Canaries in a Coal Mine - Transom Prep 3

Another PocketShip builder (Jon) talks about his metaphorical canary to gauge how much time's been spent building versus other hobbies. Miners took canaries into the shafts with them to test for gas. (Some of them got pick axes, too, but they were terrible workers.)

Apparently, canaries are much more susceptible to gas than humans are, so if the bird keeled over, it was time to head to the surface. In Jon's case, it was violin proficiency. In my case, it's bagpipe practice. For all I know, Jon's bird is still alive. Mine has long since crumbled into a pile of feathers and mulch.

I haven't picked up the pipes in about 2 months, favoring boatbuilding over most other winter hobbies. I've been forced (in a good way) to pull out the practice chanter and work on some St. Patrick's tunes. I don't do the parades and bars anymore, but I do work with a Dropkick Murphy cover band that plays tunes like An Irish Pub Song, Shipping Up to Boston, and a not-your-grandmother's Amazing Grace.

That means PocketShip progress has been slow. Some days, it's walking into the garage, staring at the transom, and walking back out. Other days, like yesterday, it was cutting a 9" cleat and letting it sit with some epoxy on it. Speaking of epoxy, one task I had to do before anything else was replacing the 5 gallon resin jug. There was still some left in the old jug, so I poured the remnants into the new one. If progress can be measured by material use, then there's been some progress. Granted, half the jug wound up on the shop floor, or scraped off the tiller, or in various globs around the house, but some of it actually made it onto the boat. There's a lot left in the build, but I should have enough to finish.

New resin jug. Hard to believe.

Some little things to address included the final board for the sole. I'd stripped too much wood from the cleat so had to refill it with epoxy and drill the board back in. The sole is officially planked and finished. I'll need to do some touch up work just before launch (some minor sanding and varnish) but that'll wait until much later.

Had to refill holes to redo the last plank.

The sole is done!

Finishing the sole was a bit anti-climatic. From hauling the padauk home to the final plank installed, it was about 10 months. From ripping the first plank, about 6 months. I really like the way it came out - it's stunning, actually - and I'm surprised this is a product of my handiwork. But it was a long way to get here with the accent boards, lift out design, and angles. This was one of those high effort, high reward things, like college, but I wouldn't want to go back. I'm ready to move on.

I also finished up the port speaker box. Keen readers will recall I dry fit these last time. They're now installed with epoxy and drywall screws. It's flush all around and watertight. The backer was installed just outboard of the top cleat that forms the frame for the laz hatch. That's important for how the laz floor is going to work. A very small hole is visible in the upper right where the wires will power the speakers. I'll also install a bus bar at the upper right corner of the backing to carry the port side wires under the footrest and to the starboard side, where it will carry forward to the battery. This is needed because I didn't think ahead enough to leave a few more feet of wire.

I'm slightly concerned about how the current will affect the speaker; will I get a buzz? Not sure, but not really many options right now.

Screwed and glued and watertight port side speaker box. Will also be the bus bar surface.

View from the cabin. The angle of the screw holes annoys me even in this photo.

View from the top. You can see the extra blocking added for the speaker depth. There's about 1/2" clearance now.

Starboard always gets the dregs, and here again is no exception. I epoxy'd the last cleat in place and will wait for that to cure before installing the backing later this afternoon. This one was a little finicky as the bottom cleat (for the laz floor) was a slightly different size than the others, so had to taper the speaker box cleat. Came out fine, just a little work to get right. It gave me an excuse to try the tapering jig, which will be important when I do the scarfs for the rubrails. Man! There's a lot to this boat.

Starboard speaker box lagging behind.

I worked with the footwell sort of dry fit. This was to ensure I wasn't off on the dimensions and to understand how to run the wires.

Footwell dry fit. Nice clean lines. This is one pretty boat.

