Compass mount

September 09, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Yet again Louve is inheriting an idea I had for Meritaten but did not manage to implement. This time it’s a compass mount. I renovated this compass a few years ago, with a thought to have it as a main steering compass in the cockpit. It never happened on Meritaten.

I like how Geoff Kerr built in compass in aft thwart on his boat. On my Louve I have this thwart removable so my compass needs separate mount. I patterned it with cardboard and came out with a keyhole-like structure.

Cut out from thin plywood to act as a template for several layers of glued plywood.

Encapsulated in epoxy and several coats of varnish it was ready for mounting. It will be detachable (in case I decide it takes too much space in the cockpit) and mounted with two bolts, under the aft thwart.

Compass mount was modified with additional screws which will hold it inside the plywood envelope. I drilled and tapped existing extrusions.

Mounted inside plywood fixture. Aft thwart removed.

With thwart in place - for sailing - the compass is still visible and easy to read, even when I sit on sole boards.

I will test if it’s not in the way while sailing but for now it looks good!

Before brushing the second coat of Owatrol D2 I install centerboard cleat. According to plans there should be 400mm wide cleat which will hold bungee cord. I substitute it with standalone bronze hooks. This way I have space left for intermediate centerboard positions if I find it useful.

Aft hatch needs some way of holding it closed. I had these locks which I planned to install on Meritaten (again - it didn’t happen). They were too long for Louve so I modified them.

Top one shortened by 15mm. Bottom one as original.

Mounted on Louve - they do the job!

Next step is to finish varnishing/painting spars and launching!

Oar leathers

September 07, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I took an easier path and did not make my own oars, at least for now. I bought ready made, pine-loom oars of 3m length, just about right for my Ilur.

While mast and yard varnish is curing I sat down to put leather on looms. I chose not to install buttons - just long, heavy-duty leathers as I will use these oars also for sculling.

There are many resources on web showing how to measure and install leathers. I do it the way described in Wooden Boat article.

I made a die to punch holes. Pitch of 5mm was a bit of overkill, it would be enough with 10mm but… nothing too strong ever broke. It was just more work.

Wet leather, cut so that there is 6mm gap when wrapped around the loom, is held with rubber bands. The oar is aligned so that the seam will be on top when rowing, protecting it from tear on metal oarlocks.

I use curved needles, it’s easier than with straight ones. Strong, waxed twine. Stitch is called baseball stitch - nothing fancy but strong.

About one hour later the job was done.
After the leather dries and shrinks I will oil and wax it.

Deck oiling

September 05, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I planned leaving deck planks oiled only with Owatrol D1. It gives satin finish, should not be slippery when wet and should protect the wood from water and stains. Well, maybe I did something wrong or pine is not suitable for D1 (it is, of course) but it did not work as intended: dirt from boots was staining wood and was hard to remove.

I decided to run the complete system and coat the deck with D2. It behaves like a varnish, leaving glossy surface. Applying several coats should protect the wood properly and be much easier to maintain than varnish.
I used it when I renovated Glypto and was impressed by ease of use and varnish-like finish, without a need to be in a hurry to maintain wet edge.
To prevent it from being ice-like slippery when wet I will add some anti-slip pearls on last application.

Mast and yard got the second coat of varnish. And small flies.
Whenever I do this I can bet that these buggers pop-up from nowhere and stick to fresh varnish.

Mast partner belaying pins, oar locks, varnishing

September 03, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Epoxy cured overnight so I planed excess plywood and sanded smooth everything. Checked that Tufnol sheath fits with a few millimeters margin so all is good.
I will machine axle to the sheath for friction fit so that there will be no need to glue it to the mast. I want to be able to disassemble it for painting or other maintenance.

Mast partner belaying pins are installed. I used the same bronze stock I had for bow cleat: 16mm diameter. These are not really belaying pins anymore since I glued them but they will act like that both for tying the mast and for belaying the halyard.

I added small, leather pouches for storing oar locks when not in use. These are old military belt bags which happen to match perfectly the size of locks. I hanged them on oak slats which are screwed underside the gunwale.
Each oar lock is tied to its pouch, preventing it from getting lost in the drink.

As a last job for today I started varnishing the mast and yard. I will keep the traditional scheme: very ends of each spar will be painted white while the rest is varnished. This way one has support points for varnishing and the paint will hide plywood inlet in the mast.
And it looks salty, too!

Equipping the mast

September 02, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Weather forecast promised a few fine-weather hours in the morning so I woke up early and started working.

Louve got rolled out from the shed to step the mast for a first time. Dry fit, really, as the mast foot is not installed yet. I wanted to check if my mast is crooked on any side, so that I have a chance to rotate it (and pretend that this was intended) before I cut mast foot tenon and halyard mortise.
Well, it is straight at all angles so I chose glue line to face forward, thus making measurements easier for cutting mortises.

With fair weather I set up jig to cut halyard sheave mortise.

Sheave axle hole 140 mm from the mast top, as stated on plans.

I shaped the mortise with rasp and files. It is so wide to accommodate two 9mm plywood plates, preventing the axle from splitting the wood. I may add brass mast-top strop, to inhibit this splitting force even more.
Maybe.
Belt and suspenders - you never know what happens…

Time to cut tenon for mast foot. Marking the cut.

Trying with the mast foot - snug fit, perfect! The foot can finally be screwed to the boat.

Last job for today was to shape and glue plywood plates which reinforce the mortise. I use an off-cut from the same plywood the whole boat is made of: 9mm. Glued with WEST G-Flex.

Rounding spars

August 27, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Mostly evenings after work - with the weather permitting - I continued working on spars for Louve. This work is so satisfying that I can see myself making new spars - if needed - with joy.

After cleaning the glue and squaring all sides I marked stations and drawn taper lines.

It would save me a lot of work (and noise for my neighbors) would I have a band saw, but I don’t so I planed down excess wood with power plane.

Once tapered on all faces I gauge-marked all faces for turning square into octagon. That went smooth, also with power plane. From 8 to 16 faces was even faster. From there I switched to hand plane and started rounding the mast.

Eyeballing the progress until I decided that it was time to start sanding round the spar.

I made a power-tool as described in Bud McIntosh book but that did not work as intended. Probably diameter of the drum is too small and the paper does not grip the rubber enough to spin on the mast.

Well, nobody said it’s gonna be easy, right?
I didn’t feel like making a new revision of this, after all I have only two spars to make.
Instead I prepared shaped foam pads, glued 80-grid sandpaper and kicked it with some elbow grease.

Very good resource to learn these steps in spar making is Off Center Harbor series with Geoff Kerr on Caledonia Yawl building. Only this series is worth more than yearly subscription!

Dodging mosquitos and sweating properly I finished sanding the mast. It is as round as I want it to be.

It became surprisingly light-weight, after all this tapering and rounding. I weighted it to be 14,5kg so after varnishing and putting all hardware it will probably weight no more than 16kg.
No reason, really, to make it hollow, in my opinion.
Next will come yard, already planed to 32 faces.

Spar gauge

August 16, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

With epoxy long cured I finally found the evening to clean spar blanks. The mast was laminated from two pieces, leaving 10mm wide margin for screws which were holding both halves in place during gluing. It is there where most ugly knots reside so now it was time to cut that out.

My table-saw does not have the blade wide enough to cut through 90mm wood and I didn’t want to handle so big timber myself anyway so I planed the excess down with a power plane. To a great joy of my neighbors.
I finished off with my hand-plane - the mother of all planes. To my neighbors relieve.

With blanks ready I rushed to make spar gauge.

Here comes a bit of primary school geometry: the ratio at which we should cut a square to form an octagon is 7:10:7. Knowing that we can easily make the gauge for marking our spars, even if they are tapered.

For those who do not accept such facts without proof there it goes:

(I was explaining this to my daughter and she was willing to listen so I made a drawing).

My spars are at most 90mm in diameter so I halved all dimensions and made 120mm gauge.

Cheeks which will ride on blank’s edges are made from beech wood, the rest is pine.

Next step will be to mark all stations and taper both spars before I mark them with the gauge.

Gluing spars

August 13, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I decided to make both spars in solid wood.
Yard has so small diameter that making it hollow has no sense. Making the mast as birdsmouth construction is a sensible option but I managed to find long enough and knot-free (almost) planed pine wood.
It is much less work (and much less epoxy) to just glue two 45mm thick slabs together and shape the mast traditionally.

With fair weather I could set up my very professional sawing environment.

The mast will be glued from two 45mm thick continuous pieces of northern pine. Almost knot-free. The yard will be laminated from three layers of knot-free pine which I hoarded the other day.

Even though there became not many gluing surfaces the amount of epoxy needed to make these joints was substantial. Messy as always but all went without problems. A bit colder evening gave me longer pot-life so no hurry.

While these are curing I will make spar gauges for marking both spars.

Rudder assembly

August 12, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Intensive days at work so when I come back home I am totally drenched. Working on my boat is relaxing but also a bit stressful: the hull is ready so everyone asks when I plan to launch her. At the same time there are many small things which need to be done before launching. Like the rudder!

Everyone attempting building Ilur should take the attitude that Francois Vivier knows what he is doing. If he gives rudder hardware specifications then it is wise to use this hardware.
I’m one of those who knows better and decided to use something else. Not that I don’t trust the designer but I just had it on shelf and stubbornly wanted to use it.
That caused me a bit more unnecessary work.

First I glued rudder head, with the rudder body inside head-cheeks so that I can be sure I have enough clearance for final assembly.

My non-standard hardware has wide cheeks and I wanted to thru-bolt them to the rudder (for strength) so rudder core was reinforced with a bit of plywood.

Another issue was clearance: the rudder turned out to be 1,5mm narrower than my hardware. I milled oak lists to fill this gap.

Trimmed to shape and ready for gluing.

On the inside of rudder cheeks I routed cavities for shallow, bronze nuts: the bottom cheeks are housing rudder blade which needs to rotate freely. Thru-bolting is possible only closest to the transom.

Rudder hardware needs also to have clearance for bottom reinforcements. I made mine from oak, they are glued and screwed from the inside.

Lastly - axis for rudder blade. It became quite tight with spacing between components but turned out really well.

All screws and bolts are doped in Ettan, to keep water out. I want to be able to disassemble the rudder for maintenance so I did not use Sika or epoxy.

Lastly the tiller was mounted and rudder head screwed in place with thru-bolts.

Today the stormy weather finally went away so I could roll out the boat and mount the rudder.

Rudder in retracted position. The blade moves with satisfying resistance, I can adjust it by loosening or tightening 4 nuts on the rudder axis.

I’m happy with the final result.

Next step is building spars!

Bow cleat

August 01, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Distinct feature of Ilur - the bow cleat.
Plans specify diameter 14mm and kit is pre-drilled for that but I happen to have 16mm bronze rod.
It is so beefy and sturdy that instead of turning it down to required diameter I enlarged the hole with reamers, to match the rod.

With variable-diameter reamer I matched the hole for friction fit.
The opening was impregnated with epoxy and the rod hammered in place. I chose to have it 250mm long, end-to-end, so that even thick rope can sit securely.