At last a build thread: CR16 skiff

[Fuzz]

Making progress!Having the strongback on wheels will make a ton of stuff much easier.
Either the new shop heater is working really well or your wife is Canadian

[cracked_ribs]

Yeah, my garage isn't that big, so I think the wheels are going to be pretty critical for access.

No heat in that picture - no epoxy, no heat. But as my wife says..."our people are Nordic."

[cracked_ribs]

Just dialing in the jig...going to try to pick up the rest of the plywood and the epoxy tomorrow if I can.

[cracked_ribs]

Everything showed up today and some of it was even correct. Spoiler alert: everything from BBC was exactly right. Everything else was...an alternate.



Rented a trailer and drove to the specialty wood store a couple hours south of here. Asked for BS1088 meranti...got BS6566 which is a lower standard that is no longer actively maintained. Probably fine and was charged a lower price. Would cost around $300 to do anything about so I'll probably just angrily move forward. Have to boil test it for sure now though. My own fault for not inspecting everything as it was put in the trailer or reading the specific line items on the receipt and cross-referencing them vs the internet. Every time I let my good nature take over and assume anyone else knows what's going on and is paying attention to the outcome, I end up regretting it. I am so sick of learning that lesson.



Drill arrived a week late from promised delivery time...wrong model, not a hammer drill. Messaged vendor. Annoying. Will require money back to ensure vendor does not wake up with series of new 1/2" or smaller nostrils installed in face. His neocortex is safe primarily because I think I would need the hammer function to get through the frontal bone.



All the epoxy and supplies, correct and perfect, exactly as expected from Boat Builder Central. I had to move them through customs myself because I went with an independent freight forwarding company; it was easy enough but I needed a PDF invoice that I realized I didn't have. Emailed BBC at 8:14 am. They drew up a PDF and had it in my inbox at 8:26. I doubt I will buy supplies anywhere else again. Jeff and Reid of BBC are just about unparalleled as far as service goes.

The freight forwarding people were also awesome and undercharged me because I was a new client. The Canada Customs agent was also really helpful. The plywood people were also very nice which is why I let my guard down on inspecting the wood. Anyway I'm sure it will be fine and they did cut me a deal on the price after finding out I was building a boat, and had a good story about fishing off the west coast of the island in a little skiff when I was a kid. But man...never again do I just trust the people who are supposed to know what they're doing.

Please pardon my aggravation...lots of effort today, only to arrive at this moment of realization about the drill and the 6566 a few minutes ago.

[Fuzz]

I am not surprised at all by the service from BBC. Every time I use them I am amazed by the service and it is clear they care about their costumers. Narfi and I had an order shipped and Reid s=went beyond the call of duty to get us a great rate. I will give them my money if the price is any where close on stuff. And I have had Jeff tell me where to get stuff cheaper without my even asking. That kind of service earns repeat costumers.

[Jeff]

Thank you guys!! I appreciate the kind words!!! Jeff

[cracked_ribs]

Don't thank us, you earned it by hard work! I have dealt with, I'm sure, a thousand different companies through their online presence from when I was working for a magazine and having to arrange samples and prototypes sent to me for testing...not many meet your standards of service. I would guess less than one percent, for sure. You guys really are a pleasure to deal with.

Today I guess I'll try to finish setting up the jig and maybe clearing out my actual shop (my garage is just a workspace, I have 99% of my gear in the basement of the main house) for scarfing the plywood together.

[cracked_ribs]

I never get as much done in one day as I hope, but here's today's update:

Bought more misc lumber for minor tasks like supports on the jig.

All stations are now assembled on the jig although fine-tuning is still ongoing.



I temporarily rigged up the motorwell-transom assembly. This is necessary at this stage to set the transom at the correct angle, but it will ultimately be a critical load-bearing structure to ensure there's a good strong box beam to transfer the engine loads to the structure of the boat.



And the only other thing I got around to was relocating the plywood for the hull panels.





I need to join them on the long axis, which I intend to do with scarf joints - lots of people will already know these but basically, the wood gets cut on a very shallow angle (I'll use 1:8) to give it plenty of surface area for contact, and glued. I want to do it on a nice flat surface, at least sixteen feet long. And it wouldn't be me if I didn't do at least some of it in a totally inappropriate location, after my living room build of my last boat.



Well, it turns out our bedroom has a nice flat floor, around 20 feet long. Loads of space. And the deck is around thirty feet wide so I'll cut the scarf angles out there on a sunny day in the next week or so, then glue everything up in the bedroom, then cut the panels to shape on the deck and lower them back down with rope. The plywood sheets don't weigh much, so I hauled them up two at a time. Not difficult.

Tomorrow I'll try to finish up the jig, and maybe make a little scarfing jig so I can do that whole process with a router.

[Fuzz]

Any body who can get away with boat building in the bedroom is my hero

[cracked_ribs]

I'm extremely fortunate in that my wife has no expectations of conventional behaviour from me and isn't particularly interested in normal stuff herself...it was actually her idea to do the scarfing in the bedroom. I mentioned I needed a large, flat surface to do it easily and that I would probably have to spend a bunch of time cleaning the basement to do it there.

"But you hate cleaning," she said. "You would have to spend all day doing just that. Could you get the plywood into the bedroom? That's smooth and flat."

It's true, I hate cleaning. I hate anything that could be considered a domestic task. I am not cut out for civilization at all, in fact. I'm pretty good at stuff like turning a small tree into a mast by shaving it down with an axe. But dealing with taxes and mortgages and insurance...those are also problems I would be inclined to solve with an axe, unfortunately.

I believe the conditions of our marriage were pretty much "there will always be loud music, motorcycles, and gunfire; first person to back away from any of the above forfeits."

So a bit of epoxy in the bedroom...not likely to cause trouble. We are both fairly barbarian in inclination.