Keel Stem Reset

Yesterday, I was able to work on the boat again for the first time in a week due to some traveling and other activities.

As noted before, the stem was not straight in alignment with the center line of the keel, so I decided to see if I could correct this problem.

I took the stem screws out and re-trimmed the notch at the bottom of the stem to make it match the bottom of the keel better. I used my new T-Bevel to accomplish this task, and I am now sure glad I bought it the other day. A cheap tool that will come in very handy in the future.

I also trimmed the left keel side back to match the right side.

I then re-attached the stem with on screw through the bottom of the keel bottom into the notched area of the stem to hold it straight with the center line of the keel. Slowly, I drilled new holes and re-attached the keel sides to the stem again, while my girlfriend held the stem in perfect vertical level in both dimensions, and holding the stem in center alignment with the keel center line. Quite complicated for such a small piece, but it will make a big difference when the boat is completed. Everything needs to be as straight as possible or it will look funny when it is done.

It came out way better this time than the first time when I tried to accomplish it all myself. Thank God for Girlfriends!!!

Stem Attachment to the Keel Continued

I attached the stem to the keel side with 1 1/4" drywall screws after trying to straighten the planed edges on the keel sides. The angle was slightly off on both sides, and it still is to some extent. I will have to work on it a little bit more to make sure that the stem with be straight up and down and not turned sideways. I think I am going to trim back the left keel side a little bit to make it match with the right side. Right now it is approximately 1/4" farther forward on the stem.

If you look very carefully in the pictures, you can see that the stem is off about 3-4 degrees torqued sideways. Hard to understand what I am talking about, but it is there.

I have also now bought some wood screws that I will use in the White Oak to make sure that they do not break off inside after epoxying everything together. The wood screws appear to be much stronger. I have also heard that applying regular bar soap to the screws should help when removing them. I may try that.

The bottom of the stem will be trimmed to match the bottom of the keel curve, which should make it a little more pleasing to the eye. It will also help a little bit when fiberglassing that area. The smoother the better.

I have also planed down and sanded all of the Douglas Fir pieces to make sure they are not above the keel sides, but as level with it as possible. When the bottom of the hull is attached, I want it to contact all of the top surfaces of the keel as much as possible.

Stem Attachment to the Keel

On New Years Day, I started the process of attaching the stem to the keel sides and bottom. This requires the two plywood sides to be planed down at an angle to match up with the keel sides. I thought I had it pretty close, but the rear edge appeared to need planed down, but after accomplishing that I found that I had planed it too much. Now, I will need to sand or plane down the forward edge of the keel sides to match it up better. This may work out pretty good in the end as the stem is a little over the 1 1/2" measurement that is in the plans. If I had a planer-surfacer, I would have planed it down to the exact 1 1/2". See attached pics for clarity on this issue.

I also planed and sanded down the rear most Douglas Fir keel stiffener.

Today I will try to fix the angle problem with the keel sides. I also noticed that the front of the keel sides are slightly warped, so I will have to adjust for that when screwing everything together. I will also need to notch out the bottom of the stem to match it up with the keel bottom. It is kind of a weird angle.

First Assembly of Keel Continued

I completed installing all of the keel strengtheners yesterday. There are two things I have left before disassembling the parts and then reassembling with epoxy.

First is to attach the stem, after notching it and attaching the 1/2" quarter round. The second is to take the keel strengtheners back off and drill the small hole for the screw in the bottom and sides of the keel. I have already marked their locations as you can see with the pencil marks. After taking them off and drilling those holes, I will reinstall them to drill the strengtheners themselves.

Believe it or not, all of these parts except for one (the rear most portion of the bottom) is built from one piece of plywood, except for the obvious Douglas Fir parts and the stem. Very little is left from that one piece of plywood. It did take a little time to make sure everything was nested together on the plywood as close as possible to get this result.

The stern most piece of Douglas Fir and the plywood will still need to be planed down to the correct level of the sides.

FYI- None of these screws that are used to assemble all of the keel will be left in the parts. They are only used to get everything in alignment, epoxied together, and then they are removed. Hopefully, none of them will break off when removing them. Sheet rock screws easy break if over-torqued I found out when finishing my basement.

First Assembly of Keel

Yesterday, I began to assemble the keel parts, starting from the stern and moving forward. The back panel of the keel had to be planed a little bit to allow for the 9 degree bevel on the bottom and top.
I then began to attach the sides to the bottom, along with the stiffeners, with sheet rock screws. I predrilled the sides approximately a 1/4" up with a 5/64" bit to make sure that the screw would be located correctly. Then, as I attached the sides, I drilled the 5/64" hole into the bottom piece, doing one hole at a time to insure that the bottom was perfectly aligned. After drilling the hole thru into the bottom piece, I enlarged the hole in the side piece to 1/8" to allow the screw to grip the bottom piece to pull them tight. That screw was them installed and tightened just enough to pull everything tight.
I got all of the side to bottom screws completed, but still need to attach the three forward stiffeners and stiffener panels, which still have to be measured and cut out.
Pictures are going to be attached next to show this assembly sequence.
The stem will be notched and attached next.
After everything is screwed together and labeled for correct re-assembly, the entire assembly will be taken apart. All parts will be checked and then re-assembled with epoxy and all seams taped with fiberglass. All interior parts of the keel will then be coated with epoxy at least twice to make sure it remains waterproof.

Keel Bottom and Side Butt Splices

Today, I epoxied the keel bottom pieces and the keel side pieces together with their respective butt splices. Seems pretty easy to do, but the pieces really slid around a lot after applying the epoxy twice on both pieces. I used 7/8" brads to hold everything in place and as many heavy things as I could find to keep the bottom butt splice as tight as possible.

Tomorrow, I will try to start assembling the keel sides and bottom along with the interior keel pieces.

Today I have spent my time cutting out the keel strengtheners and butt splice pieces to join the bottom and side keel pieces. The butt splice pieces were cut to 6" instead of the 4" on the plans for extra strength. Every little bit of strength will help in that area. I have only cut the four 20" keel strengtheners for now, as I don't know the exact sizes of the other three pieces until I begin to assemble the entire keel.

I also sanded down the excess epoxy on the White Oak stem and rounded all corners with a 1/4" roundover bit on my router table. Just sanding off the epoxy took nearly an hour, so I will try to be more careful with the squeeze out on the rest of the parts. It is much easier to squeegee off the excess epoxy during the assembly. This stem was hard to do that due to all the plastic I used to make sure no parts were epoxied together that shouldn't have been.

I also planed and sanded all of the edges of the plywood keel bottom and sides. The sides of the keel were clamped together and "matched up" during this.

Maybe I can get more done this evening.

Keel Bottom and Side Pieces Cut

Well, I worked a little more than I thought I would on Christmas Eve.

The attached pictures show the pieces cut out for the hull. They will still need to have all edges "straightened" with the plane. I cut as close to the pencil lines as I could, but need to get them perfect for mating with the other pieces.

I also cut the Douglas Fir 2" x 8"x 48" into four different pieces for now, which will also go into the hull section. I will cut them to final size when I determine their exact size needed.

Time to go to the Christmas Eve Party!!!

Christmas Eve - Laminated Stem Complete

The laminated stem of White Oak turned out pretty good. The excess epoxy will have to be sanded down, but the two pieces are matched up very well. The epoxy was allowed to sit for a minimum of 24 hours before removing the clamps, which gave the epoxy enough time to cure. This will be one hard stem, and it weighs about eight pounds in its present state. After I sand off the epoxy and get all six surfaces smooth, I will round-over the corners with my router to make it look a little better.

I also completed drawing out most of the main keel pieces on the plywood . You may have to look real close or enlarge the photo to see the pencil lines. I will draw out the rest of the keel pieces today on another piece of plywood. It is probably a wise idea to follow the layout of all the pieces shown on the plans, but I have already deviated. I am going to make sure I will have enough to use before moving on.

Merry Christmas to all. And yes, I do know that nobody is really reading this.

Starting with the Stem

Last night I cut the White Oak plank to size with my table saw and laminated two pieces together to make the 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 39" stem. As you can see in the picture, I used several clamping blocks and epoxy to clamp the stem pieces together. The plastic was used to make sure the clamping blocks and the stem were not epoxied together.

I will be using West System Epoxy and Hardener for the entire project. I have looked at the MAS Epoxy, as well, but there is not a local dealer of this brand. I also used the West System brand to build my first boat and had very good luck with it.

After laminating the stem together, I began to draw out the measurements for the keel parts on the plywood. I got about half of the keel pieces drawn out so far.

Beginning Day on The Mini-Tug

Today I am beginning to build my "Perfect 10" Mini-Tug. It will be built using the plans from Berkeley Engineering.com. So far the best name I have come up with to name the boat is "Lil Bump". Any other great ideas would be listened to.

I will add pictures of the building process as soon as I begin.

Up to this point, I have already bought most of the plywood, the stem piece, some Douglas Fir, and the visor material, which is made of tempered masonite. The plywood I will be using is an Arauco brand plywood with exterior glue in 1/2" and 1/4" sizes, and it is made from Radiata Pine. The stem could be made from Douglas Fir, but I chose to use White Oak, which will be very strong and has very good rot resistance.

The motor choices can be from 2 HP to 30 HP, but I have some time to decide on that. I currently have a 2 HP Honda 4-cycle outboard, but I don't believe it will be near enough power.

Above is a picture of what it may look like in the future. Not sure about the colors, but I do like the Coast Guard design. Hopefully, I can have this completed by this summer to take out and fish and have fun!

The drawing is my first order of business. This is the keel of the boat and will be built before anything else. I am completing this in my basement, as my garage is quite full. Maybe a picture of that later! This keel consists of the stem, again White Oak, with plywood sides, spacers, and bottom with the 2x2's of Douglas Fir.

The White Oak I have is approximately 3/4" thick, so I will cut out two pieces and laminate them together with epoxy. Afterwards, I will then cut the laminated piece to exact dimensions needed for the complete stem.

Time to draw them out on the plywood and start cutting!