Installing Keel

Once I had cleared my thinking about whether to fibreglass the garboards and whether to install keel on while the hull was turned upside down, the time for action had come!

I called John Brooks. the designer of the Somes Sound 121/2 who explained the pros and cons of fiberglassing the hull - his view was that epoxy alone was a poor option and that if I wanted to use epoxy on the hull, I should also fibreglass it.  But when I thought further of how much the garboards are protected from abrasion by the protrusion of the lead keel, it became obvious that this was a wasted effort.  So I decided (again!) to stay with the marine paint and reply upon the quality sapele marine ply for durability....phew!!!

Next decision was whether to install the keel before turning the hull rightside up.  I was keen to pursue this option for reasons of access to final fairing of the keel into the hull and also since I have so little space in my workshop.  John felt that armed with the right lifting tackle the hull should be well able to withstand the forces of turning.  I then emailed Dave in SFO who also build a beautiful SS12.5 and pioneered turning the hull with the lead keel on, and he thought that my approach would work fine. Serendipity played its part when my neighbour and firewood supplier John gave me three large strong ratchet straps which were surplus to his requirements.   So that settled that!



I cut countersink holes in the keel with a forstner bit which was a little undersized but I was pleasantly surprised how well a straight bit in my router widened out the hole and gave a clean flat base.


Armed with these insights, Brian and I got stuck into fitting the lead keel.  I had repositioned the hull onto 4 cross timber to spread the additional load on the hull.  Also I coated the insight of the slot in the lead keel with epoxy to ensure that the surface wouldn't wear on the centreboard.


Fitting the keel  was not as straightforward as I had thought, as I had some difficult getting the bronze 1/2" bar down fully.   I had drilled the keel and keelson with a 12mm auger bit and thought that the slightly snug fit would be to my advantage however,  I should have really welded the top nut (or epoxied it beforehand) because relying on double nutting to screw the rod down only allowed me to go so far. I had to cut a a slot in the top of the rod to screw it down the final inch with a large screwdriver.  Panic set it as we realized the task was taking longer than anticipated as we wondered if the epoxy would kick before we got all finally bolted down.  We needn't have worried, but it was a close thing!!

Got to finish up by saying thanks to Brian and all contributors (Dave, John et al) who advised me so well on the process.  It seems like a real milestone has been accomplished!

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Hull fairing, DWL and machining lead....

Spent a few days fairing the hull and sanding,  I am using a a Hempel epoxy fairing compound, which takes a bit of practice to get get right.  Initially I think I was spreading it too thick, until I realized that it can be skimmed on very finely almost like a thin layer of paint with a stiff plastic spreader - leading to less sanding

and a smoother finish.  Having sheathed the rudder and centreboard I was left with lots of minor blemishes which the fairing compound rectified.  I practiced on the centreboard as this will never be seen again!

Also I sealed the edges of the ply stakes with neat epoxy.  Once again, my wife Siobhan was right! "Why don't you just use a big syringe to apply the neat epoxy to the edges?"  Well thinking I knew better, I brushed it on liberally and spent the next two days scraping and sanding off the excess....

Here's a picture of the hull with the laps sealed prior to sanding.




Next came to finding the DWL on the hull.  Of course all the meticulously DWL lines I had on virtually every part of the hull had long been consigned to the sanding dust heap...so with Brian's assistance we reworked the DWL by taking various measurements from the plans and then using Brian's fancy self leveling laser, we scribed the DWL on the hull.

This photo doesn't really depict the DWL very well, as my long serving Nikon D70 finally died, so I have been taking pics with my Samsung smart phone which struggles a bit in the dark.

However, we were able to get a laser line running from stem to transom and they matched up quite well with the marks we made from the plans.

Here's Brian with his self levelling laser

Next step was to clean up the lead keel.  I needed to countersink the holes to accept the bronze washers.  The 1/2" washers have a 32mm external diameter and my Forster bit collection had a 30mm and 35mm, but no 32mm.  So I cut the holes out to 30mm and used a router with a straight cutting bit to widen and clean out the holes, which worked surprisingly well.

I had some holes, hollows and dips in the keel which I filled with molten lead and faired with epoxy.  I have more work to do before it is ready to fix permanently onto the hull.

I have been getting some good advice from fellow glued lapstrake builders on the yahoo forum.  I have now decided to sheath the garboards with epoxy and glassfibre, I only wish I came to that conclusion sooner, having spent so much time fairing the garboards already...

Also looking for some detailed advise on how to use slings to turn the hull with the lead keel bolted, so feel free to comment if you can offer suggestions.

