Week End Update

Welding the Trolley Beam

Boat With Battens

Scarf Joint 

The weather has definitely decided it's time for winter. It got cold last night and we've gotten quite a bit of snow this afternoon and evening. I was going to stay after school for a little bit and work on the boat but decided it was a better idea to just head home. 

The lower picture shows the scarf joint on one piece of the plywood that's going to become the bottom.I wasn't real sure how to best go about putting the scarf on the sheets but I figured I darn sure wasn't good enough with a hand plane to cut them. I finally settled on making a fixture for using a circular saw. The saw rides on the ledge created by the board clamped on in the photo. I set the angle to give me a scarf about an inch and a half back on the 1/2" plywood and just ran the saw across the end of the sheet. I didn't get the two glued together due to the weather but I'm hoping to get over to school some time this weekend and take care of that.

The middle picture shows the progress on the boat itself. I put some battens on to determine the placement of the side boards/strakes. I got the inner stem glued to the chine logs and those planed so they blend into the stem nicely. I need to fasten the chine logs to the transom yet and then it'll be time to put the bottom on. Again- might be able to get in there this weekend and get that taken care of. If not, next week for sure.

The top photo shows the boys welding up the trolley beam. I need to make a plate for the bottom of it on one end for bolting it to the column and weld that on. And then make the column, of course. Hopefully that'll get done next week. We knocked off a little early today to get things cleaned up real well. I've had them shut down the school early due to the weather with very little warning in the past. Figured today was a good day to do a good cleaning and sweeping and if they sent us home early, the tools would be all picked up and the floor swept at least. I filled in for the department head at a meeting the other night and the boss mentioned getting things cleaned up and spit shined for our up coming visit from the outside inspectors. He didn't mention me specifically but he didn't have to - I got the hint. I was already working on that anyway. Always a good idea to clean house when company's coming.

Have to see how the weather is in the morning and how much snow we ended up with to decide what I work on at home this weekend. We got the 2x4's for the wall caps cut today and I brought them home. I've got a job in the milling machine I want to finish up also. So it'll be one or all of either boatbuilder, machinist or carpenter - after I get done shoveling and plowing, that is.

Stay warm.