Building a skiff

[AKDoug]

Oh also...that Hitachi worm drive saw is probably the best tool purchase I've ever made. There is a local store that became a Hitachi power tool dealer about three or four months ago and they had ten of these on sale for $99 Canadian (70 farenheit) and the staff bought them all but one. I was there the day they got them in and got the last one. I would guess it's a $250 saw? I've never used a better saw than this. I don't know if there's something about worm drives that makes them track straight but this thing is so easy and smooth to cut with, it's unreal. I like Hitachi power tools generally but this thing is an absolute standout item.

I wonder if they let them go so cheap to clear out the Hitachi branded tools to replace them with Metabo tools (same tools, new name). We bought a bunch of Hitachi nail guns for my store for a discount, and the ones that replaced them are labeled as Metabo. Anyhow, I've never used one of their saws. I did buy a rear handled worm drive style Milwaukee 18V saw recently that absolutely spanks my cord Skil worm drive. It'd better for the price.

[Lex Luthier]

Oh also...that Hitachi worm drive saw is probably the best tool purchase I've ever made. There is a local store that became a Hitachi power tool dealer about three or four months ago and they had ten of these on sale for $99 Canadian (70 farenheit) and the staff bought them all but one. I was there the day they got them in and got the last one. I would guess it's a $250 saw? I've never used a better saw than this. I don't know if there's something about worm drives that makes them track straight but this thing is so easy and smooth to cut with, it's unreal. I like Hitachi power tools generally but this thing is an absolute standout item.

Reuel Parker made the point that worm drive saws were his most important tools when building stitch & glue sharpies, especially the larger ones.

http://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Book-R.../dp/0071580131

I'd be glad to hear what you think of the saw after you've built the boat!

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I wonder if they let them go so cheap to clear out the Hitachi branded tools to replace them with Metabo tools (same tools, new name). We bought a bunch of Hitachi nail guns for my store for a discount, and the ones that replaced them are labeled as Metabo. Anyhow, I've never used one of their saws. I did buy a rear handled worm drive style Milwaukee 18V saw recently that absolutely spanks my cord Skil worm drive. It'd better for the price.

Oh that's right, I forgot they became Metabo...that's probably the case, then. I know they'd just brought the saws in for that event and now they're a big Metabo dealer so I guess they got a dealership deal cut with Hitachi who was in the process of rebranding and they got them in cheap. I remember when I went in the store that morning I just walked up to the counter and said "hey, the $99 Hitachi worm drive.." and all the guys in the shop started laughing. They hadn't even put them on the shop floor, they took them straight off the truck and put them in their own cars and there was one left in the breakroom they were deciding what to do with, whether one of them was going to buy it and sell it on craigslist or what. That's the one I got.

Reuel Parker made the point that worm drive saws were his most important tools when building stitch & glue sharpies, especially the larger ones.

http://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Book-R.../dp/0071580131

I'd be glad to hear what you think of the saw after you've built the boat!

Oh, that's really interesting. I'll consider that validation of my totally uninformed opinion - Reuel Parker knows five thousand times more about this stuff than I do, obviously. I've never read his book but I know some of his designs and IIRC he used to occasionally post on a forum I have been following for a long time, although also if memory serves he got fed up with amateurs who wanted to build boats out of stupid materials, without understanding the basics of design, and then argue about how the so-called experts were just trying to protect their jobs. Because, of course, the great threat to professional naval architects is the ability of weird autists (disproportionately British in origin for some reason) to create free floathomes out of garbage.

You know, as I get older I don't really oppose the idea of "well my 3" Kimber works for me" because most people who are packing one of those around aren't going to use it anyway, and most who own it aren't going to carry it, and for a lot of carriers it probably does a great job of reminding them to stay out of trouble because they have a gun on them which is probably job #1 for a carry piece anyway. So I don't really have the urge to flip out and insist that everyone carry a MOS 19. What the hell, do whatever you want.

But I will never understand the guys who want to go storm the battlements of whatever stronghold of actual group of experts is out there to rage against the exclusivity of the group. You want to carry the Kimber micro? Go nuts. You want to tell yourself that building a boat out of pickle barrel material would be fun? Go crazy. But what is the appeal of going out and finding forums filled with a bunch of knowledgeable people and chess-pigeoning all over the place as you insist that your shitty non-solution is just being looked down on by some imagined conspiracy of elites? It's really bizarre.

Anyway IIRC Reuel Parker used to post on boatdesign.net once in a while, but like a lot of pros, he eventually left, I think because he got sick of the number of wackos who wanted to fight about stuff they didn't understand. But there was a time that forum had guys like him and the late Paul Riccelli and Tad Roberts...real giants of that game. Quite a learning ground for anyone who wanted to pay attention.

