Build a CLC Jimmy Skiff

First Launch!

2007-07-07T19:30:00.001-05:00

After seven months of working on Life Goal #9, I started working on Life Goal #10 this afternoon. This goal is to learn to sail, and it was a great day for it in Southern NH.

Until today, I have only been an armchair sailor, reading books, magazines, and Internet sites about the sport and art of sailing. I was very happy that I did at least have an 'academic' understanding of what to do, and what to expect. I have to say that the 'physical' experience of moving over the water, under the power of wind in my sail was MUCH more fun!!!

I chose to launch my recently completed Jimmy Skiff™ in a tidal river which flows into Great Bay, and then joins the Piscatequa River, and flows seven more miles to the Atlantic Ocean. The reason I chose this location for the 'shake-down' cruise was that this is where I was a year or two ago when I was kayaking with a friend, and an older couple raised the sail on a similar size boat and silently, and nearly effortlessly, glided away. This was the catalyst for the ambition which brought me to today. For anyone reading this, if you have never sailed in a small wooden boat, I highly recommend it!

When the wind tapered off, I gave the oars a try. This was great fun too! My son took a turn and rowed himself around a bit, then I gave my daughter a ride, while I rowed from the forward seat. Then my wife joined me, relaxing in the aft seat while I happily rowed along. I think that the Jimmy Skiff™ is even easier to row from the forward rowing station, with a passenger in the aft seat. What a pleasure! I think this little boat will get a LOT of use from me and my family, hopefully for a very, very, long time to come.

Since this was a boat building blog to document the construction of the CLC Jimmy Skiff™, it is appropriate that today's post will be the final chapter. I will still reply to comments or questions posted by readers of this blog. Please note the index links below to help you to navigate through this blog site.

Just add water (and a nice breeze)

2007-07-04T19:25:00.000-05:00

I finished making the sail today, then just before it began to rain, I rigged the sail onto my boat for the first time. It looks like the initial launch will be this coming weekend, if the weather cooperates.

I'll post launch pictures and first impressions soon after Life Goal #9's inaugural launching. If you want to see more detailed photos of the boat, go to my prior post.

Rigging, registration and a name

2007-06-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

This is really getting exciting for me now! I have finished the construction of my CLC Jimmy Skiff ™. So, this past Monday, I took a vacation day off from work to finish the final coat of varnish, and to go to the NH Department of Motor Vehicles to register my little sailing vessel. In the state of NH, sailboats over 12' in length are required to be registered, but only need to display the stickers, and not the registration numbers as is required for motor boats. Since this is a new 'home-built' boat, the DMV issued a hull ID as well. I think I will have a small bronze plate engraved with the pertinent data, including the hull ID, and then attach it in a non-conspicuous location.

One thing that helped to keep me from rushing during the final stages is that I have been able to enjoy getting out on the water in my sea kayak. My son and I started our paddling season with an eight mile trip down the NH coast from New Castle headed south to Rye and back. It was a pretty windy day, and as much as I was having a good time, I couldn't help but think that it would be even better with a sail.

Next, I will get back to completing the sail. I still need to add the grommets, luff tape, boltrope, shackles and leech hem. In the meantime, here are some more pictures for your enjoyment...

Finishing touches (oooh shiny!)

2007-06-03T21:36:00.001-05:00

Here is part two of my attempt to catch the blog up with the progress of my Jimmy Skiff ™ project. The picture above shows the current state of my boat. I have painted and varnished, but have more coats of varnish to apply and a little more painting to do where the tape is on the deck. This will be the same Jade Green color as the hull. I had tried the Grand Banks Beige on the deck, but did not like the way it was so close to the interior Sandtone color. So, I sanded it off and decided on the Jade Green and to varnish most of the deck surface.

There where a couple of lingering tasks which required that I mix up some more epoxy, but since the work needed to be done on the bottom of the hull, I left this until I had finished painting the interior, so that I wouldn't have to turn the boat over more than necessary. The photo on the right shows how I used silica thickened epoxy to fill in over the counter-sunk stainless steel screws going through the hull, and into the bottom of the mast step.

I added more fiberglass and epoxy to reinforce / protect the skeg and the area around the dagger slot. I figured that these areas will likely take the most abuse, and wrapping the inner edges of the dagger slot seemed like cheap insurance against springing a leak there.

This is what it looked like after a few coats of unthickened epoxy and a little scraping in between. It blended pretty well considering the thickness of the fiberglass tape.

After the epoxy cured, I moved the hull outdoors and washed it down with water and household ammonia to ensure that there would not be any problems with the amine blush that can occur with epoxy cures. I had run out of the slow cure epoxy which does not blush, so I used the fast cure hardener that I had on-hand. This hardener can leave a residue on the surface as a result of the curing process, known as amine blush. The residue will interfere with proper paint and varnish adhesion. Fortunately, it is water soluble, and can be washed off prior to painting.

The images below show additional work completed. Hover your cursor over each one to see a description. Clicking on an image will open the picture in a larger size. I have added an index at the bottom of the page for easy access to the prior posts by title.

Yard Sailing, fresh paint, and new wheels for Jimmy

2007-05-30T19:07:00.000-05:00

I have found that being flexible with my goals is required for avoiding frustration, and keeping my Jimmy Skiff ™ project moving forward. When I closed my last post (almost a month ago), I said that I would finish the sail and write about that process next. I also hoped to have this update within a few days of my last post. What is it they say about, "The best laid plans..."?

So, here is what I did accomplish during the past month: Sand, paint, sand, paint, sand, paint, sand, varnish, sand, varnish, sand... You get the idea. Oh yeah, I also found a boat dolly that I really like, and bought it from the Kittery Trading Post in Kittery, Maine. This makes moving the boat much easier, and now I don't have to wait until an unsuspecting passerby can be called upon.

The boat dolly is marketed by Pacific Outdoors, a division of Pacific Cycle (the company that now owns Schwinn). It is rated for 300 pounds, which is more than double the weight of the Jimmy Skiff ™. It easily rolls over uneven terrain, and is quick to set-up and take-down. It attaches to the hull with a single nylon strap.

