Tag Archive for boat building
Shantyboat on the Mississippi
In July, we are bringing the shantyboat across country to…
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What the #*@&% happened?
You must hate me. Last I left you with “Walls…
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Roof Rafters – The cabin takes shape
When we disassembled the Hollister chicken coop, we got a…
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Cabin Framing, More Mistakes Were Made
If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s not being…
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Cabin Wall Framing. Finally.
Whew, finally. We get to constructing the cabin walls. This…
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New Boat Vocabulary Word: Coaming
One of the smarter things I’ve done on the shantyboat,…
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A Collection of Photos from a Non-Shantyboat River Float
I took a two-week break from building the shantyboat to…
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Bow Eyes and Stern Tiedowns
Sometimes little things can be a big headache. And sometimes…
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The Cabin Has a Floor
Let’s put in a floor! This is the floor that…
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Obsessive woodworking, top side
With both decks on, I could be an obsessive woodworker…
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Installing the aft deck
I put the aft deck on. Thought you should know.…
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Motor Well, A Mini-Project Unto Itself
Oh, the motor well. Seems simple enough. Build a box…
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Protecting the Bilge
Water is the enemy of wood longevity. Protecting the wood…
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A Front Deck and Photos of an Adorable Puppy
First off, now that the boat is upright, I made…
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More Cabin Planning
If you’ve been following the blog, you know that one…
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A Bunch of Questions
Here’s a big pile of questions that occur to me.…
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A Big Flippin’ Deal
For months I’ve been wanting to flip the boat hull…
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Fancy Pants New Renderings
There you go. 3D rendering doesn't make anything more real,…
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Thinking About Cabin Construction
Now that the boat is ready to be flipped, I’m…
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Welding the Trailer
Timeline: Less than a week before the boat flip! The…
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And now back to the trailer
Remember the trailer? This one, the one that almost killed us?…
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The Talented Mr. Johnson
For a while now, my cousin Brian has been wanting…
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Those Troublesome Skegs, Finishing Touches
So the skegs are mounted, but the carriage bolt countersinks…
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Those Troublesome Skegs, Mistakes Were Made
So the skegs have been cut, spliced, drilled, countersunk, stained,…
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Those Troublesome Skegs, Bolt Holes and Finish
Here we drill all sorts of holes in our newly…
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Those Troublesome Skegs, Scarf Joints
I had to turn 14 foot pieces of lumber into…
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Those Troublesome Skegs, Part the First
When we built punk rafts and floated several big rivers,…
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Hull UV Protection
Fiberglass over plywood is ridiculously tough. There are wood and…
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Fiberglass Finish Coats
After the fill coat, the texture of the fiberglass cloth…
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Fiberglass Fill Coat
At this point, we have the fiberglass bonded to the…
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Fiberglass Bond Coat
Okay, so let’s review. Fiberglass (of more accurately glass-fiber reinforced…
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Fiberglass Seal Coat
We fretted over fiberglassing the hull so much, we put…
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Hockey Puck Manufacture (or Epoxy is Stressful II)
Did I mention that epoxy is stressful? To recap: You…
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Opinions are like assholes…
Everyone’s got one. Every now and then I’ll ask a…
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Hull Finish Work (or Correcting Mistakes III)
I like to joke that I bring Old World Craftsmanship…
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Hull Ends
Oh god, at the end of every work day when…
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Sheeting the Hull
It looks easy, right? What could go wrong? Four rectangular…
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Correcting Mistakes II: The Usefulness of Square Corners
When we went to put sheets of plywood on the…
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Correcting Mistakes I
Today, the chickens come home to roost. Remember that pesky…
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Cross beams
This was an exciting day because for the first time,…
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Side Stringers
The side stringers are the sides of the boat. So…
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Keel and Skeg Stringers
It most conventionally built wooden boats, the frames refer to…
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Epoxy is Stressful
You know the scene at the end of any action…
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Angles and Precision
I have experience in the housebuilding, construction world. I used…
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Making Sawdust
The whole process of building a boat involves cutting a…
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Organization: How To Make Boatbuilding Not Suck
Boats are made of lots and lots of funny precision…
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First Build Day: Building Form
After months of hemming and hawing over plans and possibilities…
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Questions for the Old Man
I didn’t expect myself to be talking to the old…
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Boat Plans: Choices Made and Not Made
So it looks like we’re building a boat. Not merely…
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Boating errand in the flattest dryest spot in North America
“Ha ha,” said Alex when we took off with the…
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Tips on how not to die in a fiery ball of twisted metal on the highway
Anyone know anything about trailer tow hardware like sway bars…
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Destruction and Creation
Sometimes the treasure hunt of creating something from salvaged materials…
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Bruce’s Pontoons
We were planning to use Bruce’s pontoon boat that he…
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Math is Hard – Calculating a Waterline
Who would have thought boatbuilding would involve so much math?…
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Karaoke Doodles
So far, I’ve ignored the inside cabin layout, thinking that…
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Beyond Napkin Plans
I’m trying to turn my shantyboat speculations into something that…
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Folding Gable Ends
We were aware that this beast with its generously gabled…
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Boat Builder Porn
Is it hot in here, or is it just me? …
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WANTED
You know how many marinas there are in the Sacramento…
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Walls and diagonal bracing
I was worried that since we were planning to sheet…
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A Madcap Boat Scavenging Journey
Kai and I took a mad motorcycle trip up the…
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Inspiration
Looking around, shanty boats have been around for a long…
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A Mad Idea Fueled by Gin
It started with Camp Tipsy. Alex and I started talking…
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Sketchy Napkin Plans
As with all great projects, this one started with a…
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