Wooden Boat Plans And Kits
Boat position: N38* 57 46.03" W84* 14 45.13"
Nautical miles traveled: .0006583
Engine hours: 0
Captains state of mind: Hmm?
Whats this all about you ask? The reason there is a small percentage of nautical miles traveled is because the boat moved. The reason the boat moved is because its sitting on the axles that will move her to THE LAUNCH SITE. The reason I moved the boat is because I could.
The move of the boat represented about two feet forward, then two feet back. It was a pretty easy thing to with a little nudge from my skid loader providing the power.
Getting the boat on the axles was a pretty straight forward job that consumed some hours. The first thing I did was reinforce the bow section of the building cradle. Since the aft section of the boat was getting lifted the highest, I decided to jack up this end first, and then do the bow. I was afraid the lifting cradle on the bow would not handle the shifting, forward push of the load, so I added some bracing to the cradle. The next step was to build cribbing using concrete blocks on the port and starboard side of the boat to catch it if something bad happened. I knew it would not twist off of the jack since it was supported by the bow cradle, but if the bow cradle failed, and it dropped down on to the cribbing I had under the bow, it could roll off of the jack, hence the cribbing on the sides. I used a 30 ton bottle jack under the keel and a frame member to jack the boat up. I also placed cribbing along side the jack in case the jack failed.
The boat went up off of the jack stands smoothly, and without any hiccups. I was pretty pumped to see it separate from the building cradle, and slow was the speed I chose to operate at. I would lift if a couple inches, then stop and take a walk around to see how it was behaving on the bow building cradle. Once it was high enough, I would add some wood blocks to the temporary side cribbing to keep the distance to the hull close, then lift it some more. I guess it took about an hour and a half to lift it the 14" I needed to get the axle under the keel. Most of the time was me checking things out and going outside the barn to chain saw more wood blocking as she got higher.Being able to jack this boat up from one point gives some testament to how stout shes built.
I had the axle under the boat before I started to lift her, so once she was high enough, I rolled the axle to the final position the squared the axle to the hull. Since I still had the cradle strong back in place, and since the hull was built square to the strong back, I just measured off of the strong back and positioned the axle off of that. Because the rear axle is so wide, the cradle strong back prevented me from putting two of the four wheels on the axle while the strong back was in place. Once the axle was in position, I torch cut some of the strong back away, and put the two outer wheels on the axles. With all four wheels on the axle, I lowered the hull on to axle. I was amazed at how much the axle started to deflect, but due to me reinforcing the tube, the deflection was minimal. Once the load was fully on the axle, I lightened the load a bit and fabricated the stanchions that will prevent the boat from tipping off the axle. To pad the hull from the stanchions, I cut up pieces of rubber mud flaps and put them between the hull and the stanchion pads. Once the stanchions were in place, I lowered the hull on the axle and moved my operation forward.
Placing the hull down on the forward axle was much easier and went pretty quick. I just had to jack the hull off of the forward cradle, cut the cradle and strong back away, then roll the steering axle in place. I took a few measurements, and made sure the steering axle was parallel to the rear axle, placed some two inch blocks on the I beam cross members I had made for the steering axle, and lowered the hull on to the steering axle. The only hiccup I had doing this was when I was putting the hull on blocks so I could move the jack, two of the concrete blocks broke, and I had to replace them. The loud popping of the block made me jump a bit, but it worked out OK. As I placed the full load of the hull on to the steering axle, I quickly realized the tires are not beefy enough. If I tried to haul the boat with those tires and as much as the tires have bulged, the tires would quickly heat up and blow out. A blow out would be sure to happen even at the slow speed Im going to be traveling at. I kept more of the load on the keel blocks, and a call to my tire guy assured me I could replace the 10 ply tire with some larger 24 ply tires that would make the trip. Ill deal with replacing the tires in a week or so.
The hull is now about 18" out of level so very little work will be done up there until she gets to THE LAUNCH SITE. There are a few little jobs I need to get finished before I haul her out of her nice cozy barn, but my main focus will be getting the super structure ready to install. Now that shes on the axles, I measured her down the road height at 14 5". This height is lower than I had originally thought it would be, and thats a good thing as wires should be of little issue. I will clear the highway overpass by more than a foot and a half, so for right now all is good.
