And now, for something completely different.

I've been making a few things for my partner of late. She's been so lovely about me spending most of my waking hours thinking about boats, so I think it fair that I apply my newly forming woodworking skills towards things she will find beautiful.

We're similar in some ways, when it comes to timber, and nature, and leaving them a lot like how they are. We share some similar tastes when it comes to natural wood finish, and for pretty and simple things that are non-fabricated en-masse by Ikea, though GOD IS IKEA ALSO AMAZING.

So, I found a piece of slabbed Elm going for 20 bucks. It was a little rough, but it's becoming a natural edge writing desk for my lady.

What it used to look like.
(not my photo)

I've never built a table before, so here's hoping it doesn't fall over. The legs are formed from discarded pergola bracing that was hanging around on our property and so the total cost of the table so far is $20 + a few screws and a tin of varnish. The legs aren't varnished, nor is the underside of the tabletop (for gluing purposes), but I couldn't resist showing it off. Those areas still to be varnished will get done up nicely in the coming two days or so.

Sooo shiiiny. The bubbly areas that look rough are natural knots in the wood that I have left for the prettiness of them. The table still feels extremely smooth overall.

Gratuitous timber-grain shot .

From the rear, with a nice clean edge.

Another shot of the varnished grain.

I had a few extra offcuts from the end of the elm slab, so I flattened them out also (the slab had a fairly huge cupping problem when I first got it, with a warp depth in the middle of about 12mm), and they've had their first coat of Tung Oil for due service as chopping and food serving boards. They're roughly an inch thick now, and flat as they come. I've kept the natural edge also. Seems a shame to lose it. They'll get one more coat tomorrow (Tung oil wants ~24 hours between coats) and then voila, artisan chopping boards for...wait... $0.

Board 1, about 30cm x 18cm

Board 2, roughly 24 cm x 18cm

The pair.

So it isn't that I don't do my blog and am lazy, I just get occupied and obsessed with things in waves. I leave things for a time and then return to them, just as obsesses as before. I've been more obsessed with doing, than writing. This might be a sign that the waves are turning, and that writing might be coming back for a few weeks.

Until next time.
Little Cat Ember.

Lots of progress - Part 1

The drought has broken and I am finally sitting back down to update the progress of my boaty boat. It's been a few months, I know, and a lot has been done, so I'll break this up into a few stages.

First off, I attatched the centrecase. Pain. In. The. Something-something. I had a little help at the end for the installation, which is nice of my long suffering partner Teresa. I decided to fabricate the centrecase and install it before the stringers were glued on, and the planking and flipping nonsense, as I figured it'd be easier with the visibility and headroom. It went in ok, I didn't think it would be an easy job, but I can definitely see the upsides to lowering a case in, rather than lifting it in.

So I shaped my case sides from Kauri, cut the case from 12mm ply and glued the whole shamozzle together. I'm not entirely sure how I got everything to match, but at the end everything went together with less than a 1mm gap at the aft end of the case logs where they met the keelson. Here's the case in two parts, before being fibreglassed on the inside (175gsm cloth, 2 coats of resin) and glued and screwed together. Note here, that the case has extended sides at the bottom, and I chose to extend the centreboard case through the keelson for extra strength and water-tightness.



Next, a slot gets cut into the keelson to accept it. As I'm extending the case through, the slot looks huge and care must be taken not to damage the keelson when putting the case in. Lots of support and definitely no twisting. Plenty of time with the rasp involved getting a tight fit.


After that is out of the way a few of the frame spreaders are cut short, after extra bracing onto the stocks to ensure the frame doesn't warp. No real need in the end, as the hull with stringers screwed (but not glued yet) was plenty stiff enough to hold its shape.

Then, the case is inserted vertically and braced with some wood across the building stocks to hold it in place while I clamp it tight, and holes are drilled and countersunk for the retaining bolts (I used 1/4" 316 grade S/S bolts) which I pre-bought from http://www.stainlessstore.com.au/, who besides being cheap and lovely, post things to you in a day. I measured my lengths, bought a mixed bag of 8 bolts, nuts and washers, got it all for a good price and a timely fashion. Absolutely beats the bollocks off making the bolts myself from rod.

This is where my help stopped. I was very grateful for the help with the dry fitting, and was going to wait for a second help to do the glue-up but ended up just going for it while the lass was at work the next day. I'm all fore-sight and planning, you see. So. yeah.

It went in ok and nobody will ever hear otherwise, so it can go down in history as FACT that there was no horrible errors and swearing and lifting a heavy piece of thing upwards and trying to line up 8 bolt holes and getting camels through the eyes of needles and.....yeah. Went in Ok. After all, I only had to cut out a little chunk of my hear due to epoxy+head convergence.

Fast forward a week, and I had something looking like this. you can't see the case in it as it has been cut down flush to the keelson, and the stringers have been glued down and chines faired also. The bevels on the chines confused me for a while, but in the end it was easiest to just take to it with a belt sander and clean up with a No. 5 plane.

That was where I was at! Next post will cover the amazing adventures of applying planking to this beast of mine.

Until next time.
Little Cat Ember