After sanding the primer, I painted the interior with two coats of Pettit Easypoxy Sandtone 3518, and then added Interlux Intergrip texture material to the paint for a third coat on the floor of the hull.

I actually did get more done than I am showing here, but we will save that for the next post. I will add more posts soon, so check back for more details and pictures.

Another Stitch in Time plus nine (thousand)

2007-05-02T00:55:00.001-05:00

I've decided to dedicate this post to the memory of my dad, who passed away last week after battling with diabetes, heart disease, and other maladies for many years. I was hoping to finish my Jimmy Skiff ™ project in time for him to at least be able to see it completed, if not be able to go out on the water with me. He did get to see the pictures, and he seemed to like what he saw. It brought back memories for him of when he used to go fishing with his uncle, and of a few times when he took my brothers and I out in a similar boat when I was somewhere between five and eight years old.

I was understandably delayed in working on my boat for the past few weeks, not only by my father's illness and passing, but also because I had laser eye surgery a few weeks ago, and then I had a nasty cold/flu for about a week. Since I needed to avoid the sanding dust, and the temperatures have still been on the low side most days, I moved on from the sanding and painting to constructing the sail.

Since I had never used a sewing machine before, I started by reading the instruction manual, getting quick overview from my wife (it is her machine), and then constructing the nylon sail bag that I bought as a kit from Sailrite. This served two objectives. First, it gave me practice on a smaller, simpler project, and secondly, it gave me a place to put the sail after it was sewn together. The bag has a square bottom and a draw-string top. I had enough material left over to make another smaller bag of the same style that I gave to my daughter. She was thrilled and I was pleased with the results as well.

Before I started on the sail, I laid out all of the contents of the custom Sailrite kit that I mentioned in my prior post. I re-read the comprehensive instructions included with the kit, and familiarized myself with the hardware, materials, and tools. I will cover these in more detail as I discuss the sail construction process.

The precut 4.4 oz. Dacron panels were all well marked with numbers, lines and labels to indicate the correct order and orientation of each panel. The body of the sail has eight numbered panels, with #1 at the bottom (foot), and #8 at the top (head). I started work on the sail itself by placing the seamstick double-sided basting tape on the seam allowance at the top of the 7th panel. Then I carefully lined up the bottom edge of panel #8 with the seam line on panel #7 and pressed them together. Then I sewed two rows of 3/16" zig-zag stitches along the seam allowance.

The patches for the head reinforcement were pre-cut, labeled and stacked. All I needed to do was to apply the basting tape along the edges of each patch, and then baste the patch assembly in place on the head of the sail before sewing it on with more ziz-zag stitches. It is much easier to build up the 'sub assemblies' and sew them onto the sail panels before sewing the panels to one another. This was not always possible, but most of the time, it was.

The patches are sewn onto the panels, with the smallest one on the bottom of the stack, and then the next larger one, and so on. There were four layers of patches for the head, tacks, and clews.

One great tip that the nice folks at Sailrite passed along is to use a cardboard tube with a slot cut along the length to roll the sail panels within as a means of making it manageable under the sewing arm. I used my table saw to cut the slot in the heavy cardboard tube.

Here is a shot of sewing on one of the batten pockets. The only Dacron sail parts that were not pre-cut were the batten pockets and the reef patches. They did include ample material to cut these out, based on measurements provided in the plans. There is a 4 1/2" elastic strap sewn into the narrow (inner) end of the batten pocket. This is to apply pressure to the fiberglass batten to hold it in the pocket. I will show this better on my next post when I finish the leech edge with a double hem and then sew the end of the batten pocket. I had to leave the last two inches of the batten pocket, unsewn toward the leech (back edge of the sail).

I did as much of the sewing as I could with the machine up on my table saw top and bench. Then as I needed to assemble the panel sections together, I had to clear out space on the floor and spread out there to baste and sew the remainder. This picture shows the tack and clew patches on the foot of the sail, and then the tack and clew reef patches along with the intermediate reef patches. These will have brass grommets pressed into them, and will provide the means for tying the lower portion of the sail up to reduce the sail area in stronger winds.

With the machine placed on the floor, I operated the foot control with my right foot, while kneeling on my left knee. This allowed both sides of the sail material to be rolled up, and I didn't need the tube, which was good, because I didn't have any large enough to roll the material into anyway.

Here is the assembled sail, rolled and stuffed into the sail bag. I still need to add the grommets, luff tape, boltrope, shackles and leech hem. I will cover all of this in my next post. Hopefully, it will only be a few days from now.

Paint fumes and a sailplan

2007-04-08T09:29:00.000-05:00

Out of all of the decisions that need to be made before and during a project such as this, I was surprised to find that I spent more time trying to decide on paint and varnish options than most of the other decisions that needed to be made. After studying paint brochures from Epifanes, Pettit, System Three, and Interlux, I finally decided to go with Pettit. Since I had no prior experience with marine finishes, it mostly came down to color choice. I was also influenced by a conversation I had with a gentleman at Dover Marine, where I bought the paint. He suggested that the Pettit Easypoxy would flow well and cover better perhaps with less coats. I'm reasonably sure that any of these brands are very good products.

Yesterday, I taped off the hull interior and applied the first primer coat. I used 3M Fineline tape to mask off the edges of the seats, dagger board trunk, and inwales. Then I rolled on a thin coat of the Pettit White Undercoater with a foam roller. Even though it was a thin coat it covered very well. Unfortunately, it was too cold outside to paint with the windows or doors open, so the fumes were very strong. I did wear my respirator while painting, but the fumes were fairly strong in rooms adjoining my shop space. I think I will wait for warmer weather before going to the next coat so that I can have airflow during and after the painting.

I have decided to paint the interior with Pettit Sandtone 3518, and the exterior of the hull will be Pettit Grand Banks Beige 3520. The seats, dagger board trunk, dagger board, mast, boom, gunwales, and rudder will all be finished with Flagship varnish.

