Boat Plans For A Chesapeake Deadrise | Expansion Tank

Boat Plans For A Chesapeake Deadrise

My main engine is cooled with a keel cooler welded to the hull. Because coolant will expand as it warms up to operation temperature, I needed to give the coolant a place to go without building pressure on the system and causing the fill cap to burp off coolant.

The expansion tank is at the highest elevation of the cooling system. This will allow me to get air out of the system and also use the expansion tank as the fill point for the cooling system. I made the tank out of a 12" piece of thin walled pipe. Welding a place for the pressurized fill cap, end caps, mounting brackets, level check sight glass, connector fitting on the bottom, and drain fitting on the bottom plus and extra fitting on top was all it took to make the tank. Well I might as well throw in finding the pipe, getting the pipe, cutting the pipe, cutting the end caps, fabricating the fill neck and mounting brackets, air testing, sand blasting, and painting. Now that I think of it, building the expansion tank was a pain in the ass, and if I had to put a pencil to it, Id say I have 12 hours in it. I could have purchased one for a dump truck for about $250.00 but given my nature of tripping over a dollar to save a dime, I decided to fabricate mine.

I Installed a sight glass in the tank to make checking fluid level easy. Due to height constraints, peering down the fill cap would be difficult, a dip stick would be a pain in the ass, so the sight glass, hands down, is the way to go.

I built the tank a couple of years ago, and now that I have the engine room finished sheathed, I can go ahead and permanently mount the tank. I was able to make the permanent connections to the keel cooler from the engine, and also all the connections to the expansion tank.

I mounted the tank to the bulkhead by using studs welded to the framing. I messed up on one set in regard to how far the studs projected and ending up having to use couplings on the studs then bolting the tank to the coupling. I wanted every part of the tank to be higher than the engine coolant tank, and while I was cutting it close, all the elevations worked out fine. The street 90 at the bottom of the tank is 3/4" higher than the street 90 in the engine.

Oh how nice it is to finally see projects going from the shop shelves to their final resting spot on the boat.

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Boat Plans Nz | Sound Proofing the engine room

Boat Plans Nz

The engine room received one more coating of paint on the hull and sole framing last weekend in preparation for starting the sound proofing. Well, I hope its sound proofing, as it will be a real pain in the ass to re do this once the boat is launched.

My system for sound proofing is pretty basic. I foamed the metal ( see the last post), and now Im attaching a 1" thick mineral wool board the the framing. Over this mineral wool Ill attach a perforated aluminum sheet as my finished wall material.

As best as Ive learned, the idea behind sound dampening is to decouple the structure from the sound. Sound travels in waves and the idea behind getting rid of it is to try to absorb it. My system is to provide a barrier between the living spaces and the engine room noise. My thoughts are that the sound will pass through the perforated aluminum then be absorbed by the mineral wool board and also by the foam underneath.

The mineral wool Im getting is discarded seconds that came out of a large sheet metal fabrication shop. Id love to have 3 x 5 boards, but Im only able to get 2x4 boards ( the price is right though). Because Im not able to pick my size, Im having to adjust my framing. In the areas I know Im going to have to attache lots of conduits, or other mechanical items, Im first installing plywood before installing the rock wool board. With the plywood on the hull framing ( 1/2" ply ), I dont have to worry about the rock wool laying out to hit the framing so there is almost no waste of the rock wool. I also have unlimited points of attachment for my future mechanical installations. For the ceiling though, Im going to have to add a firing strip so the rock wool waste is minimized while I keep an eye on the weight Im adding.

Ive got a little of the product up and on the walls and part of the ceiling. Im working in the corner where the generator will be installed, and Im amazed at how well the sound seems to be vanishing from just having that small area installed. Its no longer necessary to wear ear plugs while working in the hull. The only drawback is that the engine room is starting to get hot from the heat from the lights.

The perforated aluminum looks fantastic and gives me just the gear head look I want for my engine room. Once the material is screwed to the wall, it stiffens up nicely. You have to look closely to see the rock wool underneath, so I feel good about the ability of the perforations to contain the rock wool while also letting the sound waves into the dampening zone. The open area of the perforated sheathing is 34%. I picked up some advice from the good posters at Metalboatbuilding.org on how the cut the stuff. Its so nice to be able to start seeing some finishing material finally going on.

