We are back after a long silence. We took a rest, did other things and gained perspective. Now we have the largest planks scarf-joined and the lowest portside stringer steamed in place. The stringer is down at the moment for refurbishing some dangerous knotholes. We are realizing by every screw screwed and every gram of glue glued that the best tools, best wood and best glue actually saves you time and in some parts of the world, time is money so you save money as well. Okay, we uprighted to boat today and are planning on continuing with planking the sides. Here are a few pictures:
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- Here you can see the other side of the flipped boat, the deck. Stringers will be added underneath the bow decking for support.
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- Here is Joosep routing with earplugs and a stylish hat. We decided that our routher-ploughing is not the finest method for creating scarf joints and went for hand planing the surfaces later, which works out fine with a sharp blade.
Looking really good! I also have the “Fafnir” plans and would like to know more about your reason to change the bow and your final measurements, because it looks great.
If you ever cross the pond to Michigan and want to build a bigger boat I have plans for John’s “Penguin” and would like partners for making it.
Hi Darrin,
Thanks for writing. We decided to change the bow mainly due to aesthetic reasons. According to JW, it shouldn’t make much of a difference in terms of seaworthiness. Also, Fafnir was designed with a flat bow in order to minimize building space, as this was not a concern for us, we thought we’d make her a bit more sleek. In hindsight, such a deviation from the plans serves to make one’s life more difficult, of course. We’ve mostly solved the issues that arose from changing the bow, starting with the measurements of the old transom, to the placement of the new transom and the plywood planking. We can post specific measurements once we get to the workshop again, things have been a bit busy on the academic side with finals and theses, but that’s mostly done now.
We’d love to sail on the Great Lakes one day, once our Fafnir is done we might even make it there.
Cheers!
Everything ok there guys? Your legions of fans are going through boat-building-envy-withdrawal.
Regards!
Hello!
Yep, we are actually working on the boat, just have not updated the news. I did write some under the steam section, but that’s that. We decided that it’d be best to complete as much of the interior as possible before planking the sides. This currently means epoxy-covering some areas and glassing the rest of it, plus a ton of sanding. No paint yet though. Will update in the following two days.
Uku