Tools of the Trade

So what's been accomplished since the last post?  Let's see...  Not much.

Decking was installed with a dry fit, all edges trimmed with hand planes and Surfoam, and reinstalled with silicon bronze screws - waiting for filleting and seam taping.

I reinforced the underside of the large rear cross hatch deck with some strips of 3/8" Hydrotek, then glued them in with some epoxy and coated the wood with epoxy.

All of the hatch lid outlines were traced onto each deck.  This required some head scratching (see "Contemplation" post) trying to figure out what would go in each hatch. Since in the end I didn't really know, after all my last trip in a dory was 1978, I just winged it. I did offset the seat for the front cross hatch to the left.  This will allow getting some longer stuff such as my guitar in there. I also thought about making the bow hatch bigger, to give a bigger opening for maybe some lighter, but bulky stuff such as dry bags. Eventually I chose to go with the standard size when I discovered that if I made the opening much bigger I wouldn't have room for the frames around the hatch lid openings.

Installed deck edges were trimmed with either a flush trim router bit or with hand planes and Surfoam, depending on the angle of the deck.  The trim router bit, at least the long ones I own, were pretty much useless on the more steeply sloped decks. All edges were eased with a 1/16" roundover or with my Radi Plane chamfer unit.

Hmm, that actually doesn't sound too shabby for a working slug.

Seems like a good time to bring up some of the things I've used to build this boat.



Top billing goes, of course, to my Surfoam collection.  It's hard to believe I've had one of these for over 20 years and never really used it much in the wood shop.  Just a great tool for fiberglass edge trimming, knocking down dried sharpies, Core Cell and fillet shaping, etc.  I now have a smaller hand unit plus a backup full size one (don't like the shape of the new handles) which I scored in the dollar bargain bin at a Denver Lowes.  Woo hoo!

Dewalt laminate trimmer and Bosch small plunge router.  Just your standard units.  Every shop has one.  But I'm betting every shop doesn't have 5 which is what I just counted the other day - when you also consider my Porter Cable big router under the router table, a large Makita plunge router that I have no idea how or where I acquired and have never used, and my old 690 PC router which was under my first router table, where it lead a hard life and is now gracefully retired to a drawer.

Makita reciprocating saw. Pretty standard unit as well.  Not much you can't cut with this, including a mangled trampoline and aluminum frame which landed on top of our basketball goal after a big wind storm. No way to save that one.  Kids were very sad, but future hospital bills got smaller.

PC jig saw. I've had this as long at the router and it has served me well. Lots of use for this with mainly panel cuts, and seat and latch cut-outs.

Skilsaw circular saw - used to cut the bow post and transom angles, plus all of the bevelled cuts on the decks. Am anticipating, with some trepidation, that it will be the tool of choice for the transom arch and motor mount cuts. Thankfully well down the line.

Makita 9227 polisher.  This is the standard unit in nearly every auto body shop.  Works great as a polisher, but even better as a sander with a soft pad. No dust collection, but just move the boat outside and go for it.  Hope for a good wind.

Makita chop saw - as I've mentioned earlier in this blog, my favorite power tool in my woodshop.

Makita drills/screwdrivers.  I'm sensing a Makita theme here. Mostly I like their stuff. Standard lithium battery units which get almost as much work in my shop as the Surfoams. I liked the older, non-lithium battery ones better but the two older Makita and Dewalt ones I had died early in the project.  It probably didn't help much when I spilled some resin in the Dewalt motor and left the Makita outside in a rain storm during vegetable garden raised bed construction. Every day is a learning opportunity.

PC random orbital sander.  Part of the ancient PC trio, I've also had this forever and keep thinking it will die one day with all of the wood, and now fiberglass, dust it has inhaled.  The new pads don't seem to stick very well with the PSA sanding disks, but nothing a little spray contact cement can't fix. Also requires a good steady cross-wind for "dust collection".

Lest you think I'm simply a power tool Philistine, below are some of my favorite hand planes, from a large collection which have reproduced and thrived in my special plane drawer in my basement shop.  A Lie-Nielsen low angle block plane on the left and a Veritas std angle block plane in the middle. These are great for trimming up the deck and frame edges.