Today was a busy day for the couriers....my order from Rutlands Tools arrived. Pride of place was a set of Japanese pull saws and a Quansheng #4 smoothing plane, plus a box of 170 assorted bradpoint drills and various bits and pieces for jig making.  Then some parts arrived from Classic Marine UK - keel banding, bronze tow eye, bronze dome nuts for the inside of the chain plates and some latches for the lockers -  which is quite exciting.  I'll take some photos tomorrow and post them (done!).  I am in the process of ordering the rigging parts from Classic Marine who are really great people to deal with - very helpful even to first timers like myself.  I'll write this up when the parts arrive, but so far it looks like they will supply an authentic rig.

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Rudder, Centreboard and Keel fitting

It's been a while since I last posted and really that's because I procrastinated too much about what steps to take next - paint inside the hull or turn it over.  Once I got my plan straight, we made decent progress:

The bronze hardware had arrived, thanks to Ballentines Boat Shop who were extremely helpful and knowledgeable and Brian who collected the parts for me while visiting relatives nearby, so I made some progress towards completing the rudder.

Here you can see the gudgeons being fitted to the leading edge of the rudder.  Once I had these installed, I removed then and sheathed the rudder with fiberglass woven cloth.  This resulted in a reasonable finish but I reckon I will need to finish with fairing fillers to get a smooth finish.  I decided to sand off the glass where it curved around the trailing edge as it seems to stand somewhat proud from the boards edge, so I will also finish this with fillers.

Next I made some further refinements to the centreboard.  I followed a useful instructions sheet

published by the Gougeon Brothers which recommended drilling out the hole oversize , with wide chamfers at both sides of the board, for the bushing and remaking with glass cloth soaked in resin and finally assembled with a large bolt and two washers to squeeze the resin impregnated cloth into a smooth bushing.

The result was quite encouraging and I hope will last well.  Here's the finished result shown here with the bronze rod inserted.

So bolstered on with this progress, I assessed that the next thing I needed to do was turn the hull.

I wanted to drill the hull for the lead keel bolts, but the floors beams would have been in the way, so I concluded turning the hull was the only way forward.  Also I needed to seal the edge of the ply planks with epoxy resin and do some final fairing of the hull - best accomplished with the hull upside down.

Before I could turn the hull, I needed to the chain plates to the hull, as this process requires drilling holes in the hull.   Making the blocking board to fit between the hulls strakes and the bronze chain plates was quite slow and tedious, necessitating several attempts before I got clean fits.  I wanted a tight fit rather than relying on epoxy to fill the gaps, so that I could varnish them to show off the bronze chainplates.  My friend Brian came along to help, which was just as well as it was quite a brain teaser trying to figure out how much and which way to tilt the band saw.

Here on the right,  you can see the chain plate installed where it protrudes through the side deck beams.  Although it looks a little long here, there is an other Sapele deck to go on top.   I didn't cut the hole for the shroud as I have not taken supply of the rigging fittings and not yet sure what size to drill the holes.

Inside the hull, you can see where the chain plate is fitted to the backing plates.






Once the chain plates were installed, it was time to turn the hull.  Last time I did this with my friend Brendan and we managed quite well (at least Brendan didn't complain too much when I had him holding most of the weight and being squashed against the wall to protect the hull...thanks Bren!), but since then quite a bit more has been attached to the hull.  We set up two slings out of the ceiling, plus this time we had the benefit of the steel RSJ which we had fitted along with a sliding carrier for a block and tackle, not to mention two extra pairs of hands, thanks to Brian and Bren's son Scott.

However we slung the hull too high, so when it came to turning it over we couldn't get it to clear the ceiling (only 8ft - compared to beam of 6ft) so we had to reset it into lower slings and with much huffing and grunting we got her turned!  It's really a challenge working in such confined spaces - we had to practically rearrange the workshop to perform this simple task.

Once we had the hull turned over, we set to dry fitting the lead keel.  This is where the block and tackle running along the RSJ made for a smooth process.

The keel sat very well onto the  hull with only very small gaps - so the time and effort I put several months ago into fine tuning the keel's shape by using copious templates really has paid off.

I was quite looking forward to the challenge of drilling for the keel bolts - yet everywhere I read, the perceived wisdom seems to be to drill from inside the hull into the lead - which makes a lot of sense, because if the holes come out of the lead a little off line, it would never be seen.  However since this wasn't an option for us, we make a drilling template block taking the drilling angle off the plans and converting this on the pillar drill into the drilling guide.

