My Heap

My youngest son, Michael approached me about making a boat. Mike knows that Melissa and I plan to build a boat to retire on and I guess from all the books and plans we have bought and looked at, he has caught the boat building bug.

Mike has worked hard for the materials and I plan to let him build and do all he is capable of. The web page will charter his success.

Here is Mike with a copy of the book The Amphora, A boat you can build for underwater research by Peter and Mike Stevenson. This book is out of print but you can still find used copies on the Internet at Amazon.com.

Making the top deck.

Here's Mike sitting on the plywood imagining he has the boat done. He is already planning exciting adventures in it. The rest of the lumber for his boat is sitting on the side.

Here is Mike putting in nails to bend the baton around to draw the sides of the top deck. He has already drawn in his baseline, and stations and marked all the offsets for the side of the deck.

After lofting all his lines for the outside of the deck and the inside edges, Mike takes the saw and starts cutting her out. (It is a great feeling to see a kid do something other than playing video games and watching TV. I hope some of his brothers catch the bug too!)

After cutting nearly 20 feet of line, Mike decided to take a little break and let me cut the inside out. He kept me straight and made sure I stayed within the marks. Whew, what a driver he is.

Here is Mike holding the newly cut top deck of his Stevenson's Amphora. I think he is pretty proud of himself. (I am proud of him too.) We decided to call it a day because we had to get ready for Vacation Bible School. The total time we spent on the top deck was 2 hours and 45 Minutes. (Your mileage may vary.)

Friday, 11 JUL 2008

Making the bottom deck.

After a week of Church camp and spending some time with his mom, Mike is back at it. Here he is drawing the station lines to loft out the bottom deck.

Here Mike has enlisted his brother to give him a hand holding the batton to draw the curves for the side of the deck. His brother's name is Zachary, and Zach seems to be interested in what's going on here. He ask me later if I had any other plans for small boats. Hmmmm..... Sounds like a beginning of a whole HEAP fleet! :-)

Here is Zach again, this time taking a turn with the jig saw. Michael, thought it would be nice to let Zach help out here too.

Here is Mike and Zach by the newly cut out bottom deck. We had to stop for the day because some friends came over to give me a hand decking the roof of my out building. (We spent an hour lofting and cutting the bottom deck. The total project time for those interested has been 3 hours and 45 Minutes.)

Sunday, 13 JUL 2008

Making the Keel, Stem, Bulheads and Transom.

Mike is back at it. Here you see him cutting out the transom. He also marked and cut out both bulkheads, the transom top, the stem and the keel.

Here is mike showing off his hard work. The transom, both bulkhead and the transom top.

He is holding the stem in place where it will go on the keel. Now Mike is talking about what color to paint it, and where to try the boat out. I think he is excited. He is starting to babble about another boat after this. I told him, sounds great to me, but we need to finish this one first. He reluctantly agreed. :-) We spent about four hours at it today for a total of 7 Hours and 45 Minutes. Pretty good progress I think!

Sunday, 24 AUG 2008

Doing the stringers, gussets and last of the parts assembly.

Well, the weather finally broke to something less than 95 degrees outside. We decided to wait until the weather broke before mixing up the glue for the stringers and gussets. Here you see Mike has enlisted the help of his brother Zachary. Here they are marking the stringers for the kerfs to be cut into them. This will help make the stringers easier to bend around the outside edges of the boat without breaking.

Here is Mike and Zachary cutting the kerfs into the stringers. Mike was glad to have Zachary helping out here. He said after about twenty cuts his arm was getting tired of holding the saw and let his brother have a go at it.

Here is Mike showing off his handy work. He has both gussets cut out for the stem and keel. These will get glued and screwed to the stem and keel to make it one piece. He was worried about his uneven cuts. I told him not to worry that a little body putty and fairing would make things as neat as can be. I don't know if he believes me. I guess he will just have to wait and see.