Surfoam is photobombing the pic:

Every time we drive up the Maine coast highway 1, passing through Waldoboro (where we've never found Waldo) we always stop at Tom Lie-Nielsen's shop in Warren.  It's always good for a couple hours of poking around and I defy any woodworker to leave there w/o a new tool or two.

Another place worth your tool time is Liberty Tools.  There's a shop on the coast road in Searsport but it seems to be open only b/w 1-2PM on leap year Wednesdays.  The main shop is in Liberty and the two floors must contain 1000's of versions of every antique tool ever made.

Here's my Makita angle grinder.  So far not much dory building use but anticipate firing it up for some of the hardware work. And maybe easing some of the seam tape selvage edges.

Digital scale.  I've been measuring by weight rather than volume.  Along with my resin:hardener spread sheet this has been great to use.  Just a piece of wax paper or saran wrap on top. And then back quietly into the kitchen, good as new.

Highland Woodworking clamps

Finally, here's my tick stick.  Perhaps the best tool of the whole sorry lot as it was cheap (free), made by me, and it worked great. Sort of a nice coda to the tool excess above.

Here's one tool I'm hoping I won't have a use for.

Then there's Roger Fletcher, who, in his book "Drift Boats and River Dories", seems to indicate you can build these entire boats with just a hand saw, Yankee screwdriver, Stanley brace drill, and jack plane.

Knock yourself out Roger.  Not giving up my power tools.

18 Trips

Today the Meranti Hydrotek was cut and glassed.

The mantra for the day was "sneaky cuts". As in, don't screw up $250 of marine plywood with impatience or inaccuracy.

So I carefully snuck up on each beveled or straight cut, climbing down and up the stairs to the basement workshop 18 times, testing the deck panels with repeated dry fittings.

This one turned out to be my worst cut, but the gap closes up when the panels are pulled in a little, plus a little fillet.

I kept track of the laps on the underside of my port side hatch. Next to my trusty resin hat. I may just leave it there unpainted, sort of a build-in-progress decoupage.

I've got to say, the cardboard templates, compass dividers, and tick stick worked really well. I'm really happy with how the deck panels came out.

After a little Surfoaming (always) for the final fitting, the panels were glassed on each side and trimmed.

Knee pads get some more use - I'm really glad I found these, lost among a bunch of other forgotten crap in the bottom of a shop drawer. They've been lifesavers.

A visitor, my bird hunting/fishing (and Roman Villa Pizza) buddy Bill showed up to the Marland Boat Shop (MBS) for a visit.

And earlier in the day, a new assistant, youngest son Michael (aka Mookie Bear) hopped in for some help with a flow coat inside the hatches, after we added some white pigment.

Looks like we'll still need some paint eventually, but it's a good start, getting a base primer coat on before the decks go on.

Mikey "volunteers" for the stern hatch. Good on ya Mooks!

Ruby, the DD, responds to my question of whether or not she wants to go outside on this cold, snowy day.

Or maybe participate in some of the build work in the garage?

First side of panels glassed.

After finishing the panels, I made 3 more trips to the basement, carrying down the rest of the Core Cell scraps (their job is done) to store in another metaphorical lost drawer, where I'll stumble across them years from now.

Pretty whooped.  Gonna be a 3 Advil night (sounds like a band).

Working, But Not Working

Precious little to report. Been working way too hard, but not in the right place if you're considering dory production. Plus had some oral surgery Weds which tied up a good chunk of the day off. Got some IV sedation which was great. But decided using power tools, esp the circular saw for cutting decks, was a bad idea after that.

I exchanged a few emails and a phone call with Andy, nailing down a lot of questions about upcoming stuff like Southco latches, piano hinges and other hardware options, seat Minicell foam, and some last minute hatch lid construction techniques. Stuff I need to get around ordering sooner rather than later as suddenly the decking and hatches are showing up on my boat.

Good man that Andy.

A little work on some more fairing, mainly only of the rough spots inside the hatches for now.

And finished the cardboard templates for the decks, which I'll be cutting soon.

Boat Names & Movie

Naming the boat will soon be an issue.  Seems a little premature but if I'm going to get boat letters made by A &B Sign Co in Prescott I need to get around to this sooner rather than later.