Because the rock wool is 1" thick Im going to have to fabricate some corner pieces or trim some areas out with aluminum angle. One of these areas is by the doors as you can see from this picture. Im leaning towards angle in some areas, while in other areas, Im going to try to brake ( bend a corner) the material in to an outside or inside corner.

I took a crack at bending some material into a corner, and it worked out OK. Having corner pieces makes the job look much more finished and I dont have to be as particular on the fit.














I had to add firing strips to the main area of the engine room ceiling. While I hate to loose another 3/4" of head room, Im willing to take the trade as this allows my rock wool to go up with less waste. The frames for the boat are 30" on center, and my rock wool sheets are 24" x 48". I dont have the choice of 3 x 5 sheets so I added the firing strip to make things work better and get the most bang for my buck in regard to how much rock wool I have to buy.

I started out cutting the perforated aluminum with snips, but Ive now switched over to my table saw. I added a board to the saws fence so the 16 gauge material will not slide under the fence. The table saw does an excellent job of cutting the material and it looks like it was done on a shear.

You might have noticed I have some plywood installed under the rock wool. I have plywood over the fuel tanks to protect the paint job on the tank and also to give me a way to easily attach engine room components to the tanks. I plan for some cabinetry and shelving, among other things, to be installed on top of the tanks. The forward and aft water tight bulkheads also received 1/2" plywood. I installed plywood on the aft bulkhead due to the idea that my generator will sit on the starboard side, and my fuel transfer/polish manifolds and pumps will be on the port side. I dont know the exact layout of any of these components, so I put the plywood up to make it easier to attach the various bits and pieces of each system. I went with plywood on the forward bulkhead as this is the area where my work bench will be, and I want dont want to be limited to the bulkhead framing as the only points of attachment for various things.

I cut it a little close on my measurements for my fuel tank fill points. I wanted the fill lines to be as close to the outside hull sides as possible, and as you can see I achieved that. I had to hog out a bit of the rock wool, then push the aluminum in to get the two inch nipple to thread in. The rest of the assembly will fit just fine as the hull is leaning outboard at this area of the boat.

Im pretty happy how the material bends and the fact that Im able to fabricate some of the corner pieces I need. This picture is where the ceiling jumps up to accommodate my door. This detail is the same on both the forward and aft sections of the engine room. This detail also gives me three more inches of headroom over my work bench.

The room is about 70% complete in regard to fitting out the aluminum wall and ceiling sheathing, and 100% finished regarding the sole, so I decide to drop in the generator. The engine room is now completely closed off. Im going to miss that large opening as it was easy to drop material into the space, and it also made things nice in regard to ventilation.

The engine room, for the most part, is sheathed. I still have to cover the seams with some trim, but Ive yet to find a source or figured out what the trim will look like. Im thinking I"ll go with a 1" piece with some sort of slight brake on both edges.

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Boat Plans Wooden | Sea Chest Complete

Boat Plans Wooden

I finished the sea chest, and installed it.

Ive been hunting for a used sea strainer, and finally found one on Ebay. The dude I bought if from had purchased it for his boat then had a change of mind. The strainer is in new condition having never seen the water.

I welded a leg on to the manifold that I will screw on to the fixed panel that covers part of the fuel tank. Ill be able to access the fuel tank clean out without having to take the sea chest apart as the panel Im using as a brace is adjacent to the access panel.

The final elevation of the top of the "T" is 1" below the water line ( DWL). You can see a line drawn on the fuel tank inspection cover that represents the DWL. I"ll have to extend a nipple up above the DWL, and put a cap on it. Maybe Im not seeing something in my approach to using a T vs a 90, but I like being able to peek down into the "T" just to see what I can see. I also used a coupling on the end of the manifold that will have a plug in it, so I easily be able to expand my sea chest by adding on to the coupling/manifold. I can also expand the sea chest via the T, but Id have to go with a self priming device due to elevation concerns.

I think Im going to remove the plastic bowl on the sea chest and stash it away while I do more fitting out in the engine room. I also have to cut away the piece of angle under the third valve as it is no longer needed and is sort of in the way of the last valve. I think Ill extend the sole under the sea strainer now that I know what the final elevation is going to be. As you can see from the picture, I have enough room to put the valve handles behind the sea chest. Having the handles in the rear is really dumb luck on my part, but nice in that the handles are out of the way and wont snag one as they move past the sea chest.

Now that the sea chest is complete, I can finalize the generator connections.

I like having all my thru hull fittings in one location that is easy to get to. Every time I enter the engine room, it will be impossible not to look at the condition of the sea chest.

