We have had some beautiful weather lately, and we were able to get over to our neighbors mill to cut up some of our planking stock! Im not sure if I went into much detail about what we are doing on the mill, so i’ll fill ya in. We got a great deal on some awesome fir for planking, but it was all 2” by 10″ . Our planking only needs to be 1-1/2 so it needs to be cut down. It will be cut eventually to 3 ish or 4 ish inches wide and 1-1/2 thick. I could easily cut it down to width, but I don’t have a saw big enough to cut it to thickness. The other option is to just send it all through a thickness planer and be done with it. Not a bad option, but I couldn’t stand to see so much of this beautiful wood turned into saw dust. This is why we have been waiting so long for the mill… By using the mill to rip the lumber we end up with a 1/2″x10″ off cut of gorgeous CVG fir which can later be cut into strips and used for trim! Pretty stoked…

 Our ridiculously cool neighbor Jim and his bad ass saw mill!

 I couldn’t believe what an accurate, clean cut this thing made! If anyone is looking to buy a little mill I definitely recommend Wood Mizer!

 1-1/2 on the money the whole way!

 Could it be… Holy s@#t IT”S PLANKING!

 All this wood actually came from spending hours sorting through construction grade piles at big lumber yards! The majority of it is CVG at least 20 rings per inch! Buehler boats get a lot of flack for speccing construction grade, but what people don’t understand is that  1 no one is forcing you to use construction grade if you don’t want to, and 2 that doesn’t mean you go to your local lumber yard and grab whatever wood is at the top of the pile!!

The majority of the stuff is junk, but if you have more time then money ( like us!) you are willing to spend hours looking like a weirdo sorting through a massive pile of lumber to get to even one good piece. We have some “construction grade” fir that is VG, around 30 rings per inch, and completely clear for at least 14 ft!  No one can call that stuff junk…

On the other hand one of the reasons we spent so much time sorting through construction grade to save money is so we could afford to spend the money where it really counts…on planking… Since we are planning on sailing to the tropics I am only willing to use the highest quality fir we could get for our planking, seeing as we don’t have 5 years to spend slowing sorting and gathering piece by piece from construction piles we had to pay the price!

It shouldn’t be long before we are wrapping planks around the hull!

Thats all for now!

 

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. When you here something right above you falling towards your head… Don’t look up… Luckily it was so cold my face was numb, so I hardly felt a thing!

Other than using my face to catch large objects We have been making a little progress on the boat, and we are ( drumroll please) officially ready to plank the topsides! We are still on the weathers schedule for using our neighbors mill, but as soon as we can get our planking stock trimmed down we will be good to go! We did some test fitting with a couple clear 2×4’s We had lying around just to get the hang of things, and to see how hard it will be to bend the planking into shape. We used some clear flat sawn pieces, and they went in without to much trouble, which is really nice because our planking stock is all really nice tight, clear, quarter sawn lumber, so it should bend in even easier!

 Here is the first test plank.

 This shot gives you a good view of how much sheer will be in the bow.

 I am pleased!

The boat shed looks pretty crazy these days with all the scaffolding built. It’s a pretty tight fit with a few spots so narrow a person can barley squeeze through. Hindsight being 20 20 I probably would have built the shed a little bigger…

Wish us luck that we will get some good weather soon to mill up our planking!

Adios!

 

The rabbet is a groove cut into the keel where the frames and keel meet. This gives a solid footprint for the bottom planking to seat into as well as providing a caulking seam. On a Buehler boat this can be done very easily before you attach the frames by running a skill saw along the rabbet line you have marked from the patterns. The angle won’t be perfect the whole way, but because there is little change in the angle of the frames this can easily be corrected later with a chisel. Unfortunately I made it much harder on myself… When we built the keel we bought lumber that was supposed to be nice and dry, but that turned out not to be the case. Since the lumber wasn’t as dry as it should’ve been the keel developed a slight twist in the back where all the timers are stacked high. Because of this my paranoia persuaded me  not to cut the rabbet before attaching the frames fearing this might cause the hull to come out funky… Instead I decided to attach all the frames to there predetermined position with clamps, check the hull with battens, levels, and eye. That way we could correct any issues before bolting them down. Well that was the theory… It turned out the hull was fine. The twist in the keel was so insignificant it made no noticeable difference, which is good but now I have to cut the rabbet the old fashion (time consuming) way.

 I start by bending a batten along the rabbet marks to get an outline of the rabbet. Next I cut a small section of the rabbet at each frame. This gives me the correct angles and depths.  Then I cut in the rabbet between frames using the notches to help me eye the cuts as I go.

 It’s a slow tedious process, but were chippin away…

 Thats it for now!