It's a big deal naming your boat. You only get one shot, since everyone knows it's really bad luck to rename one. 

There is probably some truth to the rumor that the Titanic, Lusitania, and Andrea Doria had other names during construction.

The GCD tradition was to memorialize a feature or location which had been ruined by man. Particularly the Bureau of Reclamation. Some classic examples include:

Here are some ideas bouncing around in my head. As an aside, I recognize this is somewhat dangerous, exposing name choices in advance. Sort of like telling the entire family the final choices of a new baby's name before its birth. No one ever will agree on it.

Dolores - perhaps my favorite multiday trip, done once in a kayak (with a benevolent rafter carrying all our gear, which may be why it is so fondly recalled) in the late 70's. The river is now dewatered by McPhee Res, supplying irrigation for local crops which farmers back east, due to excess production, are paid gov't subsidies to not grow.   I'm told there are at least 4 other Dolores' out there though. 

Pemigewasset - the first real river I kayaked, on a Ledyard Canoe Club trip.  This was back in the LCC days when you built or borrowed a boat and sprayskirt, wore 2 or 3 sweaters, plus a paddling jacket if you were hot stuff, and the club members pretty much said, "You'll be fine.  Go for it".

The only real reason I, to this day, use a left control kayak paddle is that's all that was left to borrow in the cage.

Where I managed to swim twice out of the same hole (very large eddy) on the East branch.  Now partially dammed over much of the run below the upper Franconia Notch section (which was not run during my day).

Downside is lots of letters, which cost money for the decals.  And it's a tongue twister for some.  But most of us just call it the Pemi.  Fond memories here.

Mascoma - the river outside of West Leb, where I first raced slalom on the Ledyard CC team.  Most of its course is now covered by numerous dams and mill sluices.  At the bottom of the traditional slalom course, and not too far below, is one very nasty low-head dam which was there in my time and I remember too well.  Toasted at the end of the second slalom run I flipped coming out of the last upstream gate, couldn't roll, and swam through the finish.  Arms were dead.  I bailed and my brand, newly built race kayak (fresh out of the mold with newfangled kevlar seam taping) recirculated and slowly came apart over several minutes.  We all had an excellent view of the acrobatics. DNF for the paddler, DNR for the boat.

Seems like this river history would work well with what I'm told is the dory mantra - Build 'em, wreck 'em, fix 'em.

Still lots of fond memories there too, mainly of other races.

Ledyard - my kids like this one.  Great to remember Dartmouth and the LCC, but not too sure since there's nothing that was desecrated by man to memorialize.  Except maybe many brain cells during the Thursday night feed bacchanals.

Moving on -

A new movie about Martin Litton and his dories will be premiered this winter and spring. Thanks to my rafting friend Mark for giving me the heads up on this. I'm going to try to make the Flagstaff showing, tying it in with a bike trip to Wickenburg. 

Martin's Boat

Continuing the theme of this post, the boat's name is Marble Canyon, recognizing Litton's pivotal role in saving the Grand Canyon from two dams which would have drowned the majority of the remaining free flowing river from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead.
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Good stuff there.  Wish I'd thought of that name first.

A Fairly Abrasive Day

Sunday I took my boat outside for her first view of the sun.  Getting a little tan on a nice but cold day.

Then it was on to some sanding.















And then more sanding.



For something different, after lunch we did a little more sanding.

I must admit I really like my Makita 9227 polisher/sander.  Generally used for auto body work, with a soft sanding pad and soft start, it kicks butt for sanding large areas.

Later in the afternoon, I moved her back inside to warm up in the garage and applied the first coat of the fairing mix, with resin and microspheres to a few (less critical, hidden) areas to learn how this goes.  Still not sure how to best do this but will clearly learn and get better over time. At least, that's the plan.

For now my first impression is it take a lot of resin and fairing mix to cover much area, when using a squeegee.  Greg Loehr is going to be happy with another 6 gallon Resin Research order. I may try a notched squeegee for another test.  May also just add the fairing mix to the low spots or edges where pieces of fiberglass cloth overlap, rather than doing to entire inside of the boat.

It is also possible I may just decide that no one will ever take a very close look at the inside of my hatches, and bag doing any real fairing inside those.