Skipper's Boat-Building Blog
Comment Making a start I know that I said I've got to find some cheese! But, well, we spent the morning at a table-top sale trying to get rid of some of the stuff I'd cleared out and I just wanted to get on with things as soon as we got back. So, I pinned up the first drawing and set about making the building stock, or at least cutting the sheet down into planks. Great! More fun with power tools. Since making the shelves my sheet has been reduced to 2.13m long and I worked out I needed 6 planks at 125 wide by that length and 2 at 175 wide (for the stock beams). You won't see many dates in this blog but, as this is such a milestone I'll tell you it's the 8th of November 2008. I was thinking of making the rudder and dagger board first because they are small and I can feel I'm getting on with things but, the building stock is going to give me some idea of the size of the boat (remembering that the boat is bigger than the stock). And I'm going to have to face up to that sooner rather than later. I will be screwing the whole thing together though so that I can take it apart if needed. The circular saw's dust bag (home made) needed emptying a couple of times while slicing the sheet of 'Smart Ply' up and I made sure I collected one bag-full for experimental thickening of the epoxy later (I read that in Jim's book). At the table-top sale one stall was selling hardware and I found he had one tiny-little bag of brass nails which I bought for 25p (then tested them on the magnetic base of a small spirit level ... don't know if they're brass but they're not ferrous). There's probably enough there to do half a seam. Oh well, it's a start. I also found a toffee hammer which the stall-holder let me have for free. It looks perfect for the brass tacks. I cut the 175 wide planks down to 4,1m long lengths for the stock beams and clamped and screwed them together in pairs for so that I only have to cut the form twice. I would like to have dome them all in one go but that would be too thick for the jig-saw. Wish I still had my old jig-saw as this new one seams to wander off-line very easily. In the news today from the BBC: Two former bank chief executives are calling for the planned takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB to be halted. Also in the news: The owner of an Indian food store in Bristol has received an apology letter and £100 from a former drug addict who stole cigarettes from the shop in 2001 Index ----- Next