Now that the hull is on the axles, and I have the cradle removed from the shop, I am moving on with getting the super structure put together. The panels are already built, and now that I have the cradle steel available to me, Ill put together a gantry and get on with some more building. The building part of this type of project is fun, with all the devil in the details. Im not going to make any promises, but this next part of the build should go pretty fast.
Cheers,
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Ive never owned a boat with a wheel house, but I can without a doubt say that the wheel house is huge. The other thing I can say about the wheel house is that, the designer got it right when the designed the reverse rake of the forward windows and the trim ( the bill that extends from the roof) for the wheel house roof... its perfect. Ive seen some pictures of other boats of my flavor completed by others, and a few of those the builders decided not to install the trim as designed. I have always felt that it took much away from the look of the wheel house, and not that Ive seen it up close and personal, I now know it to be a fact that eliminating the trim detracts from the look of the boat.
The first step in getting serious about building the super structure was to build a gantry. The left over 4" beams from the building cradle strong back provided most of the steel to do the job. The main lifting beam I had saved from the gantry I used to build the hull. Because things are getting tight in the shop and the gantry just fits between the metal lathe and the hull, I had to pad the gantry with a canvas tarp to prevent it from gouging the hull and causing me some serious paint repair. I"m so glad I decided to do this as the gantry has already bumped the hull. I can say that the rub rail is working.
The first thing I did was establish a center line on the barn floor, then squared another line off of that. The squared off line became the line for the wheel house front. Positioning the various panels in relation to the line and bracing them was about all it took to get the show started. Once all the panels were in place, I then installed the roof beams and the room longitudinal stringers. The roof sheathing, obviously was the last item to be installed. Because of having all the layout lines laser etched into the sheathing, it was just a matter of putting the blue line on the roof sheathing on top of the side wall and tacking the sheathing down.
The roof sheathing is what squares up the structure, so paying attention to detail for this part of the build was a key strategy. I first tacked the sheathing in the forward corner then worked my way down one side bringing the side wall to the layout line and tacking the pieces together. Because the roof sheathing is now tacked to the side wall on the layout line, I then started to bring the forward part of the wheel house to the layout line of the roof sheathing and tacked it in place. I started this process from the same corner. A lesson one learns quickly with metal work is never tack yourself in to a corner...always start from the closed end of something and work your way outbound. The other strategy with metal work is to tack all your parts together first, and leave the serious welding until EVERYTHING IS TACKED TOGETHER. Welding generates serious heat and caused the metal to move quite a bit. Final welding before youre finished fitting will only cause one grief.
Now that I had
two panels tacked to the line, the third panel easily moved to the line and was tacked. I then installed the aft part of the wheel house and the box was complete.
The trim for the roof section was another story. The trim wraps around the wheel house and creates a drip edge to keep water from running down the sides of the wheel house. The forward piece of the trim extends down over the room sheathing a little further than the side trim, and creates a bill to keep the sun out of the captains eyes. Its the exact same as wearing a hat, and not that I see it installed, I love it. The other piece that gets installed to complete the trim is a piece that angles up from the room at 45 degrees, and welds to the bill. This 45 degree piece
creates a gutter on the inside of the roof and also stiffens the bill piece of the trim. The gutter piece is another nice detail that will make painting and maintaining this part of the boat easier. There are no tight crevices for bad things to start working against me and everything is open and easily reached. This same gutter detail will be repeated on the salon roof, and all the rain will travel this course and discharge overboard without hitting the decks. There will be a lot of rain running this path, so I need to have a way to capture it and get it in to the water tanks if the need arises. All the trim parts when installed ended up having funky angles with compound bends. The funky angles and compound bends required some patience, and about as much time to do as assembling the main wheel house panels, but in the end it was worth it. All of the trim is fair and should paint up nicely.
super structure. Because the deck of the boat falls from bow to stern, the back of the wheel house is sitting on the barn floor with the front up on some blocks. Before I can assemble the salon, I have to jack up the wheel house the same distance as the step that is decks. I could leave it as it is, but that would mean being crouched over as I build the salon, and that wont work for me. Ill probably end up putting in a temporary floor in the wheel house to make painting the inside easier.
