Building a new tiller

The tiller on Salammbo was looking pretty decrepit and it was time for either a refinish or a rebuild. Since the tiller had already been fixed at least once in the past, and wasn't looking great, I decided to go new. I also had some nice 1 1/4" thick white ash available from a paddle making project my Scout group did a few years back that I knew would look great as a tiller handle. White ash is strong and durable. 

• The first step was to simply trace my old rudder onto the stock. I liked the existing rudder feel so have no need to change the shape. 

Tracing the tiller

• Cut out the rough shape with a jig saw. 

Rough cut tiller

• I used an aggressive rasp to remove the bulk of the material. A less aggressive file tuned up the shape.

Rasp shaped tiller

• I used a power sander with 60 grit paper to smooth out the rasp marks and followed that up with 120 grit and then 220 grit.

• I finished the tiller with 6 coats of Epifanes Clear Varnish

Finished tiller

Driftwood and Tile Table

I built a kitchen table several years ago and people rave about it so I thought I should post the design and details. This table is large, heavy and a now permanent fixture in our kitchen. You should only make one of these if you don't plan to move it often. It is heavy...but pretty darn cool looking!

This project wasn't difficult, if you try it please comment below with your thoughts on how the design can be improved or post pictures of your table project.

Download PDF Plans

Steps


Find some driftwood! I found a large driftwood log that was between 7" - 10" in diameter on a beach on the Saint John River. This is very old wood and I have no idea what type it is. Make sure you dry the wood thoroughly. This might take several weeks or longer depending on how wet the wood is when you find it. My opinion is that the uglier the wood is the more character the table will have.

Trim the legs to the right length. Trim all of the legs to the same length and level them as best as you can. They won't be perfectly level probably but that can be corrected later. Use a reciprocating saw with a long blade, hand saw or chain saw for this task.

 Attach the sqaure leg base to the leg. In order to secure the leg to the table you will need a piece of wood attached to the top of the leg so that you can bolt that to the table. I used left over 3/4" plywood and screwed and glued the piece to the top of the leg. Use long, large screws and good glue or epoxy since the legs will take a lot of stress. I used thickened epoxy and 4 screws per leg.

Cut the table top.  The table size can be whatever you want for your space. We host a lot of dinners so wanted it larger than normal. Cut your 3/4" plywood to the correct size (and adjust other measurements as required if it is different than my size).

Attach Bottom boards. The 1/3" pine board around the outside gives a lot of extra strength to the table. Make sure you attach it with good glue (or epoxy) and plenty of screws so that it is strongly attached.

Attach the legs to the tabletop. Use lag bolts to bolt the legs to the tabletop. Make sure that the head of your bolts are sunk flush with the top of the table. Use bolts so that you can tighten the legs as materials shrink or move.

Attach decorative trim to the table edge. Make sure that the trim is higher than the top of the plywood, the height of your tile, so that the tile will butt against the trim at the same level.

Tile and Grout. I used 12" ceramic floor tile and made the pattern shown. Any tile should be fine. I like the floor tile because it is practically bomb proof. We hardly ever use coasters for our pots or hot dishes, we cut directly on it, etc. (note that there is a chance that the tile will crack if you put hot items on cold tile but we haven't had that issue).

Put felt pads under the legs. This table is heavy and it will scratch your floor. Use felt pads! They will also help keep it from wobbling if your legs aren't perfectly cut (which is harder to do than you think because of the wonky shape of the logs)

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions about this project.

Pram build - Step 8 - Exterior finishing

Once the interior was finished I flipped the boat back over and finished the exterior.

The first task for the exterior finishing were the runners. I made these out of 3/4 x 3/4 strips of spruce. I used the dimensions on the plans to space them out, applied epoxy and screwed them into the frame pieces.

Once the epoxy cured I used a plan to share the front edge of the runners so that they slopped flush at the front edge.

I finished up sanding, filling, sanding, filling and more sanding until the bottom was fair and smooth.

I applied the same primer and yellow boat paint to the bottom of the boat. I used 3 coats of paint.

I applied a name to the back (because every boat deserves a name!) using black paint. I chose the name Mâthos since my sailboat is named Salammbô and Mâthos was her lover.

Once dry I fitted the remaining hardware (cleats and oarlocks) as well as adding a bump rail to the gunwales. For the bump rail I used 1" rope tie wrapped to the gunwales.

