The Boat Barn Web Page
  Previous Page | Next Page

        Beginnings

The shelter took almost five months over the Spring and into the Summer of 1995 to build. During that time I was lofting the boat in the attic on a painted ply floor.  There was only enough room to loft a little over half of the boat at a time so she was lofted in two superimposed portions amounting to two thirds of the boat each.  One really must concentrate when dealing with the lines.  The sections for the moulds were taken up from the lofting on a series of pickup sticks and transferred to plywood panels joined together on the garage floor.  The moulds were made full size directly on the section lines.  Late in the Summer of '95 the strong back was finished and the frames began to go up.  Bulkheads were included on the strongback.

Below is the bow with a bulkhead in place.  As I recall this particular bulkhead was refitted when it failed to meet up with the fairing batten later in the process prior to "planking" with ply panels. :>(

Here's a picture of the boat barn taken late that first Summer.  It seemed like there was a boat form there in no time.  The bottom went on before the sides.  This is when I was working on the planking and worrying about how the hell I was going to turn this thing over in there!

This is later in the Winter. The planking is going on and the bulkheads have been faired.  Likewise chine and sheer. Early on it became apparent that a power planer was a necessity.  The chine and sheer were fun to fit -- each three layers of 3/4" stock.  Planking is 3 layers of "3/8" (metric) ply.  An extra sheet of 1/8" lauan ply was put in the pile to bring the final dimension out to 3/4".  On the cabin sides (fit later), the lauan was placed on the outside and butt jointed.  This should make for a much smoother surface.  The scarf joints in the hull sides were difficult to fair and hide.  As the layers went on they were held together by thousands of sheet rock screws until the epoxy set.  This left holes on the inside which had to be dealt with later.  They were either filled with epoxy and covered or filled with acrylic spackling compound and painted.  All inside surfaces were flow coated with epoxy prior to being installed.

Previous Page | Next Page