All the shiny stuff

Each coat took about 1.5 hours.  I sanded after coats 2 and 3, which also took about 1.5 hours.  Add that up, and that  is  a lot of time spent.  Supposedly all I will need to do now is paint on 1 coat every year or two depending on how much time the boat spends in the sun, which will certainly be doable.

Start of varnising

The car has been banished from the garage so that varnishing can commence. 

I strung everything up on some line so I could get all sides at once.  There are 4 rub strips, 2 spars, the mast, a set of oars, 2 cleats, and the tiller and tiller extension. There are also a few bits attached to the boat to do: forward coaming, mast partner and transom. I'll give everything at least 3 coats and see if it needs more. 

I'm using Le Tonkinois original, mostly for ease of application.  I have no experience with varnishing and I have heard good things about getting good looking and long wearing results with Le Tonkinois over high gloss marine spar varnishes.

I have two coats on everything at this point, and it's interesting to see the difference in gloss based on what was already on the wood.  Pieces coated with fiberglass, such as the transom below, are glossy and look like they have a layer of honey on them.

The cleats, which had an overnight bath in boiled linseed oil are also glossy.  Pieces that got a good wipe down with blo are somewhat glossy, but need at least one more coat.  The spars, made of softer spruce, have a satin look to them and will need a couple more coats.  It's fairly obvious that on bare wood the Le Tonkinois penetrates into the wood.  Though it means more initial coats will have to be applied, this should improve adhesion and protection. 

Top paint and rub rails

I painted the topsides last week.  The tough part was painting under the side decks.  I had debated painting underneath and decided I should do it to give it a more finished look, though you will only see it if you're in the boat looking low.

I gave the cleats a good soaking in boiled linseed oil.

I also decided to add some rub rails.  I ripped them out of the ash board, 1" x 1/4".  They are only 1/4" thick because the boat already has a 1 1/4" by 5/8" outwale that has been glassed and painted.  Since the board was only 8' long I had to scarf.  I cut a small step to help minimize the glue line and give me a stop when clamping the scarf.

The ones going in the cockpit had to be notched at the ends to slide under the forward and aft deck where I had rounded the corners.

Then I had to round over the edges, 100 linear feet in total.  Because they are rub rails and will likely need to be replaced due to being banged into I didn't want to permanently mount them.  They are too thin to fully countersink the screws and bung them, so I'm just countersinking them below the surface.  I bought a box of 100 screws but I'm going to need 106 so I will have to pick up a few more.

I used some scrap wood to make a guide for mounting.

Without countersinks and pilot holes the wood was prone to splitting due to it being cross grained.  It's not ideal, but it's not like I have been able to get vertical grained wood.  After drilling all the pilot holes and countersinks for all of them I was able to tack them into place and figure out how I wanted to shape the ends.

They still need to get oiled and then I will mount and varnish them.

Fun with ash

I bought some nice ash boards for some solid wood pieces.  First up was the deck coaming.  It's not in the plans, but I liked the look that others had achieved.  Since it wasn't in the plans I spent a lot of time fussing with aesthetics.

I then marked the curve of the deck by clamping some scrap plywood down and tracing along the top if it onto another piece of scrap.

After cutting the ply and verifying the fit I traced it onto an ash board and cut out it out, leaving it overly long and tall.

Without a saw to cut 1" thick hardwood along an arc I cut perpendicular to the line every inch or so and then chiseled out the bulk before using a spokeshave and rasp to clean it up.

Once I got this all fit I set the angle with my homemade bevel gauge.

Holding the board at this angle I captured the bevel using a compass.

 I then used the compass to trace the bevel on the other side of the stock.

This allowed me to plane in the bevel.  Because tilting the stock causes the arc to change slightly, I had to check the fit and adjust the curve a little so that it still matched the arc of the deck.

I felt 1" was too thick.  I used various scrap thickness held roughly in place to get an idea of what thickness I liked best.  I settled on 1/2", which meant planing the piece down.  To give myself some thickness references I set my circular saw to depth of material I want to remove, then made a bunch of cuts across the face.  This allowed me to plane it flat without having to constantly check to ensure I didn't end up with one side thinner than the other.  I used my electric planed for the bulk of it, then fine tuned it with my jack plane.

 Once I had both pieces to this state I then used a square to get a vertical line of the deck traced onto the stock.  I knew this wasn't going to be exact, but I had given myself some extra length to work with, so by checking and adjusting I was able to get a nice fit at the tip of the chevron.

Because I had cut the pieces both long and tall and set them in place I then decided on a final size based on aesthetics.  Basically, I had to get it tall enough to be functional, but not too tall near the center. and it needed to taper enough toward the ends to not block the line formed by curve of the deck at the ends.  It's about 2.5" tall at the center and about 1/2" at the ends.  I also planed the top edge to be parallel with the deck.  A cross section of one of the pieces would be a parallelogram.

To attach it I screwed up through the deck.  Blindly feeling in the forward compartment with a flat head screwdriver and screwing upward led to the longest time it has ever taken me to tighten a single screw.  After dry fitting everything in place I took it apart and epoxied it into place, using the screws to hold it tightly against the deck.

 The next thing was to make some cleats.  They will go on the stern of the boat to be used for dock lines and for the mainsheet rope traveler.  I looked around online until I found a shape I liked and read up on appropriate sizing (5").  I drew several mockups on paper until I settled on a final shape, then transferred this to cardboard and then to my stock.  I first drilled the holes and then cut out the rough shape.

I then planed and rasped to profile.

Then more rasping and sanding took it 3D.  They each took me about 1.5 hours total.

I still need to drill and countersink the boltholes for mounting.  They are actually the same length, but the closeness of the picture makes the one standing up look larger due to it being closer to the lens.