So, the saw keeps cutting, including drawing my first blood, teeth of saw through tip of thumb...not really deep at all, but still an early war wound. I hit a local $1 store and bought some clothes pegs! Awesome clamps for this project. I guess I will have to find some 1/4" plywood that is at least 5 feet long and about 12" wide. This should be fine as the base plate. My Dollar store adventure also turned up some foam sheets about 1/8th thick, might serve well between the ribs to help form the sloping water channel? I am thinking of planking the boat using boxes of those annoying little wooden coffee stir sticks you find in places like Starbucks. Mind you, I wonder if they are strong enough to hold up to a flying BB? If I plank and fiberglass the outside would that work? Just leave windows open for the thin balsa penetration windows?..... Ha ha... I know many of you are shaking your heads. Regardless I am having a lot of fun... Below is the progression of the ribs.
Hmm.... I don't know what a Butt joint is. In all honestly though early attempts to join the ribs are failing pretty badly. I may have to go back to the drawing board.... but for now I will keep experimenting.
Gosh you did such a wonderfull job on the cut out. I would hate to see you chuck it out, And start again. Maybe you can cope in the interal ribs from the shapes you already have. And and internal keel, that would tie every thing from bow to stern. By sistering in all the ribs to the keel, you may want to make those coped pieces big enough to be able to drill two holes (port and starboard from your new keel) each hole bigger than a size of a bb., so water can flow to your pump. Then make the sides of your water channel, that look alittle like a yard rake and glue then over your sistered ribs. Then make a friend who ownes a table saw and rip pine boards 1\8th to 3\16th and use that to cover your bottom. That's what I did. Yea alot of sanding, but you will find out that sawdust doesn't come from dusty saws. You know those ships had exteral fin keels. Maybe you can use them in to tie into the sistered joints. They run good ways amidships. I used wet balsa to fill up my water channel. By using my epoxed blige as a matrix and just layed piece by piece by *&^$* piece using wood glue. Clothes pins C claps made bb shot bags to hold the *+%%$ thing down to make the form. I then epoxed each one and glued them in place. I just cutout my interal keel out last week and Bobs my uncle. It's readly for guns. We are not that far a field you and I. In hind sight I would have built my boat differently. It has be said that you should build your second boat first. Advise like that should be on the back of a NATS "T" shirt. Again, great job on those ribs. I wish mine were half as good. Skip
I have planked a hull that way before; with fiberglass over it, it's plenty strong enough. A 'butt joint' is the where you just butt two pieces of wood together and glue them up. It is the least strong way of building things with wood, and building a hull this way will make you cry when they all go sideways together. I recommend (sadly) starting over and using interlocking joints like in Mike's Bearn build or my Edgar Quinet build. Both build threads show how it is done. It takes a little longer but we're talking 10-15 seconds per frame, and the hull will not fall apart on you. I'll take some pics out in the shop today to illustrate
OK. I glued two of my side walls together with Ambrose Glue? Over night the bond seems stronger. I do plan to fiberglass the hull For joints, could I drill holes for wooden dowels? Glued this way that might give more joint strength? Two dowels offset would resist twisting. Or lashing using fishing line might work the same way. How much strength does the fiberglass hull have? Would it still need a wooden frame?
The hobby plywood I have costs $5 and change per sheet. I can only get one larger sized bulkhead per sheet. My plans call for 18 bulkheads! That is a lot of money in wood.. about $90!
You can always dowel a butt joint rather than discard all your hard work. Just be sure that the adhesive coats the dowel fully and seals the joint right up. I would use an epoxy.
What I would do (having thought about it in the shop today)... short of starting over, the way to go is to carefully fit in blocks between the ribs (where the hard area is going to be), then fiberglass the outside of the lower hull (where you'd be glassing the hard area anyway), and that'd give it a lot more strength and help to hold the ribs steady for phase 2... which is doing as you suggest, and drilling down through the subdeck to pin the tops of the frames with very small dowels. The blocks between the ribs down low will be at least an inch high from the keel board, which will totally keep the ribs from twisting, especially if you put glue on the sides of the blocks so that the ribs are not just wedged there, but are GLUED there. For gluing in the blocks, I would use Titebond III wood glue. It's waterproof once dry (like it gets used on wood sailboats for joins that are under water... about as waterproof as we will need!) and it's relatively inexpensive. Why I would not use epoxy in this part of the build is that you will be cutting a lot of wood blocks (one between every pair of ribs, on each side, all the way down the length of the hull) and you will be mixing a LOT of epoxy for an application that does not demand it. Additionally, cost-wise, that's a lot of epoxy, where waterproof wood glue will do more than adequately, and far more cheaply. Save the epoxy for the fiberglass on the outside Other people that I respect will disagree, and I am cool with agreeing to disagree
I agree with the fitting of knees (that is what tug is talking about I think ). I have no experience with titebond in any of its variants due to being in Australia and will bow to the master in this respect.
