One Task at a time and Family time!

Building Tip: Building PocketShip is a lot of individual tasks that you must perform in order. When they say it is an estimated 600 hours to build, they really mean it. Now that I am into it, I can now realize that it will take a while. I have to make myself slow down. If I don't have enough time to complete a task, I am trying not to rush to get it completed, just to get it completed. I would rather it take much longer than build something that I am not proud of or the best quality work I can do.

You also need to keep the build and family time in check. So this weekend I am going away for our wedding anniversary. Planning on having some fun!! But instead of packing tonight, I decided to work on the boat!! :-)  I decided to glue the caps on the aft and bow of the keel. I mixed up a lot of thickened epoxy and made sure everything was coated completely. I then glued up things and applied a lot of clamps. I think things turned out ok.

I also put the keel onto 2 furniture dollies to be able to move it around. Now that I have 100 lbs of lead keel, it is pretty heavy.

Bow Keel cap glued and clamped. 

Aft keel all clamped up. I think I used every clamp I had.

Whole keel assembly on dollies.

The Joys of sanding!

I started to sand some of the floor supports and bulkheads over the last couple of days. The sanding is not that bad, but along with the nice humidity of 80-90% I can think of other things I would like to do.  Nothing like sweating all over your work! :-)

From what I have read the wood should be a dull gray and I have been trying to get the bright epoxy spots sanded away.  I think I sanded too much in a couple areas particularly around some of the edges, so I am recoating with some unthickened epoxy again in those areas. Probably not needed, since most of the edges will have fillets and fiber glass overlapping. I am a little confused on the whole step, but I will follow the instructions!! I think the goal is more of getting a coat of epoxy on everything to seal it.  

Below are a couple shots of the sanding I have done so far. I am trying to do about a hour plus a day.

Floor supports sanded. Notice the bright spots along the edges. This is where I think I sanded too much. I went ahead and put another coat on to cover it. 

Aft keel cap. 

bow keel cap.

I used some 1/2 inch thick floor trim I had left over to cap the aft and bow section of the keel. This will seal up everything. It took a while to trim a little off with a plane and then fit it. I used the dry wall screws to be able to grab it and pull out. I will be glueing it with some thicken epoxy. On the front, I will need to chisel out a little of the lead, since it is sitting up a little. 

Headed back out of town this weekend for a couple days, so I will be back at it next week. 

Lead Pour and Other Odds and Ins!

I just finished up the the lead pour for both the keel and centerboard. Everything went pretty good, but some areas were a challenge. I made two trips to the store for a couple of things. For starters, make sure you have enough propane. I had to make a trip to the store to get another tank as the one I had ran out. Not a huge thing, since the store is only about 10 minutes away. Also the propane burner started to act up and I could not get the flame as hot as I would have liked. I had to wait a while longer for the lead to melt.

I also made a trip to Basspro to buy lead shot. I tried to use the wheel weights,  but I would say 1/2 of it was other metals and I spent more time getting the non-lead out than actually melting and pouring. I know lead shot is expensive, but to me if I had started out with it, it would have made things easier.

The good news, I am done with this task and I have been thinking about it for a while. I have never melted lead and overall, I would not like to do it again, but I will mark it off as something new I have tried. Take your time and everything will work out fine!

Burner and kettle setup.

entire keel under fold-up canopy. notice the water hose, just in case! I also had a fire extinguisher standing by. 

Everything blocked up and clamped. Read for pour. 

Rear keel ready for pour.

The Finished Product. 

Back Keel pour finished. 

I also took Friday off yesterday and was able to get another coat of epoxy on some of the bulkheads and floor supports. 

I was having some issues with the epoxy heating up too quick, so I tried a suggestion from the PocketShip forum to put the cup in ice while I was using it. Seems to do the trick! 

Made a lot of progress. Next up is finishing the 2 coats on the floor supports and bulkheads and then sanding. I will then start working on the long panels. 

Its HOT!

It was supposed to get in the mid 90's today in Richmond, so I decided I didn't want to stand next to a propane burner and melt lead. It is supposed to cool down some next weekend, so I will shoot for that if the temperatures cooperates.  Instead I decided to clean up the floor supports and cut the excess cleats off. It took a while to clean up the epoxy drips. I try to clean it up as best I can when I clamp it up, but it is difficult getting to all of it, since the clamps are in the way.  I used the rotary sander and my block plane to get the epoxy blobs off.

I then attempted to put a coat of unthicken epoxy on the floor supports, but it was extremely hot in my garage and the epoxy started to heat up. The temperature was around 83 degrees, so I decided to quit until a later date. I think I am going to have to look at getting a portable Air Conditioner to bring the temperature down, otherwise I am going to have to wait for cools days. With June just starting, it will put a big damper on building! :(

I also epoxied the stringers on bulkheads 1 and 8. 

Here are the pieces drying from the 1 coat. 

Little change of plans.

I have a little change of plans. Actually, I am just going to follow the manual as it states to epoxy the stringers to the bulkheads and put on two coats of epoxy. I was going to do the long panels first, but I think it will be easier to store the bulkheads in my office instead of 16 ft panels! I would not be able to get them in my office upstairs anyway.

Last night I got the centerboard ready for the lead pour by screwing a scrap piece of plywood to one side to hold the lead in during the pour. The drywall screws I had were too long, so I cut up some other wood scraps, so I would not drill all the way through. I also worked on cutting the stringers and epoxying them to the floor supports. I will put 2 coats on them in the next few days.

Centerboard ready for pour.

Floors and Cleats all Glued up!

Glued up and ready for the 2 Epoxy Coats!

Prep work for the lead pour and other!

Glad to be back from vacation and able to work on the boat. This week and a little work before I left, I have been getting ready to epoxy the long panels. I moved everything around in the garage again and purchased another folding table from the big box store. You definitely need to be organized and have some storage for pieces you are working on and ones you have completed.

I also purchased a 5 qt cast iron kettle to melt the lead on Amazon and picked up a fish fryer on sale at BassPro. Looking at burners online, they were more expensive just for a burner. It does pay to shop around. I put together the burner last night, so the only thing I need to do is get more propane and figure out when to do it. It is supposed to be in the mid 90's this weekend, so I may wait until it cools down some. I also go a fire extinguisher, welding gloves and 50 lbs of lead shot just in case. I was able to get a couple 1/2 buckets of wheel weights from my auto repairman. I should have enough for the keel and centerboard. I also started to go through the weights throwing out the non-lead ones. I used an post from Sunmonkey(PockentShip.net Forum) to help me. Shout out to him for the info!

Picture of the new tables getting ready to epoxy the long panels. 

New burner and kettle I picked up to melt the lead. 

Sorting through the lead