A couple things to note. There will be flotation under the floorboard, and indeed under the laz floors, too. Some of that space under the floorboard is taken up by the bilge pump and the wiring conduits, so I'll need a little extra flotation to make up for the cubic foot or so I'll lose for those things. Given I'll have both port and aft side electrical needs, I need to be sure I can run wires back and forth under this without causing a mess. I also need to be sure I have access to everything. That means I won't have 100% coverage on the laz floor but really just the area between the inboard speaker box edge and the footwell itself. I'll have a short baffle (for lack of a better word) that will sit vertically between the footwell side and the hull. It's a good compromise, I think. But we'll see how it works in practice. Pictures later will help anyone who's confused, including me.

A side project I've been working on is a redo of the dashboard. With a little time and energy, I recut the pattern and added some extra flair to the border. I don't think it'll be installed until I turn the boat back over, but at least it'll be ready when that time comes. Now, back to the pipes!

Speakers 2 - Aft Speaker Boxes

Tonight was one of those nights when not a lot went right. I wanted to make some progress on the transom area so that I can finally drop the cockpit decking down, but it's slow going. I started out with some wiring. All the wires back there except the horn/bilge now have terminals. Everything's official - Ancor marine wire with heat shrink tubing.

Rear wiring done except for the bus bars and bilge pump.

That left a pretty hefty check list, still:

• Build speaker boxes
• Install bilge pump (haven't gotten it yet)
• Run wiring and bus bars
• Build laz "floors"
• Prep and paint

As a work colleague would say, the long pole in the tent is the speaker box build. I started by applying a nice layer of epoxy on the circle cut outs that house the speakers. That went ok, and I wiped up any runners before it would affect either the paint or the transom. But even then, I realized I only had one latex glove left so had to be really careful not to muck up my exposed fingers. A quick run to the Big Box Store solved that. (I checked on my lumber order while there. It's still a week away.)

I then measured and cut the cleats that would form the frame of the speaker box. The speakers I have are low profile, but they still jut in about 1 1/2". Allowing another 1/2" for the sound and fury, I'm looking at a 1 3/4" frame with 1/4" backer. The problem is in my rush to put down the laz cleats for the floors some weeks ago, I grabbed whatever I had available. That meant the bottom cleats are a different size than the top cleats. Oops...

The speaker cleats started life as a block of pine lying around the shop. Actually, they started life as a pine tree, but who cares about that.

Block o' pine. Not sure where this came from.

Block o' pine ready for duty.

I assured a dry fit then epoxy'd them up.

Fits pretty good.

Epoxy'd and cleated. This will be watertight.

I drilled a hole in the inboard cleat to run the speaker wire out. This is now filled with epoxy but I'll drill a smaller hole. This is of course to prevent seepage back here. I'm not real happy with the close ups of epoxy runs under the cleats, but not much I can do (or more importantly, want to do) about it. This is the sealed up, watertight, non-visible area of the transom. I would've liked to be more conscientious here, but wasn't.

Something to note is that the manual asks to put the cleats that ride on BH 8 facing inside the cabin. If I did that, I'd have internal speaker boxes and given much more attention to the squeezeout. In any case, I think it's much better to face these inside the laz vs. inside the cabin.

Well, watertight except for the hole I've drilled for the speaker wire. But if water gets up that high, seriously...

I then found some marine ply scrap and cut the backer. I dry fit this and it looks good. But I want to epoxy this on both sides before installing it. This will be glued and screwed to become a permanent part of the build tomorrow. Some folks wondered how I'd make aft speakers watertight. Well, here it is.

Backer fitted. There will still be plenty of room in the laz for assorted junk.

Some fancy jiggering got the port box done and acceptable, but the starboard side is a bit off. I got tired of trying to fit cleats so I quit for the night. One of these days, both sides will be even.

Baby Got Back - Prepping the Transom

Over the last few days, I've managed to firmly and permanently secure most of the sole to the floors and cleats in order to prepare for the cockpit decking.  I say "most" because I'm about 80% done and stuck.  When I first shaped the planks that would become the sole, I started portside and worked my way inside, then out to starboard.  That meant by the time I got to the starboard planks, I was fairly well versed in the machinations of floorboard fitting.  (Aside from sanding fillets, this was the least fun part of the project thus far.)

