Nice Ash!

For followers of this blog, you know I've had issues with my keel blocking. Turns out it's a never ending issue. Yesterday, I realized that the pattern provided by CLC is about 1.5" short, but it's not really their fault, exactly. The pattern is actually the view from below, as if you were a dolphin looking up at the keel, wondering what that crazy music is blaring from below decks.

Missed it by that much. Just a dry fit - haven't cleared the squeeze out from the centerboard trunk yet. Note a mistake: the butt joint blocking should be 1/2" from the top of the keel to fit the cap, not flush as shown here.

The issue is that the profile view (port or starboard for those nautical types) shows an angle back to follow the cut of the aft keel part. This isn't clear anywhere but to those who cut the keel themselves, since the pattern isn't marked in the manual. The bottom line is I'll need to do some jiggering to make the keel blocking whole. It's not that big a deal. In fact, the manual calls for a small bit of timber between the centerboard trunk and the keel nose to fill the gap between those two important parts. I'll have another bit of timber between the centerboard trunk and the keel blocking with maybe a small tenon or something to encourage a better mating, cuz I'm not cutting that piece again. Per advice from Chris, I'll also pour a bit of epoxy into this area to be sure it's watertight. 92 pounds of lead goes in there so it can be a little more messy than I'd normally allow. The annoying part is it's taken me 3 days to figure out what went wrong.

With that issue solved (in my head, anyway) I did what most people do who get tired of any one thing: I turned the page. A lot of pages. All the way to the boom gallows and tiller. A boom gallows is a structure usually at the stern of the boat used as a resting place for the boom while trailering, and as protection to the crew while underway. It's at a height that will prevent the boom from falling into the cockpit, crushing the helmsman like an angry apple. Some boats have a solid piece of lumber as a gallows, while many others put some real flair into this part of the boat, including leather trim. I'll probably be somewhere in the middle.

I've always wanted to do a laminated BG and tiller in the same motif as the highlights of the boat. My highlight wood is padauk, a truly amazing wood that's shockingly beautiful (to me) but difficult to wrangle like that girl in high school everyone wants to get to know except she spends all her time at the rodeo roping calves. For the contrast wood, I grabbed a nice piece of ash. Firm, yet supple, with character lines and just the right width. I think I'll stop there before I get into trouble.

Driving home with lumber in the convertible. It was a nice, sunny 40 degrees on the way home. Shorts weather for us in Minnesota.

Over my lunch break, I fired up the convertible and headed over to the very originally-named Hardwood Supply in NE Minneapolis. They generally do a wholesale lumber business but will also sell retail for a slight markup. I really liked working with them: I got milled, 10', surfaced-2-sided lumber cut to 3" widths, with a straight edge, alleviating myself and my table saw the effort to get the wood to spec. 40 board feet of milled padauk plus 10 bf of ash for half of what I found online is what I would call a bargain. The owner/manager has a 52' sailboat that his dad built from scratch. I'm told they need to take it out of the water every year to plug the holes, but it's a labor of love. When I visited the warehouse, there were two huge planks of Douglas fir, which was unusual for a "hardwood" supplier. These are for the boat's masts in case they need changing.

When I finally got home, I dumped the lumber in the garage and pulled out the boards I wanted to mill for the boom gallows. I figured I'd start with that as the tiller takes a little more finesse and I was in the mood for brute strength. The actual milling is pretty straightforward. The gallows measures 60" from curve-to-curve, plus 2-3 inches to allot for the bend. I cut 63" lengths for all boards then built a pattern block to bend the boards against.

Cutting 63" lengths. While not exactly rough lumber, you can see the rough edge on the ash plank.

It isn't lost on me that the pattern block I made for the gallows took me about 75% of the way to having a finished gallows, albeit without the lamination. Lamination is one of those things that delays time-to-water, but increases oohs-and-ahhs. Regardless, with the weather the way it is, I'm content knocking out these winter projects. I traced the CNC pattern onto a piece of lumber leftover from a fence I fixed last summer, used the bandsaw to cut to the line, then planed and sanded down to where I needed the curve to be. I could've drilled 1" holes on either end and called it a day but there wouldn't be much need for this blog today if I did that, would there? 

Built a pattern block for clamping.

Originally I was going to alternate padauk-ash but in the end put two ash's in the middle.

Unfortunately, all my padauk is 3" width and the plans call for 1.5" widths for the gallows. As a result, I have a decent amount of ~1 3/8" that I plan to use for the rub and toe rails. I could've cut it straight down the middle, finishing with slightly less than 1.5" but the plans call for 1" steel tubing to support the gallows, plus I wanted to be sure I had the full thickness for the boom to rest upon. These strips had to be cut again to get 1.5" x 3/8" thin planks. This is the size used in the lamination. After a light sanding with 120, all the padauk got a quick, light rub with acetone, which reminds me that I need to schedule a massage pretty soon, though I'll forgo the acetone. Padauk is a slightly oily wood and this oil can interfere with a good glue up; acetone removes the residue. They were finally ready to be fitted.

I mixed up some epoxy and added a little bit of thickener to finish the job. After this cures (about 24 hours) I'll have to sand it down, plane both sides, and round off the edges. It'll be nice to be finished with this.

Close up of lamination pattern. Shiny stuff is epoxy squeeze out. This will be sanded, planed, epoxied, and varnished when done.

A couple things to note about laminating the gallows. First, it's a pretty big piece of lumber. It's 5 feet long comprised of 10 individual stripes of just-under 3/8" pieces (why just under 3/8"? because the lumber is 3/4" which cut in half is 3/8" but allowing for the table saw blade kerf of 1/8" reduces the size another 1/16" for each half). Getting epoxy mixed up in reasonable batches and spreading it out while avoiding disaster took quite a bit of concentration. Second, I tried to use c-clamps but they didn't work very well, so I had to resort to the Irwin fast clamps. I don't like to use these for epoxy because the clamps are expensive and can stick to the work piece, which explains the plastic in the bottom photo. Third, epoxy is messy. There needs to be a good balance between lathering on enough for a good, secure bond but not so much that most of it oozes out of the sides and onto the floor. My nitrile gloves were coated fingernail to wrist with epoxy by the time I was done.

Clamping pressure. Must use plastic between tools and epoxy, and some paper on the floor to catch the drips.

We'll see how this turns out. If nicely, I'll do the tiller tomorrow and finish up the keel blocking (finally) as well. I need to still source some lead smelting equipment so that may have to wait until Monday night. In the meantime, I've got a pretty sweet gallows just about finished.