28' riverboat Cindy Lou

'The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley....'

I planned on heading home this weekend to install shelving in my new shop, move tools, and generally get ready to start on the boat. But I came back to the motor home when I got off work this evening, and someone had bashed the window out of its door.

As far as I can tell, they didn't come inside. Maybe they panicked and ran at the sound the breaking safety glass made; maybe I drove up in time to scare them off; maybe someone else interrupted them earlier in the day.

I've been here for several years now without a problem, in the back yard of a house my friend George owns (and his grandfather built). But he let his number two son move into the house a few months ago. I hate to sound judgmental, but the kid seems to be a bit of a flake, and less than a fireball of ambition and energy.

Before I moved my motor home into the yard, George and I fenced it off pretty thoroughly. But last month his son pulled the fence on one side of the house, so he could park an open trailer alongside. Then he laid out a pair of gates to replace the fence with (probably supplied by George), but never installed them.

If they aren't up by the time I finish repairing the motor home's door tomorrow, you better believe I'll swing them myself, slap a padlock on them, and argue about it later.

But it means I'm stuck here working on this, instead of going home and prepping my new shop for the boat build. And now that a precedent has been set, I'm more than a little worried about the square footage of vulnerable glass in the motor home.....

 

I was sitting in the cafe yesterday...enjoying a morning cafe con leche ...when SMASH .. glass flying everywhere.

A seagull, high on anchovies, flew into the cafe side window and smashed it.

The cafe owner was not happy........

 

It was probably an Al Qaeda seagull.

 

Troy, mebby it's time to install some sort of game or security camera.
Leave a note on the next likely target with the perp's name on it. Just the name & he'll get the message you know who to look for.

 

The toilet installation is finished; I finally got around to adding a shelf along the back wall to catch the lid when it's up. While I was at it, I spray-painted the vent hose white; having it black just looked mickey-mouse.

 

OK, here's my lofting floor. Only it isn't a floor; it's a 5' x 30' (1.5m x 9m) plywood slab on the wall of my shop. I haven't run into anyone who's mentioned lofting on a wall instead of a floor. If that is because it's a Bad Idea, I guess I'm about to find out the hard way....

I did it because the shop is only 12 feet (3.7m) wide, and I didn't see any point in using up that much of the floor before I actually start building the hull. But when I get the profile and the half-plan view drawn so I can pull measurements off them, I'll lay out a square of plywood on the floor and draw full sections for each station, to give me patterns for my frames.



While I'm at it, I'm throwing in a couple of pictures of my birthday cakes. The first one was made of foam rubber with icing over it, and everyone was disappointed when I didn't spend more time sawing on it. Dohh... did they really think my memory is so short I wouldn't remember us doing the same thing to my younger son last year?

The second one was delicious, and fattening. I enjoyed it immensely.





And finally, just to round things out, here's one of my favorite old toys I finally got to pull back out of storage: an ancient tilt-top table saw.

Check out the micro-adjustment on the fence. You slide the fence until it's in the neighborhood of what you want. Then you tighten the micro-thingie down and use it to set the fence precisely, before tightening it down.





Yes, the stand's a piece of junk and always has been. That was never a problem in the past, because when I was contracting I only used the saw for smaller precision work. But I should really either add some diagonals to the frame to stiffen it, or just replace it. It isn't like I don't have other stands that would work....

add: unfortunately, we almost had the shop put together before I decided to place the lofting surface on the wall. And we had mostly lined our work benches, tables, shelves, etc. down that particular wall because it had all those nice pretty exposed 2x4's to fasten things to. After pulling everything back off, the place looks like the wreck of the Hesperus again....

 

Sure...wall lofting is done all the time in small shops. It works...


Because of my bad back I cant work on the floor more than 10 minutes...wall or standing at a table lofting only. An old ping pong table worked for many projects

The disadvantage of wall lofting is gravity...you need 8 arms to control everything...frustrating at times.
If I had known you were wall lofting, I would have proposed that you back the lofting board with sheet metal then get a bunch of powerful magnets to act as your 6 extra arms..

 

Congratulations old man.