 This was simple a length of 4x4 stock equal to the width of the base of the lead keel, into which we drilled to holes at 4 deg angle off vertical to allow for the bolts to exit inside the hull at the preordained positions.  We checked our template block first by inserting 10" long 1/2" dowels into the drilled alignment holes and measuring the distance from each end to see that it corresponding gap on the plans.

Next to the actual drilling process.  I had read so much about how drills break in lead and go off line, so I decided to use a simple brace and wood auger bit, which was quite hard work but very effective and we ended up with very satisfactory holes exiting either side of the centre board trunk inside the hull.  Here you can see Brian hard at work.  I read that acetone makes for a good lubricant for drilling lead, but I compared this to cutting fluid and found the latter to be much more effective.  Once we made through the lead, I switched to a hand held electric drill to go through the wood, which speeded up the process.  Since by 3/8" auger bit wasn't long enough to go through both the lead and deadwood at the same time, I finished off the deadwood when we removed the keel, having made a deep guide hole to ensure we were perfectly aligned.


Once these holes were completed we fitted the bronze threaded bar, which was predominately 1/2".  We had used 12mm auger drills , but the 1/2" bar was quite easy to thread into the slightly smaller 12mm holes which will hopefully make for good water tight seals.

Since we had such a hard time turning the hull, I didn't even contemplate leaving the lead on before turning the hull right side up again, even though I saw how Dave Johnson in his blog did so quite successfully.  So I faired in the forward part of the keelson into the lead and also the deadwood at the transom.  I will leave the final finishing when the keel is bolted on permanently and the hull is right side up.

Lead keel safely back on the trolley

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Somes Sound - Midpoint of build?

Been busy lately on the internal fit out and getting to the stage where my boat is beginning to take shape. Some days I seem to make great progress, others you spend hours seemingly getting nowhere.

What does seem surprising is the amount of wood I still have left over - yet there doesn't seem to be that much more construction to be done.   Initially, I spent a good deal of time calculating the timber requirements, as I had to import it from the UK and didn't want to rack up unnecessary shipping fees by buying all at once.  I have lots of Sapele mahogany left over  - so maybe anther boat is on the horizon!

My next major step is to remove the decks which are dry fitted and seal the planking with epoxy, then turn the hull and finish the outside of the hull.  I'm thinking I will put on the primer coats and perhaps one top coat.  Also considering fitting the lead keel: drilling for the bolts and doing the final fairing, then removing it before right siding the hull again.

 I resawed a 45mm x 208mm Sapele board for the side decking.  Although the side deck is only about 2 1/2" wide, the curve on the hull demands quite a wide piece of stock to fit the curve.  By the time I resawed the 45mm board and planed it through the thicknesser, I ended up with only 3 slices of 12mm thick Sapele - plenty for what I needed, but nonetheless, 9mm lost in machining!  I debated on using some of the Sapele ply as it is such a good quality ply, but the rotary saw pattern isn't quite so authentic at the real board.

I experimented with some different bandsaw blades - trying a 1" blade which came with the saw (secondhand, but new spare blades)  The 1" blade was complete rubbish - smoke and squealing, so I switched for a new 1/2" blade I bought last year and the difference was night and day...

I also managed to rope in my friend Brendan to do another lead
smelt.  We fired up our old lead smelter, and poured about 20lbs of lead into the centreboard.  It went reasonably smoothly with no drama and the off cuts and left over scrap I had from the original keel or and now consolidated into nice shiny ingots...Thanks Bren!

I have to figure out the best way to carry the 16mm bronze rod which is used as a pivot pin for the centreboard.  I'm wondering if a piece of copper tube will suffice.




I have yet to make up Sapele trim for the lockers and shape up the hull rails, but I do think I have reached the  halfway stage of the build.

I am in the process of placing an order with Ballentine Boats in Cataumet, MA.  They are great people to deal with - very helpful and responsive.  Bronze hardware is very expensive so it's good to deal with people who are so genuinely helpful.  Thanks Tyler!

Here's a picture of the parts which should be coming my way soon:

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Front deck and side lockers

Making some progress on the decks and side lockers.  Using John
Brooks advice in specifications, I used a sheet of fabric to measure out the deck.  I managed - just to get both sides of of one 8 x 4 sheet of 3/8" ply.  In doing so, I had to shorten the side deck panel by about 1", which will simply mean that the Sapele solid deck will need to come forward by an extra 1" - no issue there.

