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Little Hickman Sea Sled

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 2:27 am
by Fred in Wisc
Well I've had the TX18 plans for quite a while, so it's time to finally start building something.

Project considerations were: Provides a stable fishing platform for max 2 adults and a young 'un. Can power with oars, electric, and little outboard. Fits in the back of my minivan for short trips to the lake. Light enough to load by myself. Gotta fit up the basement stairs 'cuz it's real cold (11 degrees this morning) in the garage.

I live right outside Milwaukee WI. Since it's quite populated, many of the lakes in our area have limited public access (10-20' wide strips of grass for carrying canoes, or access down small shallow rivers). Seems the "fancy people" with waterfront property are sometimes a bit posessive of "their" lake.

Anyway, I have been lurking around here for years, built a S&G canoe a couple winters ago but wanted something more substantial. (Fishing in a canoe with kids.....bad idea. Dogs are even worse....No offense to Captain Sam.)

Thought about a little plastic "bass tender" but only for a minute. Considered the FL12, V12 and some others. But the TX18 is just SO COOL that I figured I'd scale it down and build that. (I'm a sucker for cool looking stuff, shiny things, and things that make loud noises. If I was a fish I'd never have a chance...) Got the plans. The SS18 Sea Sled plans were included. I decided to build that at 55% size and raise the freeboard a couple inches in the rear, creating a pretty much level sheer line. I would have liked to do 65%, but I'd need a wider minivan and some time at the gym to lift it.

Spent a couple hours messing with the plans and the math to get it so it looks about right, then created the stringer and panel dimensions. Raised the sole 3/4" to get more substantial stringers and frames under the floor.

Using 6mm okume for frames, 4mm for hull, double 6mm for stringers.

Since the boat is so small, I decided to build the frames as single pieces (in the plans they are each 4 parts assembled around the stringers). Worked out the nesting to get all the frames out of one sheet of 6mm. That was sweet. Had about 1/4 sheet left over.

Laminated 2 layers 6mm to form the stringers. Offset the joints about 7 feet. The stringers are only about 9 feet long.

Then I set up notches in the frames and stringers so the whole thing could be assembled and glued up. Covered my cast iron tablesaw in plastic, used that as a flat surface for assembly, squared everything up and started mixing epoxy and woodflour. It was way easier than I expected. And after setting up, it's almost perfectly square and level. Pleasant surprise. The sheer line is close, but will end up needing a little adjusting to get it just right.

The fillets are not pretty, they will need some sanding before taping to the hull, but hey, they're under the sole so who's gonna know? Just me and I won't tell.

Here's a few pics of the progress so far. Let me know if they don't show up, I haven't posted any before.

By the way, I would still be slacking on this except for seeing the pics of Daniel Huckleberry's boat. Thanks for the inspiration, Daniel. That's a beautiful boat.

I'll post more as it comes together.

Fred in Wisc

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Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 8:47 am
by davidtx
This looks very cool! So if I did my math right, it ends p about 9'10" by 4'5". It doesn't look like you are very concerned with speed given your list of propulsion requirements, but I wonder how much motor it would take to make this plane. This looks like fun, please keep posting.

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 10:43 am
by Dougster
Boy that's neat looking. Please keep posting as it goes along. I'm curious too what you'll power it with. Re rough fillets under the sole, well, heck, who cares? Seems like a creative, fun project.

Got the day off and gonna smear some 'poxy Dougster

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:03 pm
by Fred in Wisc
Thanks for the kind words gentlemen. Speed isn't too important, I usually fish small lakes ("tanks" to you Texas fellas if I recall) and a little rowing is a good workout. For bigger water, I'm planning to power it with my Johnson 8hp 2 stroke. That little motor planes my dad's 14 foot aluminum with 2 guys so I'm guessing it should be plenty. It's nice and light too.

With the extra sheer, it's a little longer, may turn out near 11 feet depending on how I do the front deck lip. Just about 4 feet wide, the SS is a little narrower than the TX.

Anyway this boat should be good practice for building the full size one some day. That's a big project though. Need some extra shop space at work to do that one.

Here's a question for anybody out there: I find 3 and 6 gallon gas tanks everywhere. Really I'd like about a 1 gallon tank to save space and weight. Does anybody know where to get one or will I need to get creative?

Also for all the guys who use Dremel tools for smoothing out fillets and such, I found a great deal on the little samding drums and mandrels at Widgetsupply.com. 100 1/2" sanding drums with a pair of mandrels for 10 bucks.

Fred in Wisc

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 3:43 pm
by Daniel Huckleberry
Cool idea, Fred! Thanks for the compliments on mine. I can't see the pic, but that happens to me alot at work (server blocks them). I will look when I get home. I would love to scale the SS18 up, but more than 10% and I am sure JM wouldn't like that much.

I think that will make a super cool little lake fishin machine.

Keep us posted!
Huck

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 3:58 pm
by AdamG
looks cool! I like it. I'd have cut the sides down, and made it into more of a powersled myself, just to reduce weight, as I wouldn't probably be using it where large waves are an issue. but to each his own.

Question now is does this "mini" version use up your "license" for the TX18, and you will have to buy another set of plans for the full size? Doh!

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:16 pm
by sds
Looks good so far!

One issue: the pictures are kinda big at 1,024x768 -- I have to scroll right and left to see them, and to read the text. Alot of other readers are probably in the same boat.

Suggest resizing photos to a max 600 pixel width -- you can probably do this right on photobucket.

Anyway, cool project. Looking forward to see how it develops.

cheers,
Scott

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 10:36 pm
by Fred in Wisc
I guess the little guy will use up my license, but I don't mind paying for another. If I do a TX18 eventually, that should be about the smallest expense involved. I'll bargain hard with the outboard dealers to make it up.

About the pics: They show up fine on my 'puter, just a little short of full screen width. I have to scroll over oa touch to see the last bit of text, but that occurs on many of the forums here for me so I thought it was normal. How are others seeing this? Please leave some comments so I know. I can scale the pics down easy enough. Just want to make it easy to use for everybody.

Trimmed up a couple panels today and got the tunnel panels zip tied down. Gotta tinker with them some to make it all fit up nice, so that may be a few days. This may take a bunch of ties to get it all fittin' happy at the bow, lots of stuff coming together there. Doesn't fit quite as well as I'd like in a few areas, but that's what I get for messing around with Jacques' design.

Fred in Wisc

Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 3:38 am
by steve292
I resize mine to 600 x 1200, which I find fine. I have to scroll sideways a bit to see all of yours.Nice work on your framing, interesting thing to do, scale down the TX18. It will be good to watch I think.
Steve

Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2007 4:07 pm
by ross61
Hey Fred,

Where are you located? I am in South Milwaukee. Built an FL14 about 4 yrs ago and I still have it. It has held up great. Let me know where you are and maybe I can bring over a sander and give you a hand when you get to the fairing stage. Interesting project. I really admire all the ingenuity of builders on this forum.

I'm typing this from the Dells where we are suffering an ice rain/sleet/snow combination. Oh well, nothing wrong with sitting in front of the fire with a cocktail.

See Ya!!

Ross