber glassing the outside of the hull. In spite of thinking that I ensured the cloth was perfectly flat I had some bubbles under the cloth the next morning.  I was able to push these flat because, luckily, the epoxy was still wet. I don't think they'll be too noticeable when everything is done.  I filled in any remaining stitch holes that were open, then another layer of epoxy to the entire interior, wait, sand, vacuum, epoxy.  I'll have to sand everything one more time in preparation for the varnishing before installation of the seats, but won't get it done this trip.

Another view after the third coat.

I test fit the seats and they went in place reasonably well, except for the stern seat.  I'll have to deal with that next trip.  I beveled the edges of the seats after the test fit and sanded everything smooth, especially the edges that will be visible.

Two coats of epoxy need to be applied to both sides of all seats.

The Skeg

The skeg is the "fin" in the bottom of the stern that helps the boat track properly.  Installing it is a fairly straightforward procedure:

I've marked the skeg position and also where the four screws go.  They are drilled from the top, then I went underneath to drill counter sunk holes.

After making sure the skeg is plumb to the bottom, the surface of the contact points of the skeg and bottom are coated with epoxy thickened with silica, the skeg is applied in the measured position and then the wood screws are sunk from the inside of the boat into the skeg.

The "tail" was a little warped so I forced it into a centered position with duct tape.

A fillet of wood powder thickened epoxy is applied to the angle formed by the skeg and bottom.

There was quite a bit of rasping and sanding to get the "tail" to blend into the stern stem, but it turned out pretty well.  Another strip of wood is tacked and epoxied to the bottom edge of the skeg (called a wormscrew) which will absorb most of the abuse and can be replaced if too worn, leaving the skeg unharmed.  After some more sanding, etc. three coats of epoxy are applied. 

Finishing the rails

When I resumed work the first task was to finish the rails.  Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures of this process.  After practicing on scrap with my new router and 3/8" roundover bit, I more or less successfully added a rounded edge to the top of the rails.  I used my sander to remove a few gouges, etc. Next (as seen in the photo) I planed the excess off the bottom of the outside rail to match where the inner rail was trimmed before installation.   I wanted to stain the rails a dark walnut shade, so I proceeded to do that, applied a first coat of epoxy after letting the stain dry overnight, and then let the epoxy dry.  You're supposed to sand in between the two to three epoxy coats.  When I did that the stain started to come off in patches and looked terrible.  I might have used the wrong type of stain.  Anyway that meant re-sanding the entire rails AND the breasthooks which created another problem:  the breasthook wood is not solid but laminated with different types of wood.  After sanding the hooks for the second time I broke through the first lamination and I decided to sand the entire surface of the hooks to the same depth.  This doesn't look as nice as I had hoped, but it's not terrible.Then two coats of epoxy was re-applied to the rails and hooks . . . a very frustrating experience, but I'm moving on.

Applying the Rails

I managed to get both rails on this week and it wasn't as tough as I thought. The glueing together of the rail pieces that I did last week worked well with no separation issues when I inspected them. One of the rails was slightly out of alignment where the last short piece was glued to the second longer section, but that turned out to be a non-problem when I went to glue it to the hull.

Most of the first day was spent planing the taper of the bow ends of the two inner rails as advised by the instructions and then cleaning up excess epoxy by planing, sanding, etc. I'm a pretty slow planer but I'm getting better. Each inner rail was then dry fitted to the edge of the sheer by means of clamps and then two countersunk holes were drilled into the breast hooks on each side through both rails. The wood used for the rails is extremely hard and I was forced to discover the higher speed setting on my cordless drill. One rail is removed, both contact surfaces are covered with epoxy, the rail is then wrestled into position and the two wood screws are driven through the rail into the bow breast hook side. Then it's simply a matter of applying the rail progressively toward the stern, attaching clamps as you go. When you get to the stern breast hook two more holes are drilled and screws driven home. Then you do the other side. I managed to use every c-clamp, spring and spanner clamp I had, 39 in all! CLC says that 15 is the minimum and 30 is better but 45 would be even better, with most of them being c-clamps.

I can't imagine attempting to do this with just 15 clamps. You're not so much bending the rail to the sheer as pulling the sheer out to meet the rail, and for this reason the much more powerful c-clamps are more useful.

The instruction book says to rasp both stems down to a one inch flat surface, but I just noticed that the photos in the book show the top of the stems are left pointed, which is news to me. In the shot at the left you can see a gap is created between the rails and the prow because I flattened the stem some in this area as well. I'm going to have to modify both points when it comes to planing down the rails to a "pleasing shape" as CLC says, and I have a plan for this.

After letting the inner rails cure for 24 hours minimum the 8 wood screws are removed from the bow and stern. Mercifully, the rails didn't pop off the boat when I did this. I'm getting more and more confident of the holding power of the epoxy. The second, outer set of rails is attached in the same manner as the inner ones. Here the spring clamps are almost useless because you're pulling not only the sheer but also the inner rails out to meet the outer rail. A 48 hour cure time is needed now at 70 degrees. No problem because I have to be back in Minneapolis until sometime next week.

Next week: rounding the top outer edge of the rails and shaping the points. I'm thinking of buying or borrowing a router to save on sanding time.