While I used the manufacturers straight edge, when I cam to laying the two sides on the deck, for some reason which I haven't been able to establish, they did not site together seamlessly, so I had to plane a little off to get a better fit.  I don't imagine it will be a problem, as the deck will be covered in Dynel and epoxy, so a gap of 1 mm should get filled up quite easily.
I dry fitted the deck with 8 by 1" bronze screws.  I must have used 50 or 60 screws in the process - 2 of which broke in the deck beams, despite setting the torque on th electrc screw driver at a low setting.

Here you can see the deck before it was screwed to the beams and the edges cleaned off with a flush trim router cutter.

Next I moved onto shaping and fitting the side lockers.  John Brooks provides a full sized pattern in his plans for one of the locker sides.  So I made a template from this and used this to spile an exact copy for all four sides of the lockers.  However, this caused some head scratching, as the locker sides are fitted at stations 8 & 10 and these have slightly different hull profiles.  This resulted in the locker sides running out of alignment, so I had to do quite a bit of refining.  The next picture shows how the aft locker side is higher than the front, which would have cased the seat to run off level, unless lines to the aft bulkhead were checked.  Sounds obvious, but anytime I have deviated from John's plans I have subsequently found this to be at my cost...hopefully I have it right this time.  Once again a quick email response from John satisfied my doubts.

Next I started to create the V notches in the side locker panel.  Based on a suggestion over on the BuildingGlued LapStrake Yahoo groups of using a jig on the router base, I made a simple base with a plastic strip guide.  This worked quite well, though with some refinement could be better...ideally longer.

 Here you can see the base of the jig attached to a small router and the
resulting grooves cut into the side panel.

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Internal Fit Out - continued...

My next step was to build the aft bulkhead and install the aft deck beams.

The plans call for 3/8" ply (I'm using Robins Elite Sapele) which can be fitted either as one component or two halves.  I elected to fit as a single component and so had to first scribe a vertical line on the inside of the hull where the bulkhead was to be positioned.

I spent considerable time with a laser beam with limited success so I ended up using straight edges clamped to a spirit level amidships, having first checked and rechecked that the hull was sitting level fore & aft and bow to stern.

Using a joggle stick which I clamped vertical on the hull, I drew point on the spiling board at each plank land which I then transferred onto the plywood to cut out the bulkhead shape.  This proved quite successful although I needed two different joggle sticks to account for the longer lengths.

Having cut out a template and satisfied myself to the final measurements, I transferred the measurements onto the final stock.

 I then routed lines into the panel to imitate the paneling effect.  I used a simple jig to space out the lines but on one run managed to misaligned the jig so I ended up having to fill the errant line with epoxy---shouldn't matter as this panel is to be painted.

I also brushed neat epoxy into the routed cuts to seal the ply.  It fitted well into the hull requiring only small fillets of epoxy to make for a sturdy joint.

So far so good.

Next stage was to make the doors and fittings for the bulkhead which John Brooks advises to do before fitting the bulkhead.  The plans call for the fitting to be looser than what you would allow for normal cabinet building...Hah - not ever having built a cabinet before, I reckoned that making them looser would most likely be the outcome!

The profile of the trim called for quite a complex Z shape, which was to be repeated for the side lockers, so I elected to make all three at once.

Here you can see the Sapele being shaped mainly on the table saw and then router.  I was quite pleased with the result.  Next came to jointing the pieces which was quite time consuming but enjoyable work.  The lower edge required a different profile with a small angled sill.

I decided to use TiteBond 3 to glue up the joints as they seemed to fit quite snugly and are not structural...plus I want to varnish these pieces so the TiteBond glue line should be less visible than epoxy.

Next step was to make the doors which also are encased in a Sapele frame, using half lap joints,  This worked out quite nicely and I think it looks the part.  When I first saw the Somes Sound in John's workshop, I was unsure if I could make such intricate (at least to my eyes) components, so I derived great satisfaction in getting them made.

Once I had all three frames and doors made, I installed the rear bulkhead.  This time I used tape to form a neat fillet of epoxy.  I'm not sure I would do this again, as the tape was quite difficult to remove later when the epoxy had set.  Perhaps I should have pulled the tape once I was finished laying the epoxy and before it hardened.

Once the aft bulkhead was installed, this gave me the reference height to fix the transom cleats for the aft deck.  I was unsure as to how these cleats should be fitted, and a quick email to John Brooks elicited a very swift and concise response (Thanks John!) where he described how to make and use a declination level, whereby the level is fixed to a batton and raised at one end to allow for the correct fall from the aft end of the deck towards the bulkhead, so ensuring that water is not left lying on the deck.  Also the deck has a camber to the sides to promote a dry deck and fair lines.

