Gluing battens and half-frames

May 14, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I should know better but it always surprises me how much time small things can take when messing around with boats.

Rubrail and gunrails battens which I glued yesterday did not cure properly overnight. The glue was still a bit soft. Temperature at night was 5 degrees so not bad. It must have been hardener pump which gave too little substrate. I’ve cleaned it and tested - yep! There was a solidified clump inside which hindered proper flow. Well, that happens after winter, good that these joints are not structural.

I took them out into sunlight, to speed up curing. By the end of the day they were cured and safe to install.

So instead I decided to glue battens and half-frames which reinforce the bilge. In my kit there are 3 of these for each side.

It took the whole day, I run out of clamps so there are still some battens to glue. I’ll do that during the week.

With these jobs done I will make fillets in the bilge and flotation chambers. Hopefully I manage during evenings so that I can glue rub- and gunrails and apply epoxy coating during the long weekend.

Rubrail preparations. Decking.

May 13, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Finally the temperature allows working with glue!

I started late today but managed to cut scarfs for rubrail and gunrail. I was ambitious and started with cutting them by hand. With rubrail (which is L-shaped) it kind of worked but I was not happy with the result so I build a jig and cut all scarfs on the table saw. Much quicker and results are repeatable.

While these are curing I worked with fo’c’sle decking. Some CAD (cardboard aided design) work was needed.

Filling fo’c’sle with decking is usually done with planks parallel to long axis and tapered towards the bow. I played with this idea, checking how much waste will this approach produce with my 120mm wide stock.

Well, that would be quite a lot of off-cuts indeed. I decided to use another pattern, mostly seen on yachts: with deck meeting king-plank in the middle. In my case the king-plank will be a hatch for anchor rode and other muddy stuff. This way I could use full width of my planks.

Spacing between planks is 5mm, as recommended in plans. This shall allow space for wood to expand and provides ventilation for bilge and flotation tanks.

The only drawback with this pattern are thin, sharp plank edges - fragile and catchy. To minimize this I will file them down in rounded shape. They will hold oil better, too.

I run out of wood when I worked on aft deck but managed to carve both side planks and a few for bench on port side. Final shaping will be done once all planks are in place.

During the week I got my rudder hardware delivered. Beefy stuff, silicon bronze from Davy.

The plan for tomorrow is to install rubrails and start working on the rudder and centerboard.

Once rubrails and gunwales will be installed I will finish filleting work in the bilge and glue all battens. Next will come epoxy coating of the interior.

Foam shaping, deck planks

May 07, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Very cold May this year: at night the temperature still drops below freezing, no way I can do anything with epoxy in my boatshed. Instead I am occupied with garden work and chopping wood for the next winter. Boatbuilding is proceeding very slow.

I finished shaping foam panels which fill flotation tanks. Easy but rather boring activity. I used wood chain to take hull shape and transferred it to panels.

This foam, unlike styrofoam, is elastic and does not break into small bits. Once these panels are installed I should be able to remove them without damaging them, should I need to work on flotation chambers.
Almost perfectly shaped to hull form.

I chose to leave an air gap under battens and under deck planking. I don’t want the wood to be in contact with them, especially when they get wet from spray or when the boat gets swamped.

All battens dry-fitted.

I started cutting planks for the deck. I will use plain Northern Pine, readily available here, cheap and lightweight. Folks at lumber store allow me to browse through their stock, to chose wood with as few knots as possible.

The deck and benches will be oiled or treated with Roslags mahogany (which is linseed oil with tar). I’m not sure yet. Roslags mahogany is making wood darker - and with time it becomes almost black. I like it - and it smells great - but it may be a bit tacky and stain clothes. On the other side - it is a proven way to protect soft wood on traditional boats here.

Battens, seat riser, rubrails and floatation tanks

April 23, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

One of these many jobs at boatbuilding which do take time but results are hardly visible.

I fitted all battens supporting floor boards. A bit more fiddling was required for seat risers - I had to enlarge and adjust openings in bulkheads and frames, to properly “seat” this long batten.

I made all battens, rubrail and gunwale from Siberian larch which I ripped before winter. Today all got plaining and sanding, to be ready for installation.

Dry-fitting:

I realized that gluing them now would be a mistake: I need to first fill flotation tanks with foam. And before filling with foam I need to epoxy-coat these tanks. Which can be done only during weekend, when I can run several coats wet-on-wet during the whole day.

Well, I removed battens and started fitting the foam. Someone suggested to fill chambers with liquid/expanding foam. That would ensure entire chamber to be filled and would be much quicker to do than cutting and fitting these panels. Yes - but it would be a messy job. Besides - I want to have possibility to remove the foam if I would need to access these chambers. Even with seat risers and all battens around I will be able to extract panels. Digging in hardened foam would be a miserable activity.