Ruth here:

“This is my first attempt at putting together one of our videos so be kind. This video is a little more about our day to day life working for the boat not necessarily on the boat. I hope you enjoy it!”

 

Don’t forget to share 🙂

I find myself contemplating a lot lately… the days are short and cold, and progress like a waterfall slowly freezing over in the winter has been reduced to a trickle. we have been getting quite a bit of snow lately. There’s about 2-1/2 feet on the ground where we are. It’s all the little things that that you wouldn’t really take into consideration that end up slowing you down. Like the walk from the shed to the generator. Instead of taking fifteen seconds now takes closer to forty walking through two feet of snow with an inch of ice on top. The shed is holding up really well though, so far it has exceeded all expectations in its ability to shed snow from the roof. Even sticky snow and freezing rain haven’t been an issue. Im still going to be cautious and keep a close eye on it, but I am sleeping a little easier seeing how well it’s doing. I’ve slowly been chipping away at the remaining tasks left before we can begin to plank. I have faired the chine, built scaffolding, and started cutting transom planking. All thats left to do is cut the stem rabbet, and rip all the 2×10 planking stock down to 1-1/2. Fortunately my neighbor who has been incredibly helpful throughout this whole project is going to let me use his bandsaw mill to rip the lumber down to size. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to get to the mill because there’s either to much snow on the ground, or it’s to muddy from all the snow that has melted… So I stay busy with other tasks.Theres usually multiple other projects on the boat that can be done, but I am pushing to start planking because I know it will be a huge moral booster to see the hull coming together. neither one of us had any idea what winter would be like. I thought snow would be much more difficult (I know it can be) , but so far its been fine. I won’t lie I am defiantly looking forward to spring. The most difficult thing for me is accepting the dwindling productivity. The days are short enough as it is, and half the time I loose a few daylight hours digging the truck out of the snow, or shoveling snow off of the trailer roof, or burrowing through feet of snow because I think I left that thing that I need on the framing table which now has 4 feet of snow covering it (all the snow from the shed roof falls on it). I suppose thats just the rhythm of the seasons… I have never before experienced seasons, being a california sea gipsy. It is interesting seeing the ebb and flow of the town throughout the year. Things have definitely slowed down as people begin to hibernate for the winter. This has been, and will continue to be an invaluable learning experience. Though there are times I stand back to look at this massive wooden dinosaur and think “what the @#$% am I doing?” , but those thoughts quickly pass, and are replaced by new ideas for the interior, or images of her salty hull riding peacefully at anchor, sails furled like the wings of a resting sea bird. Even though this chapter of our life has pulled us far from the sea and the way of life we crave I am glad we chose to do it, and I am forever grateful to those who helped us get here.

 

 

We have started installing the chine! So far we have the first two pieces. Unfortunately we don’t have pictures of everything, but we do have a few from the start of the chine process.

We have spent a lot of time recently either finding internet somewhere to look for lumber, or driving hours to look at said lumber… It’s definitely been difficult finding good quality wood at a decent price, but we’ve had some luck. The doug fir we mentioned on the last post is awesome and should cover the topsides no problem. We keep a sharp eye on craigslist for deals, and we made out pretty good a few days ago. We were fortunate enough to find over 700ft of clear port orford cedar for a sweet deal, so we wasted no time and snatched it up while we still could. This will become our bottom planking.

I have finally gotten back to physically working on the boat though which is a good thing…I think I’m going to try to knock out the chine, and just go strait to planking the topsides. I have realized I work much more efficiently when I can break up the monotony of projects. I have been working on framing and whatnot for what seems like forever, so hanging some planks will be a welcome change. Once that is finished I probably wont mind going back to the stringers, cheeks, and rabbet. It works for me…. But then again i’m kinda scatter brained…

 Skill saw makes quick work of the top cuts.

 Then the pull saw takes 5 minutes to do what the skill saw did in 5 seconds….

 All the notches cut.

 This one kinda sucked…

Ruth:

Countless days were logged away as Garrett searched for CVG Fir. Found through Craigslist was a plentiful supply milled from 6ft diameter trees. This stuff is truly beautiful and exactly what we were looking for to complete our planking. A few loose ends with the frames are quickly wrapping up. Happy to soon be planking. I can’t wait to see her in her skin!

                

Checking the bevels on the frames and then drilling for the bolts to hold it all together.

  

I attempted to fit the whole boat into one picture…. Not the best but still kind of neat. And Garrett caught a great picture from the stern looking forward!

The hunt is never over for lumber and other materials so wish us luck!

Thank you everyone for the support!

Well here it is episode 3! Feel the majestic poetry as it tickles all of your fancy’s.