Building Allie Kat
A Somes Sound 12 1/2
Keel
Outer Stem: Before attaching the keel, the outer stem needed to be finished and installed. It is made of thin mahogany planks bent and laminated with epoxy using the shape from the full-sized plans. I did the glue up at the same time as I made the inner stem. I put some long cleats on it while it waited to go on the boat so that it wouldn't lose its shape - I knew it would be a few months before I was ready to install it. There's a carriage bolt that goes through the inner stem and into the building jig. The carriage bolt was in the way of the outer stem when I tried to put it in position. I cut a notch in the underside of the outer stem to gain clearance - latter the notch was filled with epoxy, but that meant I had to wait until the bolt was out and the boat was off the building jig before I could glue the outer stem in place. The aft end of the outer stem has a long bevel that goes over the keel and the forefoot filler.
Keel: The Keel is the third layer of 1/2 inch mahogany that makes up the backbone of the boat. It tucks under the outer stem at the forward end and easily bends to follow the curve of the keelson. I used a brace from the ceiling pushing down at the aft end to hold the keel in place for glue and fastening.
Forefoot Filler: After the keel was in place, the forefoot filler was shaped and installed. Making this piece made me think that I'm not constructing a boat, it's more like I'm carving or sculpting one. I got a lot of practice with my spoke shave on the forefoot filler and I'm finally beginning to feel comfortable with that tool. I took careful measurements and a lot of time to make sure I got the shape right. It will butt against the leading edge of the lead ballast keel and I want a good fit when the lead goes on so that I don't have to spend time on my back under the boat fairing it. When it was right I glued and screwed it in place.
Centerboard Trunk
Building the centerboard trunk got me seriously thinking about paint for the first time. The interior surfaces of the trunk are painted during construction so I needed to decide on, and order paint. I started with Penetrating Epoxy, then a two-part Barrier Coat and finally a water-based Anti-fouling Paint. Time will tell…
I modified the plan by making the width of the centerboard opening a little tighter to match the width of the slot in the lead keel.
At this stage the backbone of the boat (keel plus keelson) is 1-1/2 inches thick. I cut the slot for the centerboard with my jig saw well inside the lines worrying about the blade deflecting from vertical with such a deep cut. It did deflect some on one cut, but not at all on the second side.
I jacked the (kind-of heavy) trunk up into place with bar clamps. It fit. I checked for plumb with my laser level and drilled for screws. I lowered it and smeared plenty of thickened epoxy onto the joining surfaces. I worried about epoxy drips inside the trunk which would cover the anti-fouling paint – I didn't need to. There was some squeeze out when I pulled it into place with the clamps, and more squeeze out when I drove home the screws. But it didn't drip like I worried and was easy to reach and clean up.
After the glue set, I installed a few more screws where the clamps were blocking the keel. Then I used a 2-inch long pattern bit in my router to smooth up the opening in the keel. The raw wood in the slot got several layers of epoxy. When I paint the barrier coat on the hull, I'll paint inside the slot too (done before installing the lead ballast keel).
Keel Filler: This boat is designed to use the lead ballast keel from the Joel White Haven 12 1/2. The plans call for a curving and tapered piece of Douglas Fir on the keel amidships. This spacer accounts for the slightly different hull shape of the SS 12.5.
Deadwood
The deadwood is a solid triangular piece of Douglass Fir that fills the area between the sternpost, the lead ballast keel and the boat bottom (the keel). I made patterns from the plans for the deadwood and the sternpost and a pattern of the ballast keel by tracing it (you need to have the lead keel before proceeding further than this on the boat). The blank was glued-up from six large pieces of wood – dimensions are given in the full size plans.
The long side of the deadwood is curved to fit the keel. I made vertical cuts to the curve line and knocked out chunks of wood to make a rough first fit. Then smoothed it with the spoke shave.
Planing the fore and aft ends of the deadwood was difficult. These edges are straight, flat and perpendicular to the fore-aft line. One edge will meet the lead keel and the other joins to the sternpost. It's mostly end grain and it was really hard to cut, and it was also important to keep the edge flat and perpendicular. It took a long time.
Smoothing the sides of the deadwood also took a long time. While time consuming, it was not especially challenging – I watched movies on my tablet while pushing the plane over and over again and again... It took two hours per side.
