Happy New Year!!
I hope all of you had a great Christmas and New Years! I spent mine with my family in Arizona and it was great to see everyone again. On the boating front I have also made some progress on the Pram plans I bought from Jeff at www.spirainternational.com.
I downloaded the plans from the Spira international website and it was an easy and simple process. I spent about an hour studying the plans. Prior to being a Professional Pilot, I spent 20 years running our families Aerospace Manufacturing Facilities, both in the USA and Mexico. I fully understand blueprints and manufacturing although I have never done any work with wood, fiberglass or the like in my life. With this in mind I gave myself at least 50/50 chance of being able to complete the pram.
The first item on the agenda was material purchase. I drove down to my local Home depot and purchased two sheets of 1/4 birch and then my first hiccup-only 1/2 inch sheets were available in hardwood. I had decided to go hardwood even though Jeff says it isn't absolutely necessary. I went with the 1/2 even though the plans call for 3/8. I spent $60 for all the wood.
The second item on the agenda was layout. I spent about 2 hours drawing out all the parts on the sheets of wood, which was kind of fun. I will say it isn't very clear on Jeff's site how to draw the various radii called out on his blueprints, but I was able to use an old thin piece of wood trim to bend over the various locations called out and used the trim as a guide to draw the radii. It seemed like a satisfactory way to do it. One of the blueprints was missing a dimension so I emailed Jeff and he responded promptly with the answer-nice!
The third item was cutting out the pieces! I had never so much as used an electric jigsaw but it was pretty simple and made very clean cuts. I purchased a Ryobi jigsaw from Home depot for $29 and some 20 pitch Bosch blades for $10. One blade did the job for all of it (and still is very sharp)!! I spent almost 2 hours carefully cutting out all the parts.
Jeff's instructions were simple- drill holes about every 4 inches 1/2 from the side and loosely tie the boat together. Okay, but do the sides go on top of the bottom or next to it? What about the transom? The key here is tie it LOOSELY!! Don't stress about it, just start drilling the holes and it will become obvious how the pieces fit together. Remember not to make more trimming work for your self than absolutely necessary, that will help too. Once you have it together and the pieces line up, start tightening the ties. By the way, I used the plastic zip ties you can buy anywhere about $4 for 100. This is where the boat starts taking shape and your wife all of a sudden doesn't think you pissed away 5 hours and another $65! Also this was a fine time to see if the boat was going to fit out the narrow stairwell that joins my basement to the great outdoors! To my relief, it fit easily.
The end of Phase #1!! As you can see from the pictures, the bulkheads both fit in exactly the spot called for on the blueprint--nice!! As per the instructions, I clipped off the zip tie ends and taped over all of the outside edges in hopes of containing the resin I am going to be smearing in all of the interior corners. Give yourself 2 hours for the zip tying and taping, it's not a fast process. I will say the blue prints must be good as I really was impressed at how well everything fit together. The gluing will begin next week-- wish me luck!
I hope all of you had a great Christmas and New Years! I spent mine with my family in Arizona and it was great to see everyone again. On the boating front I have also made some progress on the Pram plans I bought from Jeff at www.spirainternational.com.
I downloaded the plans from the Spira international website and it was an easy and simple process. I spent about an hour studying the plans. Prior to being a Professional Pilot, I spent 20 years running our families Aerospace Manufacturing Facilities, both in the USA and Mexico. I fully understand blueprints and manufacturing although I have never done any work with wood, fiberglass or the like in my life. With this in mind I gave myself at least 50/50 chance of being able to complete the pram.
The first item on the agenda was material purchase. I drove down to my local Home depot and purchased two sheets of 1/4 birch and then my first hiccup-only 1/2 inch sheets were available in hardwood. I had decided to go hardwood even though Jeff says it isn't absolutely necessary. I went with the 1/2 even though the plans call for 3/8. I spent $60 for all the wood.
The second item on the agenda was layout. I spent about 2 hours drawing out all the parts on the sheets of wood, which was kind of fun. I will say it isn't very clear on Jeff's site how to draw the various radii called out on his blueprints, but I was able to use an old thin piece of wood trim to bend over the various locations called out and used the trim as a guide to draw the radii. It seemed like a satisfactory way to do it. One of the blueprints was missing a dimension so I emailed Jeff and he responded promptly with the answer-nice!
The third item was cutting out the pieces! I had never so much as used an electric jigsaw but it was pretty simple and made very clean cuts. I purchased a Ryobi jigsaw from Home depot for $29 and some 20 pitch Bosch blades for $10. One blade did the job for all of it (and still is very sharp)!! I spent almost 2 hours carefully cutting out all the parts.
Jeff's instructions were simple- drill holes about every 4 inches 1/2 from the side and loosely tie the boat together. Okay, but do the sides go on top of the bottom or next to it? What about the transom? The key here is tie it LOOSELY!! Don't stress about it, just start drilling the holes and it will become obvious how the pieces fit together. Remember not to make more trimming work for your self than absolutely necessary, that will help too. Once you have it together and the pieces line up, start tightening the ties. By the way, I used the plastic zip ties you can buy anywhere about $4 for 100. This is where the boat starts taking shape and your wife all of a sudden doesn't think you pissed away 5 hours and another $65! Also this was a fine time to see if the boat was going to fit out the narrow stairwell that joins my basement to the great outdoors! To my relief, it fit easily.
The end of Phase #1!! As you can see from the pictures, the bulkheads both fit in exactly the spot called for on the blueprint--nice!! As per the instructions, I clipped off the zip tie ends and taped over all of the outside edges in hopes of containing the resin I am going to be smearing in all of the interior corners. Give yourself 2 hours for the zip tying and taping, it's not a fast process. I will say the blue prints must be good as I really was impressed at how well everything fit together. The gluing will begin next week-- wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment