Sometimes You Just Gotta Jump

I visited Chris yesterday and spent some time with his boat, Chucky B. I like that boat: fair lines, practical, and sound. It's already been through the wringer (this is the boat that tipped off its trailer during a tight turn). It's all patched up and got a facelift in the cabin. My wife came along and saw PocketShip for the first time. She's a picky one but gave the boat an enthusiastic thumbs up. Good thing, because I still have all that plywood in the garage and would need to find a new home for it if she made me choose between living with the boat or with her.

I brought my tiller and wanted to see if it would fit. It didn't, but I didn't expect it to because I left the end slightly thicker than the required 3/4". I'll have to take it down a bit and maybe even keep it a bit loose to compensate for the epoxy/varnish and natural expansion. I was also curious about how the full length tiller would work in the cockpit. Unfortunately, the tiller at full length would definitely interfere with crew movements during tacking, or even simple steering. I'm almost certainly going to take it down 8".

I also got a primer on a tiller extension. Apparently, it's not to steer from the bowsprit, but to steer while heeling. You know, when you're hanging off the side hoping that the head you have stored below has a good latch on it.

This guy could use a tiller extension.

But now I'm not sure the laminated stick, leftover from the original tiller cut, is going to work as an extension, as it needs to be a bit telescopic. Just another in a long series of decisions I still need to make.

As mentioned above, I haven't epoxy'd my tiller because I want to get the rudder done first. Make the tiller fit the rudder, is the idea. That's what I worked on today. The rudder blocking proved simple to cut but difficult to feather. There's a taper that goes to 1/4" on the trailing edge from a full 3/4". The curved part had to be laminated from 3 bits of scrap (I wasn't going to cut a full board of Menard's finest select pine) and then sanded down. All this sounds easy but is really tricky (I think) to pull off well.

6 bits of pine = one pine in the ass!!

First, the manual is unclear. It speaks to tapering and provides some photos but because they're b&w without depth, it's not easy to tell what's going on. If you look carefully at one of the photos, you can see Geoff marked a taper on the curved blocking. The plans kinda make it a little more clear. But the photo that got me on my way is the one from Jon's rudder blocking where you can see the taper on both ends. Still, I spent the better part of an hour aligning the blocking just so and marking the tapers.

For example, the trailing edge of the 'triangle' finishes to 1/4" where it's straight. It tapers down from the full 3/4" at the top of the curve. It also tapers from 3/4" from where it's against the 5" blocking. And then, it meets up with the long trailing edge blocking which starts at 3/8" and finishes at 1/4". After all this math, finally, I just had to jump. I fired up the random orbital with 60 grit and let it fly. Lots of sanding then checking then sanding again. Once satisfied, I dry fit for the glue up, then epoxy'd the inside faces, switched to thickened stuff, and laid the blocking down for good.

Blocking fit well. Finally.

Wife and I signed our names in here.

I knew I'd need a good bit of thickened epoxy for this. It was a furious 20 minutes as the first layer just began to thicken up before I was ready to enclose the box. It took some readjustments to get everything to sit well. In hindsight, it was OK that the epoxy hardened a bit because it kept things from moving around much. In the manual, you can see where the trailing edge is actually wired to prevent slippage. I didn't have that problem.

The whole rudder structure got clamped together for about 30 minutes before getting a good wipe down to clear the squeeze out, especially in the tiller slot. Using a technique I picked up from gluing the centerboard trunk, two clamps get removed, the area gets wiped, the clamps get replaced, and the next two clamps get the same treatment. Keen readers will also see that I left the blocking a little proud - maybe 1/16 an inch. This is to be sure there's firm glue contact while making it much easier to sand later. I'd rather sand down 1/16 of blocking, for example, than 1/16 of plywood to get a smooth finish. One thing I didn't do which I should have was put a weight in the middle where the blocking cuts across the entire span.

One can't have too many clamps.

Not all good news today. I cut the rabbet for the centerboard's epoxy deposit, basically breaking every table saw rule while removing every safety feature in order to do it. Somewhere up there, my shop teacher is cringing. I remember reading where someone cut the rabbet before glue up with a router. I forgot about that until I was holding onto the centerboard for dear life. And then of course, I didn't hold it completely against the fence so I cut through to the outside like a canal. Not that big a deal in the scheme of things, especially when compared to putting your foot through the hull, having your boat fall of the trailer, or taking out half the companionway due to a router mishap. The centerboard will be tapered and the epoxy will actually be exposed around the leading and trailing edges so this is (somewhat) easily fixed.

Down the rabbet hole.

I switched tactics and simply lowered the centerboard onto the blade while maintaining a good grip instead of trying to run the centerboard along the fence. Lower, cut, move, lower, cut, move. Much safer and easier. Still, I don't want to subject my limbs to that fear again. I then carved out the rabbet with a small chisel. Messy work, heart-racing work, but it's done. Next time I'll try a slotting bit on the router.

All dressed up and nowhere to go.

Even with the issues, it's nice to make progress. I have a finished boom gallows (which now sits on my fireplace mantle), a nearly finished tiller, a keel waiting for nice weather for a lead pour, a rudder that will be done by the weekend, and a centerboard structure which I'm hoping is not completely ruined. A business trip was cancelled next week so I'll have a few unexpected nights to continue working. I'm thinking bowsprit and/or the companionway hatch next? Or the floorboards.. yea that's the stuff.