The custom sail kit I ordered from Sailrite was delivered on Wednesday, so I spent some time reviewing the instruction packet for how to assemble the sail. I had given serious consideration to ordering a completed sail from Chesapeake Light Craft, but after some research I decided that I wanted some options in the sail that they did not offer in the standard Jimmy Skiff ™ sail. I also wanted to get the experience of building my own sail, but would not want to try this without using a kit. The Sailrite kit has all of the Dacron panels pre-cut and marked for where the stitching and all of the parts go. I decided that I wanted a row of reef points and a battened roach. These are features not available on the stock sail from CLC. The reef points allow the sail area to be reduced in size when the wind gets strong. The battened roach extends the back edge of the sail, providing more sail area than what the stock sail has. This is like ordering a sporty car with the larger engine option.

I used Sailrite's Sail Kit Web Quoting System to specify the sail kit and options. In addition to the options which are selectable in the web form, I included a message to indicate that I wanted to add the hardware for an external track and slides for using a halyard to raise and lower the sail on the mast. Within a day or two, I had received an email quote from Jeff Frank at Sailrite. I placed the order, and received a call from Jeff the next day. He was calling to make sure that I didn't have any additional questions. He has been very helpful in answering questions I had while deciding on sail options.

As I build the sail, I will include photos and text which will further describe these and other features.

The light of day

2007-04-01T00:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my daughter helped me move the Jimmy Skiff ™ outdoors so that I could test the fit of the mast in the mast step and partner. As it turned out, I did need to take the belt sander to the lower portion of the mast and remove about 1/16" to have it sit snugly in the mast step.

The photo on the right shows how I checked to make sure that I had the mast step positioned correctly before I set it in a bed of thickened epoxy and drove four stainless steel screws up through the bottom of the hull. I made a short, 'dummy' mast in the same shape and dimensions as the real mast, so that I could get the mast step installed before I could move the boat outdoors. I leveled the hull from side-to-side, and then taped a level to the dummy mast to make sure that the mast would not lean sideways.

The construction of the mast actually began several weeks ago when I cut the parts. See my Feb. 22 post for details and photos of the mast part making process. The next step came a week or two ago when I epoxy glued the parts together into blanks for the mast and boom. Then, this weekend, I was ready to mill the blanks into the final shapes. Since the bottom 16" and the top 10' of the mast are tapered on three sides, I rough cut the tapers with this hand saw that cuts on the pull stroke. Then I planed and sanded to the final shape. The wedge helped to keep the wood from binding on the saw blade.

After I was sure that the mast would fit, I coated the mast and boom with epoxy. After the epoxy cures, I will varnish these spars for a traditional look.

I also installed the rubrails which I milled from 1½" oak. Since I couldn't think of an effective way to clamp the bow end of the rubrails, I used screws to temporarily hold the rubrail until the epoxy cures. Then I will remove the screws, taper the front two feet of the rubrail in toward the deck, and then fill the screw holes with silica thickened epoxy.

After another round of sanding everything, I think I am getting close to being ready to paint and varnish. I ordered a sail kit from Sailrite, so I'll write more about that next time.

Sanding... drudgery or sculpture?

2007-03-28T22:35:00.000-05:00

Warmer weather and sunny days bring forth promises of spring here in the northeast. This encourages me while I undertake the less than glamorous task of sanding the interior of the hull again, and again, and again. Actually, I have become one of those rather odd individuals who enjoys sanding. Using the proper equipment and supplies for the job makes all the difference between drudgery and creating a work of art. The first order of business is to equip yourself for safety with a good respirator, ear plugs, and latex or nitrile gloves. The fine epoxy dust is an irritant at best, and potentially hazardous. I also found that leaning the hull against a wall while on the saw horses made the task much more pleasant in terms of avoiding lower back pain from bending over for long periods of time.

I use a number of different sanders and methods depending on what I am working on. I begin with the 5" random orbital sander on the flat areas, and then a 'mouse' detail sander to get into the corners and narrow spots. For the inside curves of the fillets, I wrap sandpaper around a sponge sanding block, and I also use a rubber hand sanding block in a number of situations. When I finished on one side of the hull, I moved it over and leaned it up against the other side so that I did not have to work upside down at all.

The CLC Jimmy Skiff ™ plans call for adding a block of solid wood to the inside of the transom as a support for the rudder attachment. I decided to combine this with the addition of a rail to span the top edge of the transom for even more support. I liked the look of how it continues the line of the inwale around the aft end of the hull. It also gives the added advantage of providing hand holds to lift the stern. I cut this out of a solid oak plank on my bandsaw, leaving the top edge proud of the line, to be sanded down to the transom edge after the epoxy cured. This shaping was done with a belt sander, and then the edge rounded over with the hand sanding block.

Here is the interior transom view after the shaping, sanding and another coat of epoxy. I am planning to finish the oak with varnish, and paint the interior walls and floor with a light solid color marine paint. Clicking on this or any of the photos will provide a better look. Just use your browser's 'Back' button to return to this page after viewing the photo, unless you are using tabbed browsing in Firefox or IE7, in which case you can click between the tabs that open. Next I'll complete the mast and boom, fit the mast step and add the rub rails. It's feeling more like sailing weather and everything seems to be coming together nicely. Life is good.

Compound curve lamination, mast step and rudder

2007-03-11T19:13:00.000-05:00

In my previous post, I mentioned a couple of small cosmetic customizations to the design of the Jimmy Skiff ™ I am building. The most visible result of my 'straying' from the published plans is shown in this entry. I thought that with all of the nicely curved lines on this boat, the splash rail/deck support beam would look better if it curved in a way that would compliment the curve of the aft seat. Since the deck has camber which is determined by the shape of the top of the forward bulkhead, the deck rail curves to follow the profile of the deck. The CLC plans show the deck rail with this curve, but as straight across from sheer to sheer. I decided that I wanted the aft edge of the deck to have a compound curve as shown in the photos on this page.

I knew that laminating the deck rail in a compound curve would be challenging at best, and I don't mind saying that I went through more than one scrap wood 'prototype' before getting it right. In the end, the solution really turned out to be rather simple, yet elegant, much like the Jimmy Skiff ™ itself. Since wood of any thickness and width beyond a few millimeters is not favorable to bending in more than one direction at a time, I realized that the way to do this was to laminate thin strips of wood that were wide enough to allow cutting the shape of the second curvature from the laminated stock. I started by taking a length of 4"x4" Douglas Fir and marking it with the curve which matched the fore/aft curve in the deck, then I cut it in half on my band saw. This would be the laminating form. Then I sliced another section of the same straight-grained, knot free beam into six thicknesses of about 3mm each. These were glued together with a generous amount of silica thickened epoxy and wrapped in plastic wrap before getting clamped in the form.

After the lamination cured, I took the blank out of the form, sanded off the excess epoxy, and marked the curve of the deck camber on it. I did this by holding the blank up against the aft edge of the deck and running a pencil along the length of the rail with a 1¼" thick block riding along the top of the deck, under the pencil. Then I just traced the bottom of the deck from underneath to mark the bottom of the rail. Taking the lamination back to the band saw, I cut along the lines for the top and bottom of the deck rail. A little more shaping with the sander, and I had a perfect fit! The next challenge was to figure out a way to clamp the rail in place on the aft edge of the deck. I found that I could place half of the laminating form on top of the deck, and clamp it down to the sawhorse. Then I could clamp between the rail and this block. I also clamped the center of the rail to the deck where the mast hole was. Then I clamped both ends of the rail down to the inwales.

The plans specify the deck material as 6mm marine plywood, and when I was cutting all of the parts for the hull, I cut the deck out of the 6mm okoume with the shape shown in the plans. Later, when I decided that I wanted to extend the sides of the deck back a little to get the curve I wanted, I didn't have any 6mm ply left. I did have ½ sheet of 9mm okoume left, so that's what I used for the deck. Since 9mm plywood does not bend as easily as a 6mm panel over the bulkhead, I set my circular saw to cut several kerfs lengthwise on the bottom of the deck to make it easier to bend. Then to reinforce the deck, I filled the kerfs with wood flour thickened epoxy just prior to putting the deck in place and temporarily screwing it down. I made the mistake of removing the screws the next morning after I glued the deck on, because I thought the epoxy was sufficiently hardened. I went away for the weekend, and when I returned, the edges of the deck had begun to lift. By now, the epoxy had hardened, and there was no way to just screw it back down. I had to remove the hardened epoxy from between the deck and the inwales, using a handsaw and RotoZip ™ tool. Then I was able to re-pack the gap with a fresh mix of silica thickened epoxy and drive the screws back in. The screws will be removed when everything is fully cured, and the holes will be filled prior to sanding and painting the deck.

Here is a view of the deck that also shows the placement of the mast step. I decided not to install the mast step until I have the mast ready to test a trial fit. This will allow me to make sure that I have it placed correctly in relation to the hole that runs through the deck.

Here is a better look at the mast step. This will be sealed, sanded, and painted the same color as the floor.

These rails support the aft seat. They are glued in, and held with screws.

The aft seat is finally glued to the rails and then a fillet is formed around the perimeter, including under the front lip of the seat. This will make the space under the seat a sealed floatation chamber when the hatch plate is added. The toolbox and bench vise are there as weight to assist the clamp in holding the seat top down while the epoxy cures.

This is the rudder attachment. I made the rudder based on the templates and directions in the plans. The lower portion will flip up when beaching or in shallow water. The attachment is accomplished using a 12" bronze rod, fitted through stainless steel eye-bolts. I had read somewhere that the one thing that a particular Jimmy Skiff owner did not like about this arrangement was that it was noisy due to the 'play' between the rod and the eyes. I decided that I would attempt to solve this by buying oversize eye-bolts and filling the eyes with epoxy. Then I drilled a hole through the cured epoxy which the rod fit through without any play. This resulted in a very smooth and quiet steering mechanism. I still need to make the tiller and attach it to the top of the rudder.

Here is a better view of the rudder attachment hardware. If you click on the photo and look at the eye-bolts on the bottom, you can see the epoxy fill that I was talking about. You will also get a better look at the ring clip at the top of the rod, and the pin clip retainer at the bottom. With this set-up, I can be confident that the rod will not slip out, while it is still easy to remove the lower pin and pull the rod upwards to remove the rudder.

I welcome your comments or questions. If you click on the Comments link at the bottom of this page, you will be able to leave a message.

Installing the 'furniture'

2007-03-01T00:41:00.000-05:00

Last night was very productive in terms of the visible progress on the Jimmy Skiff ™ project. I find it interesting that most projects seem to have periods where the apparent progress is much faster than other times when the same level of effort is expended. I was having so much fun, I totally lost track of time, and only realized that it was almost 2:00 AM when I finally turned off the shop lights and headed into the house. All of the work I did in building parts last week is what made everything come together last night. These pictures show that I finally got the bulkheads, seats, and dagger-board trunk installed. Pay no attention to the epoxy and filler mess here-and-there. This will all be cleaned up (sanded) before applying paint or varnish.

I was pleased with how the dagger-board and trunk turned-out, and cutting the hole in the hull was not nearly as traumatic as I imagined it would be. I started by marking the location for the trunk, after making sure that I had it centered in the correct location. Then I used a 1" forstner drill bit to drill out either end of the slot I was preparing to cut in the hull. Then I used a Japanese style hand saw to cut the slot between the two holes. This Mini Dozuki Panel Saw is now one of my favorite tools, and especially so because it was a gift from my son last year.

The dagger-board trunk is made by sandwiching a 1" wide hardwood spacer on either end, between the two 9mm okoume panels that were cut out using the template in the Chesapeake Light Craft plan set. Then I added the mahogany trunk logs, which are the strips along the bottom of the sides . Next was milling and fitting the trunk cap, which I made out of hard maple. I chose this wood because I thought the contrast would look good, I had it on-hand, and it will be very durable in a place that will likely take some 'hard' use. I cut the center slot out of the cap by drilling the ends of the slot with the 1" forstner bit, and then set the fence of my table saw to the distance between the outside of the cap and the edge of where the slot would be. Then I positioned the piece over the blade and cut from the hole on one end to the hole on the other end, flipped the board and repeated the cut on the other side of the slot. The trunk is attached to the hull by bedding it in silica-thickened epoxy and screwing in eight 1 ½" bronze screws, up through the bottom of the hull and into the trunk logs.

The dagger board is made by gluing two 9mm okoume panels together with thickened epoxy, and then the profile is cut out based on the template in the plans. The leading edge of the dagger-board is rounded over, and the trailing edge is tapered. I added the mahogany stop blocks on either side, up near the handle hole, using epoxy and bronze screws. I was also sure to round over everything to prevent any injuries by banging into any sharp edges or corners. The dagger board can easily be positioned anywhere along its length by using a small wedge at the top of the aft edge. I have also seen where some people use a bungee cord to apply a little directional pressure to hold the board in place. I suppose another alternative would be to drill a series of holes in the dagger-board and use a belaying pin to hold the board partially up.

After I attached the dagger-board trunk to the hull, the next phase was to attach the bulkheads and seats. In order to simplify making the smaller fillets for these attachment points, I used a caulking gun loaded with a West System's tube which I filled with the epoxy fillet mix. The empty tubes are sold in pairs, and using slow cure epoxy, I had time to mix it up, fill the tube, make most of the fillets, mix up another smaller batch, fill the same tube again, and then finish making the rest of the fillets. All of this without having the epoxy cure before I could get it out of the tube. The tubes are available where West System products are sold and online from Hamilton Marine. One nice aspect of the tubes are that the tips are tapered and you simply cut them at the point which gives you the size hole you need. I found that a 'stiffer' mix of epoxy and filler is a little easier to control in terms of starting and stopping the flow.

When deciding between buying the CLC Jimmy Skiff ™ kit or building from plans, I found that it is not a good idea to go the plans route simply to save money. In fact, it would have cost less to buy the kit than what I have spent, and that includes the additional shipping costs. So why build from plans? I chose this path primarily because I wanted the entire experience of building a boat vs assembling a kit. Not that I think building from the kit is just assembly, like gluing together a Revell model. But to me, it's still not the same as taking stock boards and plywood panels and turning them into a beautiful boat. I have enjoyed being able to use remnants of hardwood from other projects around my house when building the various parts of the boat. It also allowed me to make a few small customizations along the way. One of these was to step-back the seat supports by about ¼", leaving a slight overhang. Another was to extend the dagger-board trunk cap down to the center seat (thwart).

Next I will add the deck, mast step, and rear seat top (which is shown in the top photo, but is really only sitting there, unattached).

Two seats, a skeg and a mast spar

2007-02-22T00:43:00.002-05:00

I added SiteMeter to this blog a few weeks ago, and I would like to thank all of you for your interest in my wooden skiff building project. So far there have been over 150 visitors from a dozen different countries all around the world, stretching from Alaska to Australia. I was aware that Chesapeake Light Craft has a very widespread appeal and a global customer base, but I am very pleased to see the interest in this simple yet elegant sailing skiff. I remember seeing a post on CLC's Builder's Forum some time ago wherein the person was asking if anyone has built a Jimmy Skiff ™, and questioned the Jimmy Skiff's ™ popularity. Here was CLC's response:

"We've sold more Jimmy Skiffs over the years than Skerries and Passagemaker Dinghies combined; it's one of our most popular non-paddling boats. (Blogs and forums aren't a reliable measure of the number of boats out there.)

It's an excellent all-round skiff, very easy to build. Rows really well; you can row it all day if you wanted. Fast and weatherly under sail. Just a good old skiff, nothing flash or fancy."

I wonder if Jimmy Skiff ™ 'fans' may tend to be more conservative than those drawn to other designs. This may explain the lack of other Jimmy Skiff ™ blogs. Or, maybe other Jimmy Skiff ™ builders were just having too much fun building and then sailing their boats that they simply did not take time to share in this way. As for me, I am thoroughly enjoying the entire experience, including writing this blog.

I closed my previous post by saying that I would be installing the seats and bulkheads next. When it came time to get to work on the boat, I realized that I was getting a little ahead of myself again. I had cut out the seat parts at the same time as I cut most of the other parts, but I still needed to assemble the seats before I could install them in the hull. Since the seat parts had been coated with unthickened epoxy earlier, I started by tacking on some temporary glue blocks with a 18 gauge pneumatic brad nailer. I only nailed through the sides where it will be easy to fill and hide the holes if I choose to varnish the seats vs painting them. The blocks were cut in the shape of an 'L' so that they would not become permanently glued to the bottom of the seats. Click on the photo for a better look. My purpose in using the blocks was to ensure the squareness of the supports to the seat tops. This was not something that was shown in the plans or building guide, but I found that it did help keep everything in place until the glue was dry.

After using an epoxy and silica mix to glue the seat supports to the tops, and allowing them to cure while clamped, I removed the temporary blocks and pulled out the steel brads. Next, I mixed the epoxy and wood flour to form small fillets on the insides where the seat supports meet the tops. This is what really gives strength to the joint.

This is the blank I glued up for the skeg. I ripped a relatively straight-grained oak board into 1½" widths, and then alternated the grain before gluing it back together. This should keep it from warping. I figure that having a warped skeg would be like having the wheels of my car pointing in different directions. That would be bad, right?

After the skeg epoxy cured, I marked the final shape on the blank by holding it in place against the bottom of the skiff and tracing the curve with a pencil compass and the assistance of my lovely wife. I then cut out the skeg and fastened it in place on the bottom of the boat with thickened epoxy and eight bronze screws driven in from the inside of the hull. I then formed a fillet around the skeg.

In order to support the bottom of the boat without putting undue stress on the skeg while it cured, I added a 'Y' shaped support to the rear saw horse which holds the hull from tipping and placing lateral pressure on the skeg.

Since I was in 'part making mode', I decided to go ahead and mill the parts for the mast and boom spars. I used this sliding scarf jig that I built when I needed to cut scarfs for the inwales last week. The toggle clamp holds the board while I slide the jig along the saw's fence. This is set up to cut 12:1 scarf joints. This means that for every inch of board thickness, the joint will be twelve inches long.

The spars for the mast and sprit boom will be made with pieces ripped from 4" x 4" x 8' Douglas Fir beams. I dug through two pallets of beams at Home Depot to pull out the best four specimens with regard to straightness, tight knots, and lack of splits. I knew that when I ripped these, there would pieces that would not be suitable for the spars, so that is why I bought four. As it turned out, I only needed to rip three of the beams to get all the very good pieces I needed for the mast and boom. The 1½" x 1½" x 10' long blank for the sprit boom is shown on the right side of the photo. This was glued up from pieces that were ripped to 1½" x ¾".

The mast spar blank will be 2¼" x 2¼" x 16'5". Note that as I cut the pieces and fit them together, I marked each joint to indicate orientation. In case anyone is wondering, the white 'paper' I used to protect my shop floor while gluing is Tyvek. I know that some people like to make sails out of this very durable material, but I think that this is a much better use of the extra I had from an earlier building project. Thanks again for bearing with me, and hopefully next time I'll show you the seat and bulkhead installation.

Inwales a.k.a. Sheer Clamps

2007-02-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

In the Jimmy Skiff ™ building instruction book which accompanied the plans, the solid wood strips that run along the inside of the top of both sides of the boat hull are referred to as 'sheer clamps'. Since the side of the hull is the 'sheer', and the wood strips serve to help hold the shape of the sheer, I can see how this term would be descriptive, especially when a deck is attached to the top of the sheer clamp. More frequently, I have seen these parts referred to as 'inwales', when discussing an open hull. According to a wikipedia article, "The gunwale, pronounced 'gunnel' to rhyme with 'tunnel', is a nautical term describing the top edge of the side of a boat." The gunwale typically consists of the inwale on the inside, and the outwale or rub rail on the outside of the hull.

Since the temperature climbed up out of the single digits to about 30° here yesterday, I decided that it was time to once again crank up my tiny portable electric space heater and resume work on the Jimmy Skiff ™ project. My workshop is insulated pretty well, so I just use the portable unit. It will hold the temperature in the shop at about 70°, even when it is very cold outside, but when it is less than 25°, the heater has to run constantly to maintain the shop temperature at a level warm enough for curing the epoxy. Since my shop has been unheated for a couple of weeks, it took all day for the temperature to rise to 70°. Not only does the air need to be heated, it is even more important that the wood and epoxy are warm before attempting to glue or saturate with epoxy.

After the scarf joints on the inwale pieces have cured, the next thing to do is to cut the inwales to length. Since there will be a deck over the bow which will hide the miter joint where the two sides meet at the stem, I started by cutting the stern end so that I would get as near perfect fit as possible where it would show. This is a compound angle cut because the sheers and stern are angled out toward the top. I left the inwale slightly proud of the hull, and I will trim it flush after the epoxy cures. When using 'c'clamps, it is a good idea to protect the wood with a small piece of scrap material.

After I fit the stern ends, I marked and mitered the ends where they meet at the stem. Again, these where compound miter cuts due to the flare of the sheers. Since the deck will have a bit of camber, leaving the inwales slightly raised will allow me to trim them with an angle that will match the underside of the deck for a nice tight fit.

Since I needed a clamp about every six inches, I used every clamp I had in the shop, except for the long bar and pipe clamps.

I didn't have quite enough clamps, and I am going to be adding rub rails or outwales later, so I used 1" drywall screws to temporarily hold things snug in a few spots. I drilled pilot holes before driving the screws. I will remove these screws at the same time as I remove the clamps.

Next I will add the bulkheads and seats. I will leave the top off the rear seat until after I turn the hull over again to add the skeg. This is because the skeg is screwed on from the inside and the rear seat top would be in the way.

Now you see it... Now you don't!

2007-02-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

After finishing the fillets and sealing the entire hull interior with a coat of epoxy. I turned it over to prepare for adding a layer of fiberglass cloth and several coats of epoxy to the exterior of the hull. The first thing to do after giving the fillets a few days to fully harden, is to cut off the copper wires. I cut these as closely as possible to the hull's exterior surface. Then I carefully sanded the chines (edges where the sides meet the bottom), and the stern corners and stem, with a belt sander set on low speed. Using a very light touch, I was able to round over the edges to the correct profile and remove the soft copper wire nubs that remained after cutting the wires. If you attempt to sand over the cut wires with a orbital or pad sander, you will likely be frustrated by the sandpaper getting shredded by the sharp end of the wire. This did not pose a problem for the belt sander, because the belt is more durable than the other types of sandpaper.

After the 'sculpting' work was done, I mixed up some epoxy with wood flour filler and used it to fill any holes, scratches, or low spots. While I was still in the planning stage, I had made the decision to paint the majority of the boat and only use varnish on the trim. This choice was based on two facts: first, polyurethane marine paint is more durable than varnish, and second, I would not need to worry about how I was going to fill holes, scratches, or low spots in a way that would not show beneath clear epoxy and varnish. It is possible to mix the filler in combinations that pretty closely match the color of the epoxy soaked okoume wood, but this would take much more time to perfect than it did to simply mix in the wood flour after mixing a batch of epoxy resin and hardener.

Fiberglass cloth is pretty amazing stuff. Even after I have used it on several projects over the years, I am still mystified by the way it becomes transparent, or at least translucent, when epoxy is added. I bought 9 yards of 60" wide, 6 oz. fiberglass cloth from The Newfound Woodworks, a boat building shop located in Bristol NH. I appreciated the way that they packed the fiberglass cloth for shipping. They rolled it on a full length cardboard tube, then wrapped it in brown kraft paper and sealed the roll in a long cardboard box. Why does this matter? I'm glad you asked. When you unwrap the fiberglass cloth from this thoughtful packaging, there are no creases, wrinkles or dirt to deal with. It made rolling out the cloth on the overturned hull a very easy thing to do.

The plans actually call for 50" wide cloth, not 60", but that was the width available, and I was happy to have the extra width. Since this is not wide enough to fully cover the hull in one pass, two lengths of cloth are required, with at least a three inch overlap at the keel line (center). I had about eight inches of overlap, and wrapped the stem from both sides. The cloth followed the shape of the chines and stem quite nicely.

After getting the first side of cloth positioned where I wanted it, I used some push pins to hold it in place while I began the wet out the cloth with unthickened epoxy. The System Three Silvertip Laminating Epoxy is indeed wonderful stuff. With the 'slow' hardener, I had ample time to mix, spread, and smooth the epoxy with my shop heated to 70° F. When I ordered the fiberglass and epoxy materials from The Newfound Woodworks, I also ordered their instructional Fiberglassing DVD, which I found to be very helpful.

The picture on the right shows how well the fiberglass cloth disappears in the epoxy. The wood looked so nice at this point, I was starting to question my decision to paint rather than varnish. I know it was the right choice, and since I used the lighter colored wood filler over the scarf joints, there was no turning back anyway. If you look closely, or click on the photo to see a larger view, you can see that I had also layered on two layers of the 4" wide fiberglass tape over the chines, stem, and stern edges.

After the epoxy dried over night, I sanded the entire outer hull with 80 grit paper on a random orbital sander. This did a pretty good job of smoothing the edges of the fiberglass tape, but I mixed up some light weight filler to completely fair out the edges of the fiberglass tape and where the cloth overlapped. Since the epoxy and wood flour mix is pretty difficult to get perfectly smooth and is hard to sand, I decided to try mixing the epoxy with West System brand #410 Microlight Fairing Filler. I found this filler at Dover Marine.

After the filler cured, I sanded again with 80 and then 100 grit sandpaper. Then I applied four more coats of unthickend epoxy, allowing each to dry for not more than 48 hours, and lightly hand sanded with 100 grit paper on a rubber sanding block. The reason for not allowing the epoxy to fully cure, and lightly sanding, was to encourage a chemical as well as mechanical bond between each layer.

Global Warming, and other Sticky subjects

2007-01-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

Up until about a week ago, the weather here in New Hampshire was doing its part to lend additional credibility to Al Gore and everyone else proclaiming that we are in the midst of a Global Warming crisis. Not that I was a skeptic, nor an absolute 'believer', I will leave the debate for other forums. However, it is hard to argue when the thermometer indicates nearly 70° on January 6 in New Hampshire. This is by no means an official reckoning, nor do I know if it was the highest temperature here that week. I just know that I enjoyed being able to open my shop doors and still be comfortable.

Since I have lived in the northeastern United States for most of my life, I was relatively confident that the unusually warm weather was only temporary, and I decided to make the most of it with regard to my boat building project. Yes, it was time to make some Goo.

I chose the System Three line of epoxy products. Now, I realize that they offer some 'application specific' products for boat construction, but I decided to go ahead and try it the old fashioned way. Yep, I mixed up batches of my own epoxy goo for the fillets that hold the hull together once the copper wires are removed. Before I get too far ahead of myself in this saga, I need to back up a little here. It's important to ensure that the boat has the correct shape, so that it will track well, and not pull to one side or the other and require constant corrections. This could pose a challenge regardless if you are manning the tiller or a pair of oars.

After getting the hull all stitched together, I made sure that the saw horses were level from side-to-side. Next, I used a long clamping guide to bring the beam (the widest part of the boat) to 50". Then I laid out three levels to see where some fine tuning was required. In order to make sure that I had the correct shape where the front bulkhead would go, I cut out a temporary bulkhead and then cut off the bottom half and wired it in place. This allowed me to easily form the fillets under it without breaks or interruption.

Since there was a slight amount of twist to the hull, I firmly twisted the bow end in the opposite direction while my son held the stern end. This resulted in the sides being very nearly level from side-to-side, but being somewhat obsessive, I was not satisfied yet. Then I found that when I hung some clamps on the high side, it was pretty close to perfect.

The fillets (pronounced "fill its"), are made by mixing the epoxy with wood flour (fine saw dust). Then this sticky mix is spread and formed along the seams where the sides meet the bottom, around the stern, and inside the stem. Once the fillets are formed, then two layers of 4" wide fiberglass tape are wetted out on top of the fillets. I spread and rolled a coat of unthickened epoxy all around the interior of the hull to seal the wood. I left the clamps in place for 24 hours to hold the shape until the epoxy cured.

Next, we go bottoms up and do a disappearing act. Stay tuned!

A Stitch in Time

2007-01-16T16:22:00.000-05:00

I've been having so much fun working on the boat that I have gotten behind in posting updates to this blog. I really have not kept track of time spent on the project. I thought about it, and decided not to. I have found that I enjoy the process much more when time becomes unimportant. I do have the date stamps from the digital photo files which seem to keep track of my progress in the stream of time, without the need for me to think about the elapsed or cumulative time expended. Now that I've expounded on my philosophy of the relationship between time and a recreational project, I'll move on to the 'Stitching'...

After I got the majority of the boat parts cut out and trimmed to the 'final' shape and dimensions, I was eager to see what it would look like in 3D. Plus, I rationalized my eagerness with the theory that it would be good to make sure that things would indeed fit together correctly before I started the 'stitching and gluing'. So I proceeded to prop the parts together, and sure enough, it began to look like a boat. Prior to drilling the holes for the stitch wire, I planed a small bevel along the edges of the bottom and side panels. This helps in getting the panels to align and stay without slipping apart as much.

The stitching process starts with drilling 3/32 inch holes, every six inches along the perimeter of the sides, bottom, and transom. I used a six inch machinist's rule to mark these off, about 1/2 inch in from the edge. I started with the bottom panel, drilling the holes all around. Then before drilling the sides and transom, I propped these in place again, with the bottom panel allowed to 'sag' across the saw horses, and marked for the holes to line up with the ones already drilled in the bottom. This is to account for the curves. If you simply measure and drill the sides every six inches, the holes would not line up with the ones in the bottom. I also spaced the holes at about three inches on the stem (front of the bow where the two sides come together). Then I cut the 18 gauge bare copper wire in lengths of about three or four inches. I found the 50' rolls of wire at Home Depot in the hardware section for hanging pictures.