Note the bow is cut... I lost track of one of my bulkheads and re-discovered it. So I decided to glue it to the second one I cut.... so Bulkhead #2 is now double thick... I plan to sand it down then glue on the bow plate... maybe use a brace on either side to make it stay in place. bulkhead #3 is under Bulkhead #2 in the photos, and up above is the center bulkhead # 9 from the front of the ship... Yes! That is exactly what I was thinking. I was going to glue longer braces.... Plan is to build on a flat floor, then to glue 1" blocks on either side of the bulkheads, sanding them to the same shape if needed... then gluing the blocks to the flat base plate or floor. I probably will glue up a water channel, then fit the two feet between bulkhead and water channel edge. this should give my bulkheads an anchor of several inches. I found some very inexpensive and dense foam pads, similar to a mouse pad, I can cut this material to fill the floor area between the bulkhead foots and water channel..... Another possible idea is using a double keel in which the center is a water channel... and use the same idea. Cross braces between bulkheads will be glued 1" below the waterline to support the Balsa wood penetrable areas, and will add strength to the bulkheads, helping to keep them at 90 degrees... then of course a cap plate at the top of the bulkheads to support the deck.. and keep the bulkhead ribs stable.....
I'm not sure which desolate stretch of land you're on, but check for woodworking supply type places (not big box lumber yards) - you should be able to obtain half sheets of good ply for reasonable prices, or at least find someone who can direct you to some. Possibly some nice baltic birch.
I bought my plywood at a local hobby shop, that charges about $5 per sheet, each sheet is 6"X12" I was quoted about $100 for two 4X8 sheets of marine grade plywood. Locally I can probably pick up a 4'X8' sheet of 1/4 birch for around $30 maybe?!?! I will investigate that. But, yes... here in Canada we pay a lot of Sales Taxes, and prices here are always considerably higher than in the USA for things. Our Cellphone contracts are usually minimum $70/mo... Cable is always at least $100 per month if you bundle internet phone and cable together. I plan to investigate a rumour that there is some sort of restaurant supply store nearby that sells those bamboo stir sticks.
Two 4' x 8' x 1/4" sheets of plywood will build a lot of ships, so $100 is not really that much. Your hobby store should be able to get 48" x 12" sheets of aircraft ply in. That is typically what I use, and I live in Canada to.
Not knowing more details (and if you're counting in USD or CAD), it may be apples to oranges... but my Cable Internet + low level tv package is 130something USD after taxation each month. My wife's cell (mine is on an employee referral plan) is an unlimited package (sprint) and is just under 100 a month after taxation. My local sales tax rate on goods (state + county + city) runs around 9.8% now. Back to the topic of lumber though... Marine grade plywood is stupidly expensive. And unnecessary for us. We waterproof everything anyways and we aren't making boats that sit in the harbor for months. Your local shop is charging disgusting amounts for small pieces of wood because they're so nicely cut down to a cute little size for people. The more you cut down a piece of wood the more it seems you get to charge per sq ft.
Yep, sorry Nick, sounds like the rates are closer than I thought. Sales Tax here is 14%, but it sounds like your comm bills are around the same. I had heard that US Communication companies were less expensive than here. I will see what I can find in some hardware stores; Something larger than the Hobby Store size, and more reasonably priced hopefully. LOL! I can always pay a few $ and get them to saw a sheet into a smaller size. I will have to recruit a friend to help me transport the wood home.
Probably varies a fair bit. As I said, likely an apples to oranges type comparison. If your cell service for instance is not unlimited, or lacks high speed data service, comparing to my wife's plan is poor choice. 14% sales tax isn't very pleasant. Income tax on top of that too? Those midwest panels are nice enough for what they are, but they're intended for small project type things where you don't need a quarter sheet or more, you really should be able to find something larger at a proper woodworking supply store. I've found that most places will cut down bigger sheets for you if you need it. First cut is usually free (or cheap) with each additional being a nominal fee. Annnnd, if you can't find a woodworking supply shop worth a darn, stop in a few cabinet maker shops. Sometimes you can get cut-offs of decent size for free/low cost, or they might be able to hook you up with what you need.
Figuring you're near BC Shaver & Hobbies, I did a little searching on the map. These guys are nearby PJ White Hardwoods Ltd. and their website lists 5x5 (standard size) sheets of baltic birch available in 3, 6 and 9mm thickness (again, normal for baltic birch). You might give them a call.
