An Uninvited Guest & Antique Boats

 In between various hobby projects, I got to meet one of my "neighbors" this weekend and go to an Antique Boat Show at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  Actually, my lovely wife got to meet our little friend first and was then most insistent that I come out and great him (or her - not really sure on that) properly.  Our visitor was a very big water snake for maryland - at roughly five feet in length, he commanded some level of respect.

The snake also proved to be a very good climber - you can see him coming back down after climbing up the outside of my BBQ.  After watching him for a bit, I picked him up and moved him to the adjacent woods.  A snake that size has a good appetite for mice so we need to encourage him to stick around.
 

 Later during that Saturday, I wandered over to the Antique Boat Show.  Other than the few posted here, I didn't take many pictures (perhaps my wife's admonitions indicating that even the thought of a new boat would be dangerous to my health impacted my desire for photographic evidence.

All of these boats where built in the 20's and have been superbly restored - the bright work on the wood is simple amazing.

 Here's my favorite of the show

Sadly, these boats rarely see the water except for shows like this.  They spend most of their time out of the water in dingy workshops as their owners obsess over every detail - you know just like table top armies!

 

Robotic Sail Boat Build: Post #2

 Sean and I made some progress on the hull for his robotic sailboat project.  It may not look like much now but it was a lot of work to get the hull planking cut and bevelled and then stitched in place.  The first picture shows the boat's current status after about 10 hours of work this weekend.

 I did find a wonderful "Stanley" micro hand planer.  It's about 3 inches long with a 1 inch blade and worked perfectly for this application.  All of the hull planks needed to be bevelled 30 - 45 degrees to ensure a tight fit.  I prefer to do this work by hand as it's a great stress reliever.

 As with any wood working project, one has to decide what face of the wood will be on the outside vs what get's hidden on the inside.  While this boat is a proto-type for a large version we can make it look good, can't we?

 The construction technique for this boat is referred to as "stitch and glue".  The planks are attached to the hull frame and each other use bits of copper wire (the stitching part).  Once that's done, the planks seems are sealed using a 2 part epoxy glue that's thickened with wood dust to help with the coloring and strength of the bond.  We didn't do any of the epoxy work and will get around to that next weekend.

Here's a picture from inside of the hull where you can see how the copper wire binds the planks and hull frame together.  It's a surprisingly strong bond.  Copper wire is used because the epoxy will not adhere to it.  Once the glue has dried, I'll snip each copper wire and pull it out.  Once the wires are removed the resulting holes will be filled with the same epoxy / wood dust mix.  This part of the job requires both patience and precision as it just will not do to forget to fill all the holes!

Lastly, here's a shot of the hull with all the wires in place.  There are over 150 wire strands in place for this 4 foot long model boat.  That's nothing!  I've built a 16 foot Skerry using the same method and it had over 1,000 strands.

Once the hull planks are bonded it will be time to sand, sand, sand and then sand some more.  After that we stain and seal the hull.

Oh yeah, I seem to remember some fort I need to build for Historicon game...

A New Project

 It seems that I have started yet another project.  Actually it's my son's idea so he gets all the blame.  With robotics season over until next September, Sean was going through a little bit of robotic withdrawal.  Then inspiration seized him!  Why not combine his two favorite past times: Sailing and Robotics and build, wait for it.... a Robotic Sailboat!  To be honest, I was sold after the words "Hey Dad, let's build a" but it seems like a fun "off-season" project for Sean and some of his team mates.

We needed a pretty big model to allow us to build in all the electronics and went with the R/C model "Independence" from Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC) a boat building outfit located in Annapolis.  I've built a few of the 1:1 CLC kits and really like their products.  As you can see in the picture above the kit is mostly a bunch of wood and some plans.  The finished boat is 48 inches long and the mast is five feet high.  That's a pretty big model there should be enough room for the electronics.

The electronics is all Sean's category - he's thinking a building a GPS-based guidance system along with a magnometer to measure how much the boat heels (leans to one side) in high winds.  He and his buds are busy mapping out the system components and figuring out how much money they need to raise to fund the project.  They're also planning to install a standard R/C system to act as an override if the autonomous stuff fails.

The most complicated part will be figuring out the programming to trim the sail based on wind direction and the location of the current waypoint.  It's always fun to watch the initial optimism of a new project.

My job is to help with the woodwork on the basic hull and mast.  Hopefully, they'll leave me out of the electronics as that stuff mystifies and scares me!  It's all voodoo, you know.

The second picture is a photo of a finished model, hopefully ours looks like that but with a few extra antenna and other gizmos' sticking out.  We'll see....

A 1:1 Scale Boat Kit

Not all modeling efforts result in tiny replicas of the real thing. It’s possible to transfer your modeling skills to build something a little more substantial. Last year my son developed a real interest in sailing and we decided it might be fun to build a basic boat rather than buy or rent one. After some google searches we settled on a kit from a local manufacturer Chesapeake Light Craft (CLC). CLC gives you the option of either purchasing the plans, purchasing a kit with all the parts pre cut or anywhere in-between. They were also very, very helpful during the build process, so I recommend them highly.

Building the boat was like any model or miniature build. One first reviews the plans, inspects all the parts and remove any flashing / imperfections. The hull planking is assembled using a lap-stitch method. The hull planks overlap like tongue and groove wood flooring and are initially held in place by copper wire loops ever 4 or 5 inches. I think we drilled over 800 wire holes and put in 400‘ish wire loops! We then used epoxy to fill in the seams and bind the boat planks together. Once the initial epoxy seams were dry, we removed the wires and applied more epoxy to fill in the wire holes and “voila” you have a hull.

Then the fun starts - sanding, sanding and more sanding. Two coats of epoxy and six coats of varnish later, she’s ready for the water. If any of you decide to try an build a boat here are some helpful hints:

1. Don’t sand the epoxy seams too much. When the boat was first put in the water we realized that we had sanded the seams too much as there were lots of micro leaks along the side. There is nothing more depressing than launching a boat and slowly watching her take on water. After that we learned to test launch our boat in the pool.
2. The build process uses a lot of epoxy to seal the hull - due to the curing time you need to work in small batches and buys lots of surgical gloves. Also, if your head gets itchy while you’re applying epoxy ALWAYS resist the urge to scratch it. I discovered that epoxy covered gloves and head scratching don’t mix unless one wants an excuse to get a buzz cut.
3. Take your time - boat building and rushing equals waste, frustration and the likelihood you’ll expand your child’s vocabulary in a guttural way - just like with model building. Again, take your time!

It took us about 75 hours to complete our little boat, but it was a blast.

Here are some pictures of the build process: