Progress

Thomas had a day off school for teacher professional development (I think this is a day where they go to drink). He's currently off viewing "Furry Vengeance" with his Aunt Beth and Mom, so I'm doing photo duties today.

We have primed the cockpit insides with white (finish color will be white), and have started to varnish the rails as the epoxy is done. Only two coats on so far so we haven't done any sanding of the varnish yet to smooth it out, but soon.

Notice I showed more patience than usual and covered over the deck so it would not get covered in drips.  You can see the epoxy  fillet joint between the deck and the cockpit sides quite well here - the primer paint overlaps on to the deck about a half inch.  We could have sanded and filled a lot more, but Thomas is losing patience with the whole finishing process - he just wants the boat on the water and was trying pretty hard to convince me the primer was "good enough", and we did not have to repaint it with the finish coat.

Thomas and his Mom have been web surfing to find out about accommodations in Mystic Connecticut for the Woodenboat show. We hope to make it a family trip for the weekend, as Thomas finishes school the Monday prior to the show. We'll take Thomas' boat down and put it in the "I built it myself" part of the show. I expect Thomas and I will be helping people build boats with Eric, and Christine will do some shopping. I think Laura (Eric's significant other and professional photographer) will be going as well.

What is a Nano 2.6?

Eric has changed the name of the boat we are building from Microskiff to Nano 2.6. I'm sure there are good reasons, probably due to promotional or marketing considerations. The new name avoids all the confusing "skiff" debate. Skiff means many things to many people, and just using the term causes the people you are talking to to imagine very different things. To some, skiff means a small utility boat, usually rowed or outboard powered. To others, skiff means a flame throwing, wild high performance sailing boat that has roots in Sydney Harbor in Australia. These two things could not be further apart. Yet another interpretation is that the word skiff is rooted in the French language, referring to a French rowing boat used for fishing and transport.

So I guess to avoid the confusion, the boat is now called the Nano 2.6. I'm sure at some point, Apple's lawyers will descend to dispense righteous indignation and force yet another change as they will be certain "Nano" can only refer to an iPod.

We've been sanding the fillets between the deck and cockpit sides, prepping for primer paint on the cockpit sides. Thomas wants to go back to his original white paint choice for the cockpit, with the Senator's red on the outside of the boat. I like this choice, as it makes things a little brighter and cooler to the touch on the water.

Thomas news

Thomas has accomplished something his mother and I did not expect to happen - he decided he was going to get his Pleasure Craft Operator's License, and commenced studying the manual. For three days, he spent all his free time working on this. He wrote the exam and passed with 88%! At eleven years old, I'm sure he is one of the youngest licensed people in Canada. Everyone in Thomas' family is very proud of his accomplishment, although his mother and I wondered quietly why he never seems to apply the same laser-like focus and unbridled enthusiasm to his school projects ....

This license is required to operate motorized boats in Canada - under twelve years old is limited to under 10 horsepower. Luckily for Thomas, we have a three horsepower outboard. We are contemplating how we can make a detachable bracket for Thomas' boat that will allow him to use the motor.

A big factor in Thomas' success was that he had some help studying from his Auntie Beth. My sister is a licensed commercial captain, so she immediately had enough street credibility to earn Thomas' respect during the learning process.

We epoxied down the deck on the weekend, and will be making the fillet joints between the deck and the cockpit sides today (we hope). Thomas will be taking more pictures after he gets home from school today.

Pics of the boat

Well here is a couple pics of me and the boat we are at sanding and we also epoxied the rails

Hurry up and wait

We've been working on Thomas' boat every day. Problem is that most of the big jobs involved major wait times. We've finished off the laminated sheer clamp at the rail - fixing the inside panels to the sheer. This is the single biggest job in our build as we opted to skip screws and go with a glued laminate rail. Each 1/4 inch (4mm) piece had to be clamped for hours (basically a day) in place before the next was added. Each side has 10 layers.

Once both rails were done from a laminating stage, we got to know and love my Veritas hand plane. This one-handed wood plane made shaping the rails an absolute pleasure - creating little curly shavings of oak and decorating the garage floor just like the real boat builders. There was a little getting used to regularly adjusting the blade depth depending on where the plane was used, but what a miracle tool. We are really learning how the craftsmen from days gone by did things without power tools - and why there are times doing it by hand is better.