I am exceptionally happy with how Mâthos turned out. She is a very good rowing boat, pulls very well behind the sailboat and is remarkably stable. I can fit my family of 4, our dog and a days supplies in her and still have 6" or freeboard (approx 645lbs). I wouldn't want to go out in rough water with that much weight though! I've had her with one other person in heavy waves with no issue at all. A very dry tender.

I have also purchased a small 30lbs thrust electric motor to use on the back of her and it works very well for ferrying us out to the mooring with no effort.

I would highly recommend John Gardner's "A plywood Pram". The instructions in his book are a little sparse but the boat comes together well. If you attempt a build of the boat and have any questions about how I did something, please ask. I'll answer the question as best I can and update these pages as appropriate as well.

I would also welcome additions/amendments to my instructions. This has worked out well with my loft bed plans. Collaboration with a couple of builders has made the instructions much more useful.

Pram build - Step 7 - Interior finishing

Once the seats and gunwales were dry I set about cleaning up the interior. I used thickened epoxy to fill in any gaps, voids or holes. Everything was sanded once the epoxy set.

I also used this opportunity to install a ring on the bow. This will be used for towing the tender so I wanted it to be sturdy. I was also impatient on a Sunday and didn't have access to a real piece of hardware. I used an old shackle and epoxied it in place. Seems to work well.

Once everything was cleaned up reasonably well I finished the interior with a coat of oil based primer and oil based boat paint.

I wanted to finish the interior first so that I wouldn't scrape the bottom paint later on in the process.

Once everything dried I flipped the boat over for exterior finishing.

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Pram build - Step 6 - Seats and Gunwales

Once the epoxy work was completed on the outside I unscrewed the boat from the supports and flipped it over. I removed all of the extra bracing and build forms. The boat sits well on the 2x4 building jig so I've continued to use that as a working platform.

The next step was to complete the seats and install the gunwales. First the seats:

I used 1x4 stock that I had previously ripped out of 1x6 spruce to frame the seats.

I built the simple frames as shown in the pictures.The front and back seats were built off of the existing mold pieces at station 1 and 5. There were built to be filled with foam and sealed. The middle seat was built open so that items could be stored underneath.

For foam I used primarily some pool noodles. I cut them into shorter pieces and crammed them into the spaces as tightly as I possible.

The top of the seats are made out of 1/4 plywood. Everything was glued with epoxy.

Before assembling the seats I liberally applied wood preservative to the inside surfaces. Since the inside of the seats might get damp I thought it would help prevent rot.

The gunwales were very simple to assemble. I simply used 1 1/4"x1" strips of spruce. These were fastened with screws and glued with epoxy. I glued the gunwales on longer than necessary and then cut them off after they had dried.

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Pram build - Step 5 - Hull pieces and epoxy fun

Drafting and cutting out the hull pieces was an aspect of this project I wasn't looking forward to. There is very little on the plans around the hull pieces. While it is possible to draft out the pieces, that would take a long time and would be difficult to do accurately. I decided to cheat instead... and it worked!

First things first, splicing the plywood. Unless you can get 10' sheets of plywood (we don't get it around here), you are going to need to splice together two pieces. The easiest way to do this is to simply butt the pieces together, tape and epoxy one side, wait for it to dry, fill and tape the other side and you're done.

Since I didn't plan this part in advance, and I didn't want to wait for the epoxy to cure, I decided to use a temporary method and join the pieces with a piece of 1x4 screwed to one side. Later on, once the pieces were assembled, I re-did the butt joint properly with epoxy and tape and removed the butt block.

Note: If you search for "scarf joint" on Google you will find all sorts of complicated ways to join plywood. I've used the tape method with a lot of success. I'm not sure why people bother with cutting delicate angles and other complicated methods...

Once I had my joined plywood these are my cheater steps that I took to cut out the hull pieces:

• First I cut the plywood in half (and 10' long) so that I had 2 sheets of 2x10. The two bottom pieces fit on a single 8' sheet. 

• For each piece, I simply took the 2' wide sheet and temporarily screwed it onto my frame pieces. I crawled under the piece and traced out the shape of the frame on the plywood. I unscrewed the piece and used a jigsaw to cut it out. Each piece was screwed back in place. I repeated this process for each of the 4 pieces. It worked great!  I used screws throughout the project, even though the author recommends nails. I prefer working with screws, no better reason. 

• Once all of the pieces were screwed in I used thickened epoxy to fill in any gaps that remained between the pieces. Each joint was then fiberglassed with 4" tape and epoxy. 

