One good sized pile of Pocketship parts. All plywood parts except the large hull pieces and the transom are now cut out. Elapsed time for transferring the patterns and cutting out was approximately 47 hours.
Due to a mistake in ordering I was one sheet of 6mm plywood short. I used the tight layout however and have an extra sheet of 9mm. I was able to cut all the required 6 mm pieces with some rearranging except for the companionway hood and slide top. I have enquired if the 9mm will have enough bend to fit the curve required and am crossing my fingers that this will not be a problem as local sources of marine plywood are non-existent and I do not want to ship just a single panel.
The second photo shows a piece of the pre-finished teak hardwood flooring I am going to use for floorboards. The teak has a very nice dark grain and is not as orangey as shows up in the picture. With the tongue and groove ripped off as in the photo they will be exactly 3" wide. The teak is variable lengths so I will double up the floorboard cleats so that I have more space to nail in where the ends of the floorboards join.
The people at CLC have created a forum just for Pocketship builders that is separate from the CLC forum which handles mainly kayak builders.
9 comments:
Depending on the application, you could cut 2-3mm deep saw kerfs into that 9mm plywood to make bending easier.
I got an answer from John C. Harris, the designer of Pocketship, that the 9mm should be fine as long as the grain is running fore-and-aft, not athwartships. I will keep your solution in mind in case there is still any bending problem.
Thanks,
Dave
Hi Dave
I am about to start building a Pocketship in Lethbridge AB. I am intrigued by your use of teak flooring for the floorboards. Any chance you can send me the name of the manufacturer and/or the infamous Big Box store you obtained it from?
The brand name is REALTEAK by PanAmerican Woods. I purchased it at Windsor Plywood and you have one in Lethbridge that maybe carries it. Good luck with your Pocketship building.
Dave
Thanks Dave
Did you know Windsor plywood carries okoume at their warehouse?
I only ask because that's who I am getting my ply from and incur no shipping costs, it's also cheaper than at Noah's. Thanks again for the teak tip.
Steve
You got lucky on the Okoume! Windsor Plywood here only carries 9 mm okoume at $176 per sheet, quite a bit more expensive than the $62 I paid at Noahs.
I figure the teak only cost me $100 dollars more than using clear fir or something similar. If I had used the regular teak instead of the heartwood teak it would have been about the same price. As a bonus it already has a more durable finish than I ever would have been able to produce.
Did you know about the Pocketship forum at
http://www.pocketship.net/phpbb/index.php
The designer of the Pocketship plus other Pocketship builders post a lot of useful information.
Dave
Hi Dave
Those recent hardware lists have scared me a bit. The total cost for materials is now up around 10K (US) including a new trailer and sails. 600+ hours of labor at min. $10/hr. is another $6000. I don't know about you but there are much bigger and fully equipped used cruising boats available for less than 16K.
Sorry, needed to vent somewhere.
Steve
Steve,
For me the boat is a retirement project, so I am not really factoring in the labour cost at all.
I have kept a fairly detailed list of all my costs for my Pocketship and so far it is $7600 CDN. This includes about $800 of new tools such as a router and table saw.
All I have left to purchase is a trailer, sails, and some rigging ( most hardware such as cleats and blocks I have already purchased from The Chandlery in Ottawa). My goal is for my total costs to come in at around $10,000 CDN.
You are completely right that some nice used boats are available for $16,000 but for me the boat building experience was my goal and not simply obtaining a boat.
Dave
I forgot to mention that I am planning on purchasing a sail kit from Sailrite
http://www.sailrite.com/Categories/Kit-Sails
and my wife is going to do the sewing. This should cut the cost of the sails by about half.
Dave
Post a Comment