Another possibility could be to fill chambers with styrofoam “chips” - these which are used to secure packages. They would fill the space entirely so no cutting and fitting needed. Extracting them is easy. But will there not be a lot of air pockets in between these chips? Pockets which will fill with water should the boat capsize?
I need to check this option.

Anyway - during the week I plan to install rub- and gunwales. Weekend, if it will be warm enough, will be used for epoxy coating the interior.

Start of new boatbuilding season!

April 22, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

It was a long and heavy winter indeed.
Only this week - by the end of April! - we got proper spring weather but temperatures at night were still below zero: too cold to leave curing epoxy without additional heat source.

The snow finally melted and my island show its green clothes. I could finally take out my new sail and unroll it on the grass.

Bosse and Misha, my neighbors, came to see it, too. Oh men, this is what I call a proper sail! It is Oceanus fabric so quite heavy (300g/m2) but it has a feel of traditional cotton - even though it is man-made material which will not rot!

I took out the drawing, to check some dimensions - of course all was spot-on. You can’t go wrong with this sail maker: Sailservice in Gdansk, Poland.

I asked for traditional sail, with hand-saw grommets and leather reinforcements. It costed a bit more but I am happy to pay the price if the result is so pleasing.

These folks saw sails for square-riggers and other traditional vessels all over the world.

I went to our local wood chandler and bought several meters of pine wood - it will be used for sole boards and aft-deck. At first I was considering using my stock of Siberian lark but it is too thick. Plaining it down to 16mm would result in a lot of waste and there is no way I can buy this wood now, with war raging in Ukraine and embargo on Russian wood.

Luckily Woody in Nysättra has very nice, clear pine planks in 15mm which will fit the job. It feels good to use locally-sourced material.

For fore-deck and mast partner I will use oak, in 22mm - as stated on plans. All the rest will be pine, varnished. Thwarts will most probably be in Siberian lark.

I’ve used most of the day to chop wood - in preparations for the next winter. After some rest I continued with the boat.
Most of sole boards supports are fitted. I also cleaned up these few epoxy blobs left after hull planking - hot air gun and sharp blade made a job quick and efficient.

As a last thing before leaving my boat-shed I sat down in my new boat and enjoyed the view. It will be a big-little boat indeed! I had the same feeling with my very first boat, back then in Poland when I was a teenager: a boat big enough to feel safe but small enough to handle all maneuvers just with muscle power. It was not like that with Meritaten. And it was one of the main reasons I sold her. It has to be basic. It has to be hard-core sailing - no “systems”, no complicated handling. Pure and basic sailing experience. With all its consequences, of course.

But who said it has to be safe & easy?

Plan for tomorrow:

gluing and screwing of all battens
gluing of rub- and gun-rails

During the week - if my day-work will not kill me - I plan to fit sole boards and aft deck. Next weekend would be spent on epoxy-coating the interior. I plan to keep the interior bright, with frames painted white (or black?).
Excitement never stops!

House-keeping procedures

October 31, 2022 by Lukasz Kumanowski

It got cold so no more epoxy work these days. It will probably need to wait until spring.

Instead I reorganized the boatshed and wedged the boat in proper position so that she is not twisted and sits stable. I sat on temporary bench and enjoyed the view from the inside, thinking of hours of sailing with her in Stockholm Archipelago.

One of the coming step is to fill flotation chambers with foam. I gathered sheets of plastic foam and started cutting it to match tanks’ shape.

I’m not entirely happy with this approach - there is still quite a bit of space left inside these tanks, especially under foam panels. I’m considering using foam chips instead - they would fill all the available space more efficiently.

To continue the build I will shift now into wood-working mostly - to prepare joinery and all components so that they are ready to be glued & screwed once the temperature allows working with epoxy.

Next steps - in no particular order:

epoxy-encapsulation of the interior. At least 2 layers of WEST epoxy + soaking plywood edges
painting the bilge with Hempel Light Primer and some bilge paint (orange or white)
painting frames white or black. Freeboard will be left bright & varnished
making rub-rail and gunwale. I’m thinking of American-style gunwale, with openings for lashing the equipment. I’ll use larch and mahogany for that.
sole boards and deck: fore and aft. Larch wood.
quarter knees. That will be Polish oak

In parallel I look for proper timber to build the mast. Birdsmouth technique. Knot-free pine should do a trick.

Right side up!

October 29, 2022 by Lukasz Kumanowski

The whole operation took me 10 hours. I was working alone, with one more person it would probably go much quicker.

I started with installing braces in points when straps will be placed. This is to protect the hull from compression. It is still fragile as there are no gunwales nor thwarts yet.

First step was to lift the hull from building jig. I rigged two chain blocks, each with one ton capacity. Rope on the stem is a backup.

It took a good deal of bunging on station molds to get them loose. Longitudinal members were especially stubborn to leave their molds. Good I did not chose to lift the hull by a bunch of friends: having the hull hanging from chains gave me all the time in the world to drag down station molds and no one was complaining about tired muscles.

Finally the hull could be lifted up to the ceiling.

I have very little space in the boatshed so the building jig needed to be removed before next step.

Molds were sitting with friction fit so getting them lose required a proper hammer and a few wedges.

With molds removed I dragged the strongback out of the shed.

First time I can see my boat’s interior. Still up-side-down.

With the hull hanging free from molds I could install endless-loop straps. Padded to protect the hull.

I lowered the hull onto floor level and replaced beams & ropes with straps.

Circumference of the hull is a bit above 4 meters but the closest strap is 6 meters long. This prove to be too long for my shed (low ceiling) so I had to tie a knot on straps, to be able to lift the boat high enough. With that workaround straps could no longer glide on hooks so instead I had to glide the hull inside straps. Much harder to do.

With the hull in the air I started turning the boat inside straps. It went smooth until the point where the hull hangs almost vertically.

From this position there was no way my body weight could tip the boat’s center of gravity any further. Would there not be these too long straps I would fit blocks so that straps can glide on them easily.

I rigged another rope, to pull one side of the boat in desired direction. Once I finally reached exact vertical position I started lowering her to the floor and there I tipped the balance so that the hull was being turned over by good old gravity.

CarefullyI lowered the hull onto foam pads while adjusting straps all the time. Good dose of muscle power was needed.

Finally she landed the right side up!

Joy to finally see her interior unobscured by station molds.

Evening came as a surprise and I was properly tired. I left Louve hanging from straps.

The work will continue tomorrow.

Jewellery

October 29, 2022 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Last step before turning the hull over. Installing brass protection strips.

Last night I formed them to match hull curvature and drilled all mounting holes.

I chose to make two parallel stripes on fore part of keel. The aim is to have a bit broader area for the boat to stand on its keel, especially when transported on trailer. I’ll see if that really makes any difference.

Brass is attached with bronze screws, all bedded in Sika.

Beautiful mess!

It took a bit of white spirit to clean the excess Sika. I could have used masking tape but I felt too lazy tonight.

All this brass will oxidize rather quickly and will be painted over during coming maintenance but for now I enjoy the bare metal style.

Nice and clean.

Tomorrow I’ll start building the jig to rotate the hull.

Metal works

October 26, 2022 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Intensive week at work, I can spare only a few hours in evenings to carry on in the boat shed.

Last step before turning over the hull is to mount brass protection strips on keel and bilge keels. I stayed one evening after work to use proper workshop for drilling and countersinking screw holes.

Raw material for further postprocessing.

Tonight I de-burred all surfaces and rounded edges of stripes which don’t connect with another stripe. Most of them will sit under water so I leave them with brushed/satin finish. Stem and transom protection got high-gloss buff.

Nordic gold. Jewellery for Louve.

In case I want to drill additional holes in these stripes I marked places where there are structural screws below the brass. These screws will not be visible after stripes are mounted. Enigmatic Y-letter punched onto brass is marking these spots.

I started forming them to match hull curvature but it became too late to continue. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll finish that and drill mounting holes. Then comes masking tape, Sika and final assembly so that all is cured for weekend - hull turning!

Weather window

October 22, 2022 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Winter Witch is close. Last week the temperature at nights was constantly just a fraction above zero. She is close.

But apparently she was pacing too hastily - she got tired? Need a rest? Warm clouds bearing lots of rain covered our island and the temperature rose to mild and pleasant seven degrees.
Weather window has opened itself for the final coat of paint!

Building Louve is much like sailing her - or any other sailboat: weather is a decisive factor. Equipment and skills help but eventually you cannot beat elements.

With the stove running on max I get 25 degrees in the coldest place of the shed. That will do the trick.

I’m thankful to my female advisors - Louve looks beautifully in light color. Warm white plays unison with mahogany and oak. Thank you Kejt, Jessica, Anna and Sylvia. And Björn.

Tomorrow, when the paint cures I will dry-fit brass protection strips and mark drilling points for csk screws. I’ll drill and mount them under the week so next weekend I can finally turn over the hull!