I usually just loft the station molds on a table. On your boat, I'd just make an 8'x8' table, maybe a couple of feet tall, so it's easy to crawl on it, yet still be able to stand next to it. I'd make the molds at the same time, on the same table. Once finished with the molds, I'd knock the table down. The only other initial lofting I would do is the stem profile, for which I'd make a mold too.

 

Another nice shop productivety tool is a full length fold down, or fold up depending on your shop , asseembly table hinged to a wall. It need not be robust, your not pounding steel. If you can source old interior doors from the construction junk yard they work perfectly and are already reinforced for hinges.

Most jobs like cutting long fabric or cutting, beveling a long strake will be much easier to perform on a long assembly table.

When it gets in your way just fold up. In fold up position it doesn't collect toxic epoxy dust and allows easy shop floor clean up at the end or the day.

horizantal surface toxic dust accumulation is an issue in all shops

 

The sheet metal and magnets suggestion is an interesting one, Michael. But as you say, it's a little late. Maybe I should start posting more about what I'm going to do, instead of waiting until I've done it.

Paul, I have a lot of trust in your drawings, and don't doubt I could have gotten away with just lofting the station frames directly from the plans. I seriously thought about just doing that. But what the heck - since this is my personal project instead of a commercial venture where I need to hold down the hours, I decided to go whole hog. If nothing else, it'll help me visualize what I'm trying to accomplish....

I like the thought of a raised platform for lofting and building the frames, Paul. And Michael, I like your suggestion of a fold-up table. I see no reason not to combine the two ideas, and put some hinged legs on fold-up tables....

Unfortunately I'm stuck working overtime again, and won't make it home for a couple of weeks at least. I was getting ready to apply for another position in the company that would've involved about a 15% raise in my base pay after a couple of years of raises, figuring it would get me home more often. Then I realized the built-in overtime I have now equals a 10% pay raise right off the bat, without even counting what I make covering the other three operators when they're sick or on vacation.

Bottom line: I can't afford to take the new job and its pay raise. I'd probably lose close to $30,000 a year in scheduled and unscheduled overtime, at least until I reached max pay in the new position.

Unfortunately, at the rate I'm going I'll never get this boat built before I retire, which was the original plan. So I came within an inch of deciding to start on Billy Atkin's camp cruiser Excelsior first instead. It would've been a lot easier and cheaper, and would've given me something to play with in between working on the Cindy Lou. Not to mention it would've thrilled Pat Atkin, who seems to be a total sweetheart....

But I'm getting to a point in my life where there's no guarantee I can round up enough time, money and health to get through two fairly major builds (major from my viewpoint, anyway). So I decided I better concentrate on the bigger one.

If I stay reasonably healthy and solvent after I retire, I'll take another look at Excelsior after I'm done with Cindy Lou. My younger son loves the design, and he'll be home from Korea in a couple of years (I think; his assignment is so [bleep]ing top secret I'm surprised he was allowed to tell us what country he's in).

 

Here I go again, getting ready to get ready to start the boat....

I finally made it home. I unlocked the shop with every intention of putting together some battens, rounding up some pencils, and getting started on my lofting.

My nephew was helping me move a pos Ryobi radial arm saw into a corner until I could figure out what to do with it, and I started b****ing about not even knowing what happened to the good DeWalt I used to have. And my nephew said, "oh... it stopped working about twelve years ago when I was building my boat, so I stored it away. It's in the back of that old shed near the shop, behind all the junk...."

That blew the rest of my day, and a good chunk of today.

I dug the little beast out, cleaned it up, lubed it, took the motor apart and washed all the mud dauber nests out, replaced a bad plug on the cord, and built a new table for it. It runs like a new one.... it's a 9" DeWalt Model MBC saw, built in early 1952 - after AMF bought out DeWalt, but before they started slowly turning its radial arm saws into junk.

The early MBC is probably the best small radial arm saw ever built. If everything on it is properly aligned, adjusted and tightened, it'll cut with almost machine-shop precision. Unlike a 12" Craftsman I used to own - which had too much sheet metal, and was so sloppy it wound up setting in the weather as a cut-off saw for framers.