Since we completed the rail, it has been stained and now we've started to put an epoxy layer on top of the stained rail. At least two messy, drippy coats of epoxy are necessary - to be followed by sanding and at least three coats of UV protection varnish. Each coat of epoxy - another day gone. We're using the West System "Special Clear" hardener for the stained rail, and it doesn't kick and harden as fast as the preferred "Fast" hardener.

The epoxy is running down the inner panels as it goes on, so it will necessitate another round of sanding once it is cured to get the inside panels free of drips. We'll be very glad once we get the rails done and masked off so we can get the deck epoxied/filleted down. Once the deck is down, we're almost done. Just cleaning the fillets, perhaps some fairing compound and it will be ready for paint.

Robert & Eliane report

Robert took Eliane's boat over to Eric's place to try the rig. As you can see from the pictures, it looks great for it's functional requirements and the ultra low cost target. The aesthetics of the sail are great for the ultra low cost target, but may not be a perfect fit with the yacht club crowd.

The Bamboo spars look like they are going to do the job, After a winter here they are still as strong as needed. All the spars and battens fit within the hull - making storage and travel pretty easy.

Eric discussed the sail with me the other day - saying we might not need to bother with the broadseam panels and shaping. Looking at the photos, I think the shape looks pretty good.

A million little things

Every day we've been getting little jobs done prior to closing the hull and filleting the deck down. All the fillet areas are in the process of having the edges cleaned so the epoxy has a place to bond. In the interest of speed, I've used my angle grinder to remove paint, orders of magnitude faster than sanding or scraping. Once the grinder has done it's job, a quick coating of epoxy to reseal the edge is applied.

Added a under-deck support under the mast step. Fitted and formed the mast partner thwart. Tweaking the deck fit & location so the daggerboard slot lines up where I want it.

I fitted the Styrofoam panels better by shaving some off the edges - just to make the cockpit sides fit without a lot of compression. Everything fits better and without strain now.

Thomas interrupted his build progress to make a locking cabinet for his Macbook and accessories. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Thomas is obsessed with locks, keys and security. We cut some particle board, glued and air nailed it together and Thomas painted, Now he's got a custom made lockup for his laptop.

I've been doing a lot of mental think-throughs on closing up the hull and I think we are ready.

Back in the saddle

Well, it's spring and the garage is now consistently above freezing. Thomas and I started working on things after I had done a spring cleaning job on the garage (to make his Mom happy). Lots of salt (used on roads here for ice) and crud to clean up.

There is a million things to do to get the boat ready for the water - and I've found it is better to just dive in than to go into analysis-paralysis and stall.

So far we have:

• hot glued the styrofoam to the sides of the boat
• drilled holes for the oarlocks (which need to be epoxy filled and redrilled)
• dry-fitted and trimmed the "deck" panel so it fits flat on the framing
• attached the inside panels to the bulkheads temporarily - need to mix epoxy and cabosil to made filleting goo, as I don't trust glue for this job
• Figured out how I'm going to make the mast partner thwart, bought the Oak 1x6 needed and will be cutting & fitting it. I'm going to install a wooden block backing plate under the rail to create a place to mechanically attach the thwart, as well as epoxy. I think the strength demands of this critical component should not be underestimated
• Varnished the deck (one coat) needs another. Going with the dust & bug anti-slip coating that happens automagically here

Thats it for now - I'll update the list as I do things or remember things we've done.

Really important note:

Eric has been asked to go to Mystic Seaport, Connecticut to the Woodenboat show to build some Microskiffs with people during the show. I'm rushing to complete Thomas' boat so it can either go as a sample of what kind of result is possible, or to at least have photos taken to show a complete boat. Thomas and I might go down for the weekend to see the show as well. I went to Mystic Seaport as a kid and loved the place - crawled all over the Charles W. Morgan and the museums were cool.

We've paid a lot of attention to detail on Thomas' boat, and Eric has picked up on a few of our building techniques to incorporate into the build plan. These things include:

• Using the Titebond III glue for glue jobs not needing the construction adhesive (I used epoxy for the construction adhesive jobs)
• Eric is going to use my method of handling the laminations for the rail - a one inch one on the "outside", then the normal depth ones, then another one inch one on the inside, capping the edge grain of the plywood completely, reducing problematic exposure of the edge grain to wear
• Eric likes how we handled the transom area of the boat - fitting the inside panels around the transom bar and also the angled transitions from the transom up to the laminated side rails