A note on epoxy, for thickening epoxy I use a variety of materials. I do like to use the fancy West System fillers when it comes time to fair or do small fillings. For everything else I usually use sawdust. It's cheaper and does a good job filling but it's a little harder to make smooth.

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New home for loft bed plans

I recently received some great feedback on my original loft bed plans. To make them easier to find and navigate I have created a new, more permanent home, for the updated plans here:
http://www.afloat.ca/p/loft-bed-plans.html

Please reference this new location for the most up to date version of the plans. If you have your own contribution to this page or any other of my posts, please send them to me or add a comment. I really appreciate the feedback!

Also, I appreciate any linking to the plans. Spread the URL around!

Thanks.

--Andrew

Pram build - Step 3 - Assembling bulkheads

Once the bulkheads are framed the next step is to actually mount them on the building jig. I used 1x4 planking to mount the bulkheads but anything of reasonable size can be used. I cut my planking to 2' but that's actually longer than required. 18" is probably lots for these.

The height of the bulkheads above the building jig isn't on the plans directly but can be derived from them. This took me a little bit of time to figure out initially. To save you the same effort, here are the table of values for these heights. The last column has the values of interest, the others are for reference. All measurements are in inches (and fractions of inches):




Here are the steps:

• Install the 1x4 vertical boards at each station. Make sure that they are square to the jig. I offset the boards by 1/4" so that the bulkheads would sit exactly at the station mark.

•  Next I installed a temporary baseline from end to end of the jig. This was used to validate my measurements against the plan measurements (since they are mostly done in relation to the baseline.) I used a simple piece of string strung between both ends at the baseline height (2' 21/2"). I also used this as a guide for centering the bulkheads as I mounted them.

• I then marked on each of the verticals the height for that bulkhead. (using the values above)

• I then mounted each of the bulkheads at the measured heights. I hung a plumb line off of the baseline in order to line up the bulkheads. 

Since the bulkheads and temporary molds are different sizes it makes the whole thing looked a little wonky when you get them mounted. I checked the overall shape by using a long thin piece of wood and laying it from end to end at various positions on the bulkheads. Everything seems to check out well. I did adjust bulkhead #2 down 1/4" to make sure it was fair. 

I'll cut off the extra bits of the vertical pieces once I've got my stringers in place. 

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Pram build - Step 3 - Cutout and frame bulkheads

I won't go into any detail around cutting out of the bulkheads. That's pretty straight forward.

The framing of the bulkheads provides a decision point. There are a few aspects of this that are unclear in the plans and description in the book.

If you look at sheet 1 on the plans, it looks like only the bulkheads have trim around them. This kind of makes sense to me since the other 2 are only forms for the building process. For now I have decided to not frame the #2 and #4 pieces until I see that its required.

The other thing that isn't clear at this point is how the keelson, chine and riser strips connect to the bulkheads. Looking at the bulkhead layout on sheet 1,  it kind of looks like the bulkheads are cut out to accommodate the strips. Once I get the bulkheads positions I will explore this some before cutting notches in my nice bulkheads. Inversely, it does not look like the temporary forms are notched in this way. That seems odd that one would be and the other isn't. Time will tell. I'll update this section once I figure out the right answer (or at least an answer that works for me!)

Framing the bulkheads is straight forward. The plans call for 7/8" x 7/8" spruce but I have 1x8 cedar planks available. I ripped these into 1" strips for use. The actual framing was a little finicky because of the odd angles but it worked out fine. Approximately 1 hour to frame the 3 bulkheads.

Rather than epoxy, I used Elmer's Ultimate Glue (Polyurethane) to fasten the framing to the bulkheads. This project is my first experience with using this glue instead of epoxy so we'll see how it goes. The glue gets good reviews and it is certainly cheaper and easier to work with then epoxy.






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Pram Build - Step 2 - Layout bulkhead and form pieces

Doing the layout of the pram is the part that I was dreading the most. Although the plans seem to have all of the details required, they aren't exactly as easy to digest as plans that you can buy from most of today's designers.

John Gardner gives his drawings in a traditional drafting format. This means that, rather than having all of the dimensions where they would be most useful, they are spread sparingly across all sheets drawings.  While I understand the rational of doing it this way, it doesn't make it very easy for actually figuring out what to do.