 

Still stuck working more overtime hours than I'd like, much as the wife likes the money. As of June 30th, the halfway point in the year, I had worked 330 hours of overtime. That's basically eight months of hours in six months. I haven't been home much.... especially since too often the overtime falls in the middle of my scheduled time off, and I wind up staying here before and after.

But I'm still planning. Here's something I'll have to face sooner or later: what to tow the boat with when I'm done building it. According to Paul's plans, the dry hull weight will be about 2500 lbs. Strangely enough, I already have a boat trailer that should handle that (long story). I'm not good at guessing trailer weights, but it's stoutly built.....

My CJ5 Jeep probably has enough muscle to pull boat and trailer, if I'm not in a hurry. But I suspect that when a crosswind hits, things might get more exciting than I generally appreciate in my old age.

What do I need for pulling this puppy? I'm partial to old Chevy trucks with small block V8's (mostly because I can work on them blindfolded), and if I look around I'm sure I can find one cheap. Would a 1/2 ton pickup do the job, with good shocks and a sway bar?

Keep in mind that I'm not going to be a road warrior with this thing. I won't be pulling it every weekend, and I don't plan on hitting any boat shows on the east coast.

 

Congrats on your boat. We all need things to stay busy and enjoy the work days.

I am not surprised by the over-blown hush hush, anymore.

I pray for the men and women all the time.

My cousin lost a leg 5 years ago, after we were supposed to bring everyone home.

I visited him in the hospital. While there a soldier told me he was wounded in Vietnam, I replied, "I am too young for 'Nam. And you are a lot younger than I am."

His reply, "I was wounded 4 weeks ago. We are all over the place."

I looked at the E7 and civilian behind the kid and thought, Holy blank! If this kid was lying, the E7 would have him up on Courts Martial and he would lose every thing.

So, when traveling now, I ask soldiers (and the occasional CIA hired 'operator') "Would I be surprised if you could tell me where you have been stationed lately?"

They are sending soldiers everywhere.

One contracting 'operator,' probably CIA, told me he was coming back from a short-term 'mission' in Hawaii. His new orders were 'hot.' And "When I call in at the next airport, I hope they will give me some extra time, so I can get to [location deleted] and get a different set of gear. All I have with me is in my Ruck Sack." He was carrying one of the newer Special Ops extra larges, and a small briefcase like carry on.

I said, "That doesn't sound like Iraq or Afghanistan." He stopped talking and gave me that look. I said, "Not asking, but it sounds like you can't mention where, and I won't ask."

He said, "It's not one of those countries. We'll leave it at that."

I pray for the men and women all the time. I still do not believe how 'hot' the tempo is for the warriors, even the Navy is picking up land based combat ops. And as hot as it is, I cannot believe we do not hear about it in the news.

http://icasualties.org/oef/

Indonesia, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan are the only countries we have reported Killed in Action (KIA) besides Afghanistan. I cannot find any statistics on WIA (wounded) anywhere. They are the un-named, un-mentioned in a world wide quiet war.

As bad as it was for the guys coming home from Vietnam, at least America knew what was going on.

I pray for the men and women all the time. And in my opinion, it is time to bring them home.

wayne

 

Getting back to the subject: I'm still wondering whether an older, 1/2 ton Chevy pickup with a small block V8 is enough to pull this boat on a twin-axle trailer.....

 

Well it depends on gearing and the towing location, but yes, you're well within the towing limit on a full size (C/K-1500). If you're in a hilly area, you'll want trailer brakes. You may also consider the trailer towing package as an upgrade, if you don't have it, which includes an oil cooler, trans cooler (an extra one), swapping from the 1" thick front rotors to the 1.125" or 1.25" rotors and using good ceramic pads. Out back the trailer towing package also included an extra leaf in the spring pack, but you can buy a "helper" spring to do the same thing, which just adds another 500 pounds of capacity to the rear suspension. Lastly a sway control setup (there are several versions) on the hitch.

What year Silverado do you have? What's the engine code (letter in the VIN)?