[AKDoug]

Oh that's right, I forgot they became Metabo...that's probably the case, then. I know they'd just brought the saws in for that event and now they're a big Metabo dealer so I guess they got a dealership deal cut with Hitachi who was in the process of rebranding and they got them in cheap. I remember when I went in the store that morning I just walked up to the counter and said "hey, the $99 Hitachi worm drive.." and all the guys in the shop started laughing. They hadn't even put them on the shop floor, they took them straight off the truck and put them in their own cars and there was one left in the breakroom they were deciding what to do with, whether one of them was going to buy it and sell it on craigslist or what. That's the one I got.



Oh, that's really interesting. I'll consider that validation of my totally uninformed opinion - Reuel Parker knows five thousand times more about this stuff than I do, obviously. I've never read his book but I know some of his designs and IIRC he used to occasionally post on a forum I have been following for a long time, although also if memory serves he got fed up with amateurs who wanted to build boats out of stupid materials, without understanding the basics of design, and then argue about how the so-called experts were just trying to protect their jobs. Because, of course, the great threat to professional naval architects is the ability of weird autists (disproportionately British in origin for some reason) to create free floathomes out of garbage.

You know, as I get older I don't really oppose the idea of "well my 3" Kimber works for me" because most people who are packing one of those around aren't going to use it anyway, and most who own it aren't going to carry it, and for a lot of carriers it probably does a great job of reminding them to stay out of trouble because they have a gun on them which is probably job #1 for a carry piece anyway. So I don't really have the urge to flip out and insist that everyone carry a MOS 19. What the hell, do whatever you want.

But I will never understand the guys who want to go storm the battlements of whatever stronghold of actual group of experts is out there to rage against the exclusivity of the group. You want to carry the Kimber micro? Go nuts. You want to tell yourself that building a boat out of pickle barrel material would be fun? Go crazy. But what is the appeal of going out and finding forums filled with a bunch of knowledgeable people and chess-pigeoning all over the place as you insist that your shitty non-solution is just being looked down on by some imagined conspiracy of elites? It's really bizarre.

Anyway IIRC Reuel Parker used to post on boatdesign.net once in a while, but like a lot of pros, he eventually left, I think because he got sick of the number of wackos who wanted to fight about stuff they didn't understand. But there was a time that forum had guys like him and the late Paul Riccelli and Tad Roberts...real giants of that game. Quite a learning ground for anyone who wanted to pay attention.

And so it goes on most enthusiast forums. Poor moderation also doesn't help. I was a pretty serious archer at one point and watched all the pros just up and leave a really big archery forum. That hive of knowledge was never replaced.

Pretty funny as I was going to argue with you about plywood quality, then I had to check myself and realize what you're building doesn't rely on the multiple layers of glass and epoxy that a big boat does, where you can get away with lesser quality plywood in some cases.

I love boats and tools. Please keep this thread going.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Yeah there's totally this cycle of:

enthusiasts create a forum
forum becomes a hub of useful information
hub attracts a wide audience
wide audience includes a bunch of idiots
the initial enthusiasts get frustrated and leave
the forum is now a shit show and the enthusiasts start a new forum


Anyway do feel free to argue...in this case I actually might have agreed with you. I probably could get away with weaker plywood because the strength of this structure is going to be 80% in the glass itself - the fabric is not typical glass weave but biaxial 45/45 precisely because unlike most glass-over-ply boats, this one is not a wooden structure with glass to waterproof and resist abrasion, but a cored composite in which the plywood is mostly acting as a spacer. But then using this particular wood will make such a stiff beam (@Totem Polar quiet you) that it'll probably change the overall strength profile of the laminate.

Of course that's not always smart - there's always the theoretical problem of a laminate with enormous core stiffness (@Totem Polar O~o <- that's my Samuel L Jackson dad expression) relative to the skin rigidity and so the skin doesn't support the core and after a while the core breaks, and then it's just the skin, and now that's not enough either, so the structure fails.

But in this case, the stresses are probably going to be pretty manageable either way and I think the plywood will work well for this application.

[Seven_Sicks_Two]

@Maple Syrup Actual

Thanks for this thread dude. It's a cool opportunity to learn about something that I have neither the skill, tools, or talent to attempt.

It's a really nice diversion.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I'm glad it's fun for people - obviously it's fun for me but you know how it is, your own little quirks that are so entertaining to you are rarely interesting to the rest of the world. But I also just have reality fatigue. I can't remain emotionally engaged in politics and guns and everything all the time anymore. I just burned out and now I am taking some time to just do stuff I want to be doing. Aside from work, which I really want to stop. But I think I have about $350,000 worth of mortgage left to go first. Plus from what Erin tells me, the kid is going to be an NHL power forward so I assume that's another hundred grand worth of ice time. So work continues, but, on the side...I don't know, all I really want to do is goof around with boats and fishing and maybe go hunting once in a while. I'm pretty much a civilizational dropout at this point and I want the world to leave me alone to enjoy my family.

The world does not seem content to do this and I half expect to have to bring the ARs out of retirement one day to help unfuck the world my kid is going to inherit but for the time being I just want to uncoil my brain for a while. The last two years have been absolutely insane for me and just hanging out in the garage, making sawdust and slowly helping a boat take shape is just about exactly what I think I need to be doing right now. I'm finding the experience theraputic so I'm really happy if the act of relaxing my own mind is giving anyone else some kind of sympathetic relaxation effect.

Also today I have something to report which, as far as I'm concerned, is really interesting. Giving me a few minutes to get that post together and upload pics. I think this is a good one.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

The first round of supplies arrived: 12oz biaxial fabric and some 8.8oz Rutan 2x2 twill. I won’t need it for a bit but still nice to see stuff showing up. My big epoxy shipment was dropped off at the warehouse in Blaine, so I’m waiting on that to get sent up to Canada now. But I still have maybe a gallon or so of epoxy from my last boat so no big deal, I could easily get started with what I’ve got. Even if I were ready with all the panels, which I’m not.






I did lay out more bulkheads today, that was satisfying. There’s plenty to go but nice to make headway. But the interesting thing to me is the boil test.


Several people have asked me about this. I thought it was well known, but then I have been in the boat game a long time. Basically the goal is to ensure the wood doesn’t have voids, doesn’t delaminate, doesn’t just in general suck. I boiled 6 pieces and took them out one at a time over the course of 24 hours, then froze them. After 24 hours in boiling water they were fully saturated and didn’t float anymore, so freezing them should really want to split them open. But no, all samples were hard as a rock afterwards. Well, all but one.


Somewhere around hour 21, my wife asked me if I’d boiled any of the plywood that failed on me on my prior deck repair on the Double Eagle. I hadn’t.


“You should,” she said. “Do you have any left?”


In fact I did have a few little bits left, so I went downstairs and snapped off a little leftover triangle of $150/sheet marine tropical hardwood, and chucked it in the boiling water and went out to go lay out some panels.





Zero delamination.






Bottom line: THIS is why I trust made in Canada (specifically right here on Vancouver Island) marine fir. I couldn’t split the piece I’d boiled for 24 hours apart with a steak knife. It was solid as a rock. Ramming the point of the knife in like Norman Bates it only made it through two plies.



The “marine tropical hardwood” on the other hand…






Garbage! So there you have it, that's why you test your wood. That $150/sheet "certified BS1088 marine tropical hardwood" lasted 1 hour in the water (and probably less, that's just when Erin noticed it was delaminating and told me to come check it out.)

***no, that garbage wood was NOT supplied by Boat Builder Central, who I trust to have enough pull to ensure real marine plywood. But this stuff was stamped BS1088 with third party verification and everything. So whatever else you do, TEST YOUR PLYWOOD!***

[randyho]

half-jokingly, carbon fiber? #maybeNotHalf

[Maple Syrup Actual]

half-jokingly, carbon fiber? #maybeNotHalf

You know there'd be situations in which that would work really well. I don't know enough to balance the extreme rigidity of carbon fibre against the flexibility of wood, but you know what I suspect it would do really well would be allow you to run a deeper V hull, on a lighter boat.

This is just an idea I had after you mentioned CF so I haven't thought it through, but think of this: there are really only a couple of ways to make boats run smoothly. Well, say three.

1) lots of mass. If the boat weighs 5000 tons, the waves have to be massive to slug it around much. If it weighs 5000 pounds, like my pocket battlewagon, it punches through chop, but a big wave will sling it around much more easily. If it weighs 500 pounds, you will slam around like crazy.

2) deeper V bottom. This is the diver-vs-belly-flopper thing I think I mentioned earlier.

3) too obscure almost to mention but you can also put your floatation below the point where the waves are doing anything. SWATH hulls do this...couple of big float tubes six or ten feet under the surface, skinny legs up to the main hull which never really touches the water. The wave action is above the floats and below the boats. Smooth. But weird and expensive.


Anyway...there was an all-CF eco-boat a few years back made by some Greek guys, I think. I think Trygons was the name. Twenty foot boat, the whole hull was around 350lbs and I recall it ran at something like 7 or 8 mpg, which for a boat is pretty impressive. But I watched footage of it and it was so light it looked like it was slamming pretty hard and getting blown around offshore.

What you could maybe do with CF would be to build a catamaran with very sharp hulls that would ordinarily want to dig in and eat fuel...but instead, would float so lightly that they'd be really efficient. There'd be a lot of math but instinctively my guess is that a very light cat could have much sharper sponsons and still act like a planing boat, but being a cat, wouldn't have the issue of needing mass to sit down on her lines.

I don't know, it's an interesting thought. I'm not set up to do CF nor do I have the experience to design a catamaran; that's a pretty specific skillset. But I suspect it could be done and now I'm curious to think it out in a more detailed way. A 25' CF cat with sharp hulls might be a killer offshore machine, on a pair of 70s, which would be impressively cheap to run.