Fast forward six months:  I began installing the sole on the starboard side first, only because my step ladder was on that side.  Most pieces slid in easily and the pre-drilled holes securely held their shapes.  I was dutifully impressed with my work because there no were squeaks and, for the most part, everything lined up well, even the lift outs which I built a little blind.  As I started prepping the planks for the last three outboard slats portside, things didn't seem quite as good.  There was a raised area where there shouldn't be and one board wouldn't stay screwed down as the pilot hole was too big for the screw.

Scratching my head, I wondered what the heck happened.  How did starboard go down so well and port did not?  And then I realized that the portside planks were the ones I did first.  They were part of the initial learning curve, and suffered for it.  I'll need to pull them out, reshape some, varnish others, and fill the current pilot holes with epoxy before trying again.  The joys of boatbuilding.

Rather than do that, I took a pause and prepared for the Super Bowl.  While the game was a bust, these were a hit, courtesy of a friend's wife, a professional baker.

These were seriously good.

I contributed these: blueberry pecan banana quick bread.

These were a hit, too.

And all the while, tried to avoid looking outside. Yes, that's about 18 inches of snow on my patio.

I don't know why I even have the window shades up.

Work got the best of me over the last couple days, but I did find time tonight with my wife at a work outing.  She's at a Minnesota Wild hockey game, luxury box seats.  She doesn't even like hockey.  How's that for fair?

With the plank-work set aside for now, the first thing I had to do was empty the transom of its assorted junk.  Thirty minutes later, I finally ran the aft wiring through the vinyl tubing.  The tubing will act as a conduit and protect the wires from any water that weasels its way into the transom. Supposedly, this will work in watery environments from -40 to 140 degrees. I then lathered on enough silicon to create a lifeform, then secured it with a stainless steel band.

I also decided tonight that I will add a bilge pump back here. I see no reason why not: it's the wettest reported area in the boat, and anything I can do to keep water away from the thru-hull and the wires will go a long way towards the life of the build. I'll put the same one in I have in the cabin and run it out through the same hole in the footwell side. I didn't plan to put one here from the outset so I don't have a proper hotwire. I think I can use the green one I'd set aside for the horn as the hotwire as both the horn and the bilge pump should be 'always on.' That could be fun in the marina if I get a short in this circuit.

Wires run through the conduit. It was a bear to get this through but eventually did it.

Close up of thru-hull at BH-8. The left is the bilge pump drain. I'll be putting another bilge pump back here.

I pulled the battery from the bedroom and tested the wires as they ran from the forward locker to the transom. All of the wires work, I'm pleased to report. However, as I was taking this photo, I realized a mistake.  I needed to pull one of the speaker wires through about 3 feet more than the other to reach the far speaker. With all the friction in there, these wires aren't going anywhere, so I'll need to make a couple butt joints and wire the speaker the hard way. No fun.

I then routed through small vinyl tubes which will carry wires aft from the cabin. To do so, I drilled a path through the corners of bulkheads 7 and 8. These will run just under the support cleats and will each carry one wire. The tube acts as a mini conduit for protection and allows me to seal up the drilled holes yet still have access to run a new wire if necessary. Practically, I can now run wires to and from the cabin without messing with the wires under the sole. The plan is these will power the cabin LED strip lights mounted underneath, but can be used for anything.  With the cabin deck down and the tubes secured up against the cleat, they're not noticeable.

Small hole drilled at corner of bulkhead 7 to support the vinyl tubing. This will be filled with epoxy. The wires are test wires and will be removed.

The tubing runs along the cleat now but will be secured against it soon. I haven't decided how long a LED strip I want to run back here.

Another hole at the corner of bulkhead 8 into the laz area. This will allow me to run wires easily fore-and-aft if necessary.

Soon I'll be building the speaker boxes and installing the bus bars. Little random globs of epoxy need to go where the wood got exposed here and there, and I need to finalize the planks on the sole before securing it down. The upside is everything looks really good as I'm taking my time through this part of the build. Once the decking goes down, that's it. I'll be too preoccupied with the portlights to care..