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Wooden Boat Plans Australia | Argie 15 People Carrier

Wooden Boat Plans Australia

I have written here before about the versatility of the Argie 15. This week I watched a video posted on YouTube by Özden O?ul, of two couples sailing an amateur-built Argie 15 in Turkey. Normally a 15ft dinghy with four adults aboard is full to the brim with people. This video really brings home the size and comfort of this dinghy as a family fun boat. The winds are light, yet even with this load it is moving along very nicely, with plenty of freeboard to take more.

The crew are spread out in the boat, with one even right up in the bow where you dont normally have someone sit on a boat of this size. It accepts this and carries on sailing. This video highlights how much space there is in this boat.

The Argie 15 is a great camp-cruiser, with a good turn of speed. That also makes it a nice raid boat, capable of taking rough water and covering extended distances.

For more info on this and out other designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/.

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Boat Plans Aluminium | Scrap yard finds for the engine room

Boat Plans Aluminium

My excavating business is as poor as Ive ever seen having been self employed for 20+ years. With my revenue down so low and my not wanting to not work on the boat even though I have much less cash to throw at the project, Ive taken to visiting scrap yards looking for some material.

This post still reflects my working in the engine room, but I want to look at the value of utilizing used material.

Given the down turn in the economy, I had my mind set that I was going to have to sheath the engine room floor in plywood and probably paint it. While down at the scrap yard today unloading the fruits of me cleaning up around the shop, I noticed some aluminum diamond plate getting ready to be processed. The material was a double diamond plate pattern 3.5 x 7.5 x 1/4" thickness. There were 20 sheets, but from what I could remember five sheets would be plenty, so I went ahead and struck a deal for six sheets. We agreed on a price of $.80 per pound. For the six sheets my total costs were $300.00. The pattern of the diamond plate was nothing Id ever seen before, and as you can see from this picture, it is a double diamond pattern. From here on out, Im going to call it "Double D", or "DD". Personally, I am partial to "DD", and it just makes me happy thinking about it.

I also needed a 2" stainless ball valve for my sea chest, and a 1.5" stainless ball valve for my holding tank pump out station. This scrap yard had a large bin of stainless valves and it only took me a couple of minutes to find two I thought looked good. I paid $1.00 per pound for the valves so my total cost for the valves came to $18.00. Both valves were 316 grade.

Once back at the shop I took the valves apart, applied some lithium grease, re-assembled them, then air tested them to 40 psi. I only used 40 psi since I was using PVC for my air test, and in all honesty, the valves will see no more than a two or three psi of pressure.

I also made a call to my local metal supplier to see what the costs were on new 1/4" diamond plate aluminum sheets. I was quoted a price of $3.75 per pound. The sheets of diamond plate I purchased weighed around 375 lbs. With the new cost of $3.75 I figured I got $1400.00 worth of diamond plate for $300.00. Im also going to estimate the value of the valves @ $175.00 and $150.00 respectively, for a total valve value of $325.00. By purchasing used material, I think I can figure the new value of the material at about $1700.00, but my total outlay for this material was only $318.00. Quite a nice savings in my opinion. I should also say that the scrap yard paid me $249.00 for the 2700 lbs of scrap I dropped off.

One more thing I should add about the valves is that they are rated at 1000 psi, and I think they are sch. 80 or sch. 120. I can say with confidence that these valves are what I would call "beefy" valves, and have what I would guess double the duty rating as any valve one might buy from a marine catalog.

The aluminum diamond plate I purchased was obviously used as a cat walk or some other industrial application. This is a great example of why metal is such a good building material. While this material could have been in heavy service for 20+ years, a little work on my part and it will clean up and look just like new. I also think that the aluminum diamond plate will make my engine room floor as fine as any of the so called high end production plastic yachts on the market.

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Boat Plans Australia | Engine room sole

Boat Plans Australia

The engine room sole is sheathed with 1/4" aluminum diamond plate.

I was planning on using plywood for the sole due to cost concerns on my part, but having found this plate at the scrap yard has allowed me to go with, what I consider, a more attractive sole. Because of being in the engine room, and also I believe it could be a common event to have to lift pieces of the sole off for maintenance I bolted wood firing to my steel framing and then attach the aluminum sheathing to the wood. If I had screwed the aluminum sheathing directly to the steel I had visions in the not to distant future of broken screws, corrosion where screws penetrated the steel, and just more difficult maintenance in general. Having wood to screw the aluminum in to will also give me a little vibration dampening in my opinion. Im using #12 x 1.50" stainless steel wood screws that Im countersinking as my fastener. The sole is complete as I write this post, and to date, Ive used 150 of the stainless screws to fasten the aluminum down.