 The camber of the bulkhead is repeated in the deck beams and also the transom cleat.  I made a template of the camber which ensured that all decking components were identical.

Additionally there are two curved cleats attached to the hull between the bulkhead and the transom.

 Initially I misread the plans and so made them such that they lay to the same level as the top of the transom cleats on one end and to the top of the bulkhead at the other.  Then on closer inspection of the plans and building instructions, I realized that these side cleats need to be lower down so that when the deck is attached, there is a gap between the deck and the hull so that water can drain down each side and to a limber hole aft of the bulkhead.

This is a very thoughtful detail, as it ensures that any water draining off the deck is carried away unsighted behind the bulkhead and into the bilge through two further limber holes at the bottom of the bulkhead, leaving the exposed surfaces of the deck and bulkhead unblemished by water marks.  The more I get into building this boat, the more I am impressed with the attention to detail that John Brooks has engineered in his design.

Here you can see there the aft deck beams sit on top of the side cleats to ensure that the deck is fitted with a gap from the hull.

The plans call for quarter knees to be fitted to the hull and transom, but it is not clear to be how they should be designed - as the drawings do not look as if  conventional knees are fitted on a horizontal plane between the transom and the side deck filler, rather sitting on a vertical pace between the transom cleat and the hull.  I'll have to ruminate on these a bit more before deciding on how to proceed...unless any other SS builders out there can comment?

Next stage is to build the side lockers which provide support for the side seating.  I have already made the doors and frames and a template for the sides of the locker, so it shouldn't be too long before that's accomplished.  However we're heading off for a trip to Budapest to visit my daughter who is attending university there, so the building will have to wait until my return.

More later....Please feel free to comment with advise, critiques or suggestions.

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Internal Fit Out

Having completed the mast, I have resumed work on fitting out the hull.  I deciphered the plans for the mast step and installed these components between the mast bulkhead and trunk. In order to shape the supports for the mast step,  I tried using a spiling stick (or jog stick?) which gave reasonable results, in two dimensions, but when creating a three dimensional part - the third dimension being to follow to curve of the hull from forward to aft - it has limitations.  I'll get a photo of it tomorrow to make it clearer!

Hastily constructed steam box!

Next onto installing the deck filler onto the sheer clamps.  I cut stock from DF and then cut a 15deg bevel off one side.  This however proved very thick to bend inside the sheer clamp, so I tried my hand at steaming.

Being new to steaming, I elected to use a 4" soil plastic soil pipe.  I found a plan on YouTube which showed simply plugging both ends and using wooden dowels along the bottom of the pipe so that the stock is not resting on the wall of the pipe but rather on a rack of dowels.

I had a Black & Decker wallpaper remover steamer device which I was able to plug into a brass adapter in one end of the pipe.  

It created

quite a strong supply of steam, however on the first plank I wasn't able to get the pipe much hotter than about 180F whereas I understand you need it to be around 200F to 210F.  The result was ok but I don't think I left the plank in long enough and so it was still quite stiff when I came to clamping it to the outside of the hull to take up the sheer clamp shape.  The next day when I took off the clamps, the stock retained a decent curve but had considerable spring-back nonetheless.  Next came the slow process of cutting the end of the deck filler to align with the transom and over the transom cheeks which made for a tricky join and at the other end a simpler join to the bulkhead.  I found it difficult to get a tight fit at the bulkhead.  My process was to butt the end of the piece to the bulk head and then slide the aft end down at the transom to line up alongside the sheer clamp.  Each time when I clamped up the deck filler to the sheer clamp, the for'd end of the deck filler would move back by 2-3mm from the bulkhead and the friction of the boards facing each other seemed to prevent it moving back in place, despite repeated thumps from ever increasing sized hammers!  In the end when it came to glue up, the epoxy acted as a lubricant and so the joints came up snug.

Next process was to fit the coaming knees.  This was made simple by the addition of full sized patterns in JB's plans.  Clamping the knee to the bulkhead proved nigh well impossible due to its shape, so I used bronze screws to secure it both to the sides and bulkhead.  

Next I have to refine the 15deg bevel along the deck filler to accommodate the coaming.  I made up a plywood former with the 15deg angle on one side and a small torpedo spirit level attached to the other, which will allow me ensue that the coaming angle is accurate.  Initial trial testing indicate that I have only minor adjustments to make, however I think that the coaming angle makes a very big visual impact on the look of teh boat so I will trial fit patterns before signing off on this process.

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