Sheet 1 (Page 33)

I'm going to describe the steps that I've used to draw out the pieces on wood. If, like me, you aren't very comfortable with his style of plans then this might be helpful. Otherwise, you might want to skip to the next post.

Note: I've labeled each of the 3 sheets (to the left) with numbers to help with my descriptions. On the sheets in his book they aren't numbered.

Sheet 2 (Page 31)

Nesting
John's plans give indications on sheet number 3 on how to nest the pieces on the plywood for the side and bottom pieces. He doesn't do the same for the bulkheads.

A quick look at the table of stations on sheet #2 provides an important bit of information. Four of the bulkheads/forms have half-breadths that are over 2'. Obviously this means that we will have to lay out the bulkheads width wise in the sheet of plywood. I only mention this because I almost started laying them out length-wise...

Sheet 3 (Page 32)

So, here are the steps I took. I'll only put the steps for station #1. The rest will be the same. Note that some of my measurements below will be in the format of x-x-x which represents x feet, x inches and x eights of an inch. All of the station measurements are in this format on the plan.

1. First I used a chalk line to create a center line 2' 3 1/2" from the edge of the plywood. This is the distance of the longest half-breadth (station 3) as found in the table of stations.
2. Measure, on the chalk line, from the edge of the plywood up the height to the chine height (4") and draw a parallel line. (This measurement is found on sheet #1)
3. Measure across the chine-line the chine width.(1-2-5) Repeat on the other side. 
4. Connect the chine to the bottom point on each side.
5. Measure up the chalk line the distance to the top of the sheer. 1' 3 3/4" (This measurement is found on sheet #1)
6. Measure across the sheer line the distance of the half-breadth of the sheer. (1-9-2). Repeat on the other side.
7. Connect the chine to the sheer on both sides. 
8. Mark the line midway across the bulkhead (the distance from the sheer to the top of the bulkhead). In this case 6 3/4" from the sheer.

Station 1 layout

With stations 1, 3 & 5 the bulkheads don't use the entire area of the bottom to sheer. As noted on the drawings on sheet #1. This means that you can overlap each of those stations on the plywood to save on material. It makes the layout look kind of messy but it saves a lot of wood. 

In the image above, the top 3rd of the section does not get used but it is required for layout to get the right angles.

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Pram Build - Step 1 - Build the Jig

Building Jig

Step 1 of the pram build is to set up the building jig for the project. Actually, truth be told, step 1 for me was to clean up my garage/workshop/storage area so that I can fit the project in. They say that cleanliness is next to godliness. If that's the case, my garage is the devils playground.

Anyways, this step is very straight forward as described in Gardner's book. I simply set up two 10 foot long 2x4, on edge on two saw horses, 22 inches apart (on the inside), squared them and secured them together with horizontal 2x4 on the underside. I also fastened them directly to the saw horses to keep them in place during the build.

Time spent (not including 3 hours of cleaning time!): 1/2 hour

I hope it all comes together as quickly as this!

Once the jig was built I marked the station lines on the jig and squared them across both sides.

Stations on building jig

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John Gardner - A Plywood Pram

After losing my Roar2 (still not sure what happened to it) this past fall, I have decided to build a replacement tender. I looked briefly at buying Zodiac style boat but thought that would be a bit of a cop-out.

 So, I started looking for a good tender design. I enjoyed Jim Mchalak's Roar2. It was a fun build and it rowed great but it wasn't the best fit as a tender since it was long and a little tipsy. After much searching I've come full circle back to a book that I already own by John Gardner called "Building Classic Small Craft". I really like the look, and ease of building of "A Plywood Pram" (Page 30).

I really like browsing through John Gardner's designs in his book but they really aren't that easy to understand the steps in actually building the boats. (what can you expect when you get 46 plans in a $20 book.) I have a feeling that there will be a fair amount of figuring-out that will be required throughout this build. Rather than everyone having to go through the same figuring-out during their build, I'm going to document the build in a fair amount of detail in the hopes that it will make somebody else's life easier if they take on the same project.

So, grab a copy of the book, and follow along in my build. Hopefully it will get you through your own as well.

Follow all of the associated posts (as I get them written) by browsing the label "pram".

Step 1: Build the jig

Step 2: Layout bulkhead and form pieces

Step 3: Cutout frame and bulkheads

Step 3: Assembling bulkheads

Step 4: Installing chines and keelson

Step 5: Hull pieces and epoxy fun

Step 6: Seats and gunwales

Step 7: Interior finishing

Step 8:  Exterior finishing

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ROAR2 - Rebuild and Mod

A while back I wrote a quick blog entry about my intention to rebuild and modify my Roar2 rowboat. This was a result of two factors. Firstly, the boat was a few years old and there were a few areas of rot around the gunnels and some of the plywood. Secondly, and far more importantly, a great big sheet of ice fell off of my garage roof one winter and crushed a large portion of the boat! (Yes, in retrospect that wasn't the best place to store it...)

So, I decided that I would rebuild and make some modifications at the same time. I had originally planned on putting a cool window in the floor of the boat but I haven't gotten to that yet. You see, I recently purchased a sailboat and I needed a tender quickly so that I could get to it. Thus the window in the floor idea got side-burnered and I focused on just getting my roar2 floating again, with a seat, so that I could get to my new toy.

So, here's what I did to my roar2:

The first problem was that my gunnels were smashed to pieces and a what remained was fairly rotten. I also had some serious rot sections in the hull. So, I took off all of the gunnels and removed the sections of rot from the hull. I replaced that with new plywood and fibreglassed it in place with epoxy and fibreglass tape.

This picture is after the first coat of epoxy and before sanding. You'll see in the next picture that I did this in a few spots.

Next I started with the seat design/installation. I created cardboard templates to get the shape of the hull at the position that I wanted. In retrospect I wish I had saved my forms from when I built her because they would have been perfect for seat sides.

I cut out the basic shape of the seat sides from 3/8" plywood and wired them in place. Once they were secured and positioned properly I put some fibreglass tabs in place to hold it together while I build the rest.

Next I added a top to the seat. I used a piece of 10" laminated pine board for the top of the seat (because I had it).  I cut out a section of the top to use as a storage area. I used a thin blade when cutting out the whole so that I could re-use the cutout section as the seat and still have it fairly tight fitting.

I added a couple of pieces of pine board to the inside of the hole to keep the seat cover from falling through.

Once I had it assembled I fibreglassed inside and outside edges of the seat. to make it waterproof and very strong. It also has the nice affect of adding rigidity to the hull (which it kind of lacked before).

Once the seat was completed I redid the gunnels using 1x1 cedar. I had used spruce before but decided on cedar this time because the stock at the lumber yard looked much better than the spruce.


Since I'm using this as my tender (for now) I also took this opportunity to add a eye to the front of the boat for towing. I basically just took a 3" stainless steel U-Bolt, bent to to the shape of my bow, drilled holes through the bow and epoxied it in place. So far it has worked great. I've towed the boat for around 20km in fairly heavy waves and it has held fine.

This isn't a great picture of the inside of it finished (I'll have to take another and update) but it shows the basic look of the inside with the seat.

This is a swimmers-eye-view of the finished product. I've very happy with the restore. It looks great and it still rows really well. The Roar2 is definitely my favorite choice for rowboats ...so far.

As a tender the roar2 is a little long. I am in the planning stages of a shorter 8 foot tender. That will be my winter project for this year. Stay tuned...

ROAR2 - Mods

I'm in the midst of doing some modifications to my ROAR2. I had some repair word to do so I thought that I would add a few new touches at the same time.

As shown to the left, I'm adding a permanent seat at the rowing station as well as a "glass bottom".

Until now I've used a little wooden stool as a rowing seat. This worked OK but it wasn't very comfortable. By adding the permanent seat I'll get rid of some hassle and gain comfort (and storage!)

I saw a kayak recently with a glass bottom and I was inspired to add that at the same time. I have grand visions for how cool this is going to be. Hopefully it doesn't just turn into a leaky spot in my boat...

My seat is almost done and I will add pictures some time soon. It is a basic stitch and glue construction.

I just bought my lexan for the glass bottom today. Hopefully tonight I will get some time to start cutting out the spot for it. My plan is to do a simple frame for the glass to fit into and to fit a hinged cover over it to prevent scratching when not in use. We'll see how that plan actually materializes.

Stay tuned...

Driftwood bench project

My wife found some driftwood at the beach and thought it would make for a nice bench.

This is what I came up with.

This is a very simple bench but very functional and heavy duty.

The driftwood included a large 8' 4" plank (2" thick and 15 1/2" wide), a couple of 6" logs and an old beat up 1x6 plank.

I simply cut the logs to 15 3/4" length and tied them together with the 1x6. These were fastened to the plank with 4" spikes.

The Thing weighs a ton but makes for a great rustic looking campfire bench.