Here is Mike screwing the last of the screws to the second side. He told me that it seemed like a lot of screws and bet it never came apart. ;-)

Here is Mike with all the parts done and ready to go together. The only thing he lacks at this point is the two small stringers that attach to the stem for the side pieces to attach to. We will make them when we cut the sides out. It won't take long to make these and we will start putting the pieces together. He is already talking about what color to paint it and who will be brave enough to go with him on his maiden voyage. So far the only one brave enough to try seems to be his sister Elizabeth. I guess time will tell.

Monday, 8 SEP 2008

Putting it together.

We have started out by dry fitting most of the pieces together to see how they will look. All in all I am pleased with the way that things are going together. But the transom will need to be re-cut. The plans mark the dimensions from the end of the top and bottom deck, but do not account for the angle of the deck. To re-cut, I measured the angle of the top and bottom decks and used whichever angle was greater. This allowed the sides of the transome to be flush with the sides of the boat after a little fairing.

Here is Mike posing with what we have managed to get together so far. According to the plans, the bottom deck when attached is supposed to be flush with the keel. Ours hung over about an inch too far. To fix, we extended the notch in the bottom deck to allow it to lie flush with the keel. This in hindsight was not the thing to do. You will soon see why. But alas, the end of our night of work brings us with the bottom deck fastened to the keel, both the forward and aft bulkhead fastened in and the top deck fastened down. Tomorrow comes a trip to the store to get some more transom material to cut a new one with.

Here is Mike cutting out the side panels for his boat. Looks like he is intense to me. :-D

Finally, he cuts the front angle of the sides.

A little more done. Here the transom is in, the stringers at the stem and finally a little modification we done. We added stringers at the inside edges of the cockpit opening hoping this will give a little strength to the short side deck area.

Remember me saying that cutting the bottom deck to make it come flush with the end of the keel was not such a good idea? Well here is where my best laid plans came to folly. The angle that is cut on the front of the side panels does not work with the new angle I created when I cut and shifted the bottom forward. A better idea would have been to go ahead and notch the top deck a little deeper to keep the original angle at the bow, or to have figured out the new angle that I created before cutting the side decks out. The net result was that the side pieces did not want to fit correct. Either I could use the angle cut into the sides and it come up short in the back or keep the sheer in line and come up short at the bottom. Well, the decision was made to let it come up short in the back at the top of the transom. If you click on this picture for the slightly larger one, you will see the piece that was added as a filler. I will glue a but block to the back to keep it from leaking. I chose to come up short on the back because it would be above the water rather than below it had I chosen to do it up front.

Here it is from the other side. You can see a couple of things here. First, the sheer of the side should be two inches, this one has been cut down to one inch. And second if you follow with your eye the sheer of the top deck you see it is out of kilter. One of the problems of having one big person helping your small builder is that you cannot hold the boat still, mark locations of screw holes, drill and counter sink them and screw in the screws all before the glue kicks. I strongly suggest that if you can find some more help when you go to attach the sides, bring them along, preferably another big person. ;-)

Saturday, 13 SEP 2008

The other side and some rub rails.

Mike and I had the same problem with the other side as we did the first. The angle cut into the side was off and didn't lay well. We had to piece a small section in the aft section of the side. A couple of small butt blocks and some 3M 5200 should ensure us that it will not leak and some filler on the outside to fair it all in and the final result should be fairly good looking hull. The rub rails were not too bad of a job, except for the lower rails in the space in the fore peak of the boat. This is a small space to get into to drill.

Here is a shot from another angle. Oh, I thought I would share a little something with you. I put the top rail on and held it in position with 1 inch binder clips from the office supply. This allowed us to glue and position the rail, then come back at a slightly slower pace to put the screws in. You have to be careful drilling the pilots for the rails as there isn't a lot of room for error. Anyway, I have lost track of the total amount of time we have spent on the project, but it has been fun nonetheless. Next, we will attach the top part of the transom after making a modification to it and start fairing and filling screw holes to prepare it for paint. Stay tuned, we are getting closer to launching it!!! :-D