The assembly sequence I followed was to start with one side at the stern end, inserting wire and loosly twisting, working my way forward. After the hull parts are held in place, it's time to go back around and tighten the wires with a few additional twists. Now it's really beginning to look like a boat and the onlookers are impressed :)

Layout and Cutting (Measure twice, cut once)

2006-12-20T22:26:00.000-05:00

The hull is drawn in scale on one sheet of the plans and it is necessary to transfer the measurements from the plans to the plywood. This is what is referred to as 'layout'. Working from plans with the exact dimensions indicated as 'offsets' is much easier and faster than just working with line drawings that would require lofting to get the offset measurements.

The bottom of the Jimmy Skiff ™ hull is drawn on the plans with offset dimensions, which are indicated at right angles to a center line. I started by using a chalk line to mark the center line about 20 inches in from one side of the 9mm panel. Next was marking off the stations or intervals for each offset. On the Jimmy Skiff ™, there are six, 24 inch sections beginning from the bow, and then a four-and-a-half inch section at the stern. I marked off the the stations along the center line, then used a large carpenters square to mark the offsets out from the center line. The square ensures that the offsets are all at right angles to the center line. After the offset points are marked out, I used a 14' long, 1/2" pine quarter-round as a batten. I temporarily drove 2" finish nails in where the offset marks where, then used the spring clamps to hold the batten with the flat side against the nails. Then simply drew a line along the flat side of the batten. The side panels were done in a similar manner, except that the offsets are measured from a baseline rather than a center line.

I used my cordless jigsaw to cut out the panels, bulkhead, seats and stern. I cut about 1/8 to 1/4 inch outside the line, and then used a sharp block plane to plane to the line. This makes a very clean and 'fair' edge. The seat supports have inside curves, so I used a spokeshave to plane this to the final line. The CLC plans for the Jimmy Skiff ™ have full size templates for most of the parts other than the hull itself.

I used an awl to poke through the template lines about every half-inch, then 'connect-the-dots' with a pencil prior to cutting. Cut out all of the panels and parts before moving on to assembly. Note in the photo that the seats are wider than the bottom. The bottom is about 40" wide at the widest point, whereas the beam (overall widest point on a boat) is 50". This is because the sides will flare out from the bottom.

I built a couple of very stable saw horses for the boat construction. Then I padded them with some egg crate foam I had left over from when I 'sound proofed' my dust collection closet. The foam will keep the hull from getting scratched and dented during construction. Next post will show the stitching of the hull...

Not so scary scarf joints

2006-12-16T07:36:00.000-05:00

The one thing about building from plans vs buying the kit that I was most apprehensive about was cutting and gluing the scarf joints. These are used to join two sheets of plywood end-to-end so that a boat longer than seven or eight feet is possible. I was encouraged by chapter nine, Scarf Joints in Chris Kulczycki's book, which I mentioned in my initial post. He explained the process in a way that almost made it sound as easy and enjoyable as it actually was.

The 9mm sheets are marked, stacked and lined up for a 3" ramp (scarf) to be cut with a very sharp block plane. The edge of the bottom sheet needs to be supported on the edge of the work bench to prevent the plywood from breaking off when it gets thin. I also clamped a couple of pieces of MDF on top to prevent the panels from shifting or bowing while I planed across the width of the plywood. Keep the plywood veneer bands parallel, and cut with smooth, long strokes. The 6mm sheets are done in the same way, except that a 2" scarf is cut. I did attempt to practice cutting scarfs on some scrap luan and found that the luan was much more prone to tear-out than the okoume was. I had similar difficulty with some scrap fir plywood I practiced on.

After the scarfs are cut, the sheets are glued end-to-end with epoxy thickened with Silica. The 9mm and the 6mm panels can be stacked and glued at the same time if you lay plastic wrap between the sheets where the joints are. In retrospect, I think I would not have tried to stack them, and only glued one at a time. This is because it is much more difficult to perfectly align four sheets on two different planes than two sheets on the same plane.

I placed another layer of plastic wrap on the top, and then placed a 4x4 beam across to use as a clamping bar. It is very good advice not to apply too much clamping pressure. All you need, is to tighten until you begin to see the epoxy squeeze out. Again, this would be much easier to determine if you only glue one set of panels at a time.

In the beginning...

2006-12-14T22:08:00.000-05:00

If we are to begin in the beginning, which seems like a pretty good place to start a journey of any sort, my boat building project began last summer when I read Stitch-And-Glue Boatbuilding by Chris Kulczycki. This is when I finally settled on a boat building method and design, and then ordered the plans for the Jimmy Skiff ™ from Chesapeake Light Craft. Mr. Kulczycki was the founder of CLC and the designer of the elegantly simple skiff I chose as my first boat building project.

Even though the book has an entire chapter on building the Jimmy Skiff ™, including scaled-down drawings, Mr. Kulczycki recommends purchasing the plans or a kit from CLC, and I heartily agree that this is the way to go. Quality materials and time are too valuable to waste on trying to cut a corner by not buying the full size plans and building guide. See the CLC website for pricing and availability. I also recommend getting a copy of Chris Kulczycki's Stitch-And-Glue Boatbuilding to supplement the plans and building guide for anyone who has not built a stitch & glue boat before.

My project started to move from a dream toward reality when I bought the Okoume plywood from Maine Coast Lumber. The Okoume I bought is grown in managed forests in Gabon Africa and then milled in Greece by Shelman.

The Lloyds Register sticker and the B.S.1088 stamps on the plywood sheets indicate that this is a high quality material specifically manufactured for use in building small boats. The Jimmy Skiff ™ plans call for two sheets of 9mm and two sheets of 6mm plywood.