Lead Ballast Keel
I wasn't the least bit tempted to cast my own lead keel. If someone wants to do that, they can buy an extra sheet in the plans for the mold setup. I bought the extra sheet so that I could compare Brooks' dimensions to the keel I purchased. Brooks lists several suppliers in his construction directions. I found a builder in New England who builds Havens. He had three keels in stock and sold me one. I drove to the foundry in Providence and they loaded it onto my truck for me – it weighed 620 pounds. This keel was close but not a perfect match. The centerboard slot was 1/8 inch narrower, and I had to move the keel aft about 3/4 of an inch to get the slot to line up with the slot in the wood keel.
I lifted the ballast keel out of my truck with a chain fail hoist attached to a gantry made from swing set parts. It's a good setup – stable and plenty strong.
I stored the ballast keel on a rolling frame that will later become the base of the building cradle. I sized it to roll under the building jig for storage.
Drilling in lead - The centerboard pivot hole:
I built a jig to position and lineup the hole for the centerboard swivel pin. I switched the drill to the screw driver speed (slow) and pulled the bit out of the hole each time after only two or three rotations. Progress drilling the 5/8" hole was slow but steady. The bit never got warm. After 20 minutes I was thru to the CB slot. I took a break and then 20 minutes later I was done. No sweat.
Centerboard
Building the centerboard was fun. I got a kick out of carving the foil shape. I also enjoyed making my first bronze fitting – a strap to hold the centerboard lanyard (used to raise and lower the board). And finally, while I have no desire to melt 600 pounds of lead to make a keel, it was fun casting the relatively small amount of lead that is integrated into the board.
The full size plans show the shape of the board. I used my power planer to get a rough shape and then used a small block plane to refine and smooth. Once again I felt like I was carving or sculpting a boat, not building one.
I started my lead melting adventure with a practice session by making little lead ingots. I found a cast iron sauce pan online for less than ten bucks. A little charcoal grill got it hot enough to melt. I believe the bubbling in the short movie clip below is gas/smoke coming up from the scorching wood at the bottom of the ingot mold. The bottom sides of both ingots came out rough and pocked – I decided to screw a thin piece of sheet metal over the bottom of my hole in the centerboard to avoid the same problem there. I didn't see any splashing, but clearly there was some because I found many little lead pellets/BBs all around the work area. I wore long sleeve, gloves and goggles. A full face shield wouldn't be going overboard.
I cut the hole in the centerboard for the lead in accordance with the full size plans. To fix the lead in the hole, I cut dado slots with my router on each of the four sides. I screwed a piece of sheet steel to the bottom. I covered the top with a pine board equipped with a pour hole with funnel and a vent hole. The pour went well – no leaks. There was a little bit of shrinkage as it cooled – I just kept topping off the pour hole until lead filled and stayed in the vent. After it cooled I cut the protruding pieces off.
I used a hand plane to smooth the lead to follow the shape of the board. It was easy.
The plans give two options for attaching the lanyard. The easiest is to drill a hole to thread the lanyard from the trailing edge through to a larger hole cut through the thickness of the board. These holes will always be below the waterline and need to be coated in epoxy. I liked the second option which is to manufacture a tang made of two straps of 1/8th inch bronze and clamped to the board with thru-screws. Even though I'm not planning to do a lot of metal work for the boat, I do want to do a few metal parts and this seemed like a good introduction (it won't show – ha!). I should have built the tang first before doing anything else to the board – it would have provided me a flat stable surface to put on the drill press for screw holes straight thru, and the job would have been a lot easier if I the board wasn't holding 20 pound of lead!
The final error was the most significant. The centerboard pivot pin is 5/8 bronze rod. In the plans Brooks describes this spot as a "wear point" and suggests drilling oversize and inserting a piece of copper pipe or some fiberglass tube in the hole in the board. I found online a bronze sleeve made of bearing bronze (oil impregnated, self lubricating). Perfect, right? A week after I installed it I found oil leaching out of the bearing bronze and soaking the wood in the area around the pivot point. I hadn't put the epoxy soaked fiberglass cloth on yet and now it wouldn't stick at the pivot point. I ground down the plywood around the pivot pin hole down thru the first ply and removed the oil soaked wood, replacing it with thickened epoxy. As soon as that cured I sheathed the board in epoxy and cloth. Several weeks later there's been no further leaching out of oil. The board is ready for anti-fouling paint.
The centerboard has been set aside and will be installed later. My plan for lifting the boat off the building cradle and placing it on the trailer is to extend a nylon strap from above thru the centerboard trunk, and thru the slot in the ballast keel then around a steel pipe. After the lift is done and the boat is placed on the trailer the centerboard will be painted and installed.