I wanted as much level area in the engine room as I could build, so I stepped the sole framing up as the sole moves aft in the engine room. These steps, while some might not like, give me places of access underneath the sole, and also give me a place to sit while Im in the engine room. Whenever I give friends tours of the progress, almost everyone sits on one of these steps. This picture to the left shows the platform I built for my tool box, and my hydraulic system reservoir.

I think the largest piece of material Ive used for the engine room sole is a finished cut piece of 24"x 24". I dont want to be having to man handle large pieces when Im I have to access under the sole. I would rather be able to lift smaller pieces, to gain access and still be kneeling or sitting on the level sole. The down side to having all these smaller pieces is I used quite a few screws.

Im getting a pretty good feel on how the engine room is going to layout and I think Ive found locations for the various equipment Im going to need. Im going to dedicate the port side of the room up against the main bulkhead at frame #9 as my area for my work bench. While the head room is around 5"4" in this area, Ill be able to use a short stool with a lower work bench to be able to work in a comfortable position. Ill post more about the engine room as a whole once I begin to install the various components.

The last piece of the sole for me to build is the area over the stuffing box. Im almost out of aluminum plate so I have to give it some thought on how I want to treat this area so I dont waste any material. I think Im going to hinge a part of this area so I can gain quick access to the stuffing box for maintenance, daily checks for leaks, and stuffing box temperature.

I have 4 10" of head room on the starboard side of the engine, and 5 2" on the port side of the engine. I have more headroom on the port side by my design as I knew this area would house my work bench. Id love to have a stand up engine room, but on a boat my size, I think that would be almost impossible. I think once you get into the 50 range, stand up engine rooms start to appear. Im totally happy with the size of the engine room, and very pleased with the head room I do have. Ill be able to easily do all my maintenance work in this space in comfort.

The scrap yard aluminum worked out great. There are some blemishes, and some cleaning that will have to be done. I know as construction progresses, the dings I put in the sole, will blend in to what was there. Ill probably never do much more than clean up the messs I make. I have to say that I love the way the engine room is shaping up.

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Wooden Boat Plans And Kits | Dont Underload Your Diesel Engine

Wooden Boat Plans And Kits

I have been around boats with diesel engines for more than 40 years. In that time I have heard many times that we should not run a diesel engine under light loads for long periods because "it can glaze the cylinders". Another statement has been "diesel engines like to be loaded". Maybe you have also been told or read this but do you really understand what is going on with your diesel, why it is so important to run it with healthy loads and why you should not over-power your boat?

A turbo charger turbine wheel fouled with soot and fuel, the result of chronic underloading. This gunge also fouls your upper cylinders, exhaust valves and exhaust system. From there it is washed out with the cooling water into the water on which you enjoy your boating. Photo courtesy of Steve DAntonio.

I am a proponent of reasonable size motors in sailboats but often deal with owners who want to put much bigger motors in their boats than I recommend. My 36ft boat had 20hp, my 34 had 12hp and my 38 footer had 18hp. That 12hp could push my boat against a 40 knot wind on flat water. Sure, it was slow progress and the motor was working very hard but it could do it. In less extreme conditions the motor wasnt just ticking over to move her at reasonable speed. A 20hp motor would still be acceptable on that boat but anything bigger would be over-powering it.

Professional Boatbuilder magazine has an enlightening article on this subject on their website, written by their technical editor Steve DAntonio. Steve also works with owners and builders through his own business, Steve DAntonio Marine Consulting, Inc.

The grooves that retain oil in a cylinder wall, known as crosshatch, can be seen here. Frequent light load operation can wear away this pattern; known as cylinder glazing, it exacerbates blow-by and the issues that accompany it. Photo courtesy of Steve DAntonio.

I dont want to repeat here what Steve writes about so clearly in his article, just to point out again that you do harm to your motor, to your bank account and to the environment by over-powering your boat, which inevitably results in you running your motor at speeds that will cause problems. Those problems wont only materialise "in the long run", they can start to appear when the motor has run for no more than a few thousand hours. You will be inviting self-inflicted pain and heartache on yourself and future owners of the boat.

Please read Steves article. And for info on my designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com.

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