Party (fishing) boats

[Ken_NJ]

Glueing the railing in place.
Holes were previously drilled into the gunwale at regular intervals. The holes were drilled with a drill press to be sure the holes were drilled at 90 degrees to the waterline. The railing posts were soldered to the top rail so the railing could be removed in one cohesive unit, make that two, port and starboard. After everything was painted installing the railing started.



G-Poxy was placed in each hole with a pin. Each post was roughed up.



Each post of the railing was inserted into each hole. U-shaped spacers were made all to the same height. These spacers were placed under the lower rail against a post. Creative clamping was then done in order to apply equal pressure along the railing length. Port and starboard rails were installed separately. The name on the side is only paper to determine the correct appearance.





The result.

[Ken_NJ]

Anchor post.
I did not have and pics of the anchor handling equipment on this boat, but I did from other boats so I went with this. The anchor post is a few sections of basswood.



Brass pins were inserted in the bottom and drill marks were made on the deck. A small drill press was placed over the boat bow and these holes were drilled again 90 degrees to the waterline. When the boat framing was built, I had preinstalled reinforcement in this area expecting the need for a solid foundation for this hardware.









Notice the 'weathered' bollards that the anchor line wears away at the wood as it's wrapped around the posts.



Painted anchor post. Still need to fashion the windlass gear, eventually.
Also the white covering boards have been installed around the inside perimeter of the bulwark.

[Ken_NJ]

For November and December I was recovering from my foot surgery. In December, I did manage to walk some and was able to get into my basement office and started designing my next scratch built party boat. For January, back to normal working in the shop. Spent January working on getting the electronics and wiring done in the Big Marie S.

For the two kit speed controls I made this mounting tray. The underside of the tray has magnets to attach the tray to the mounts in the boat.



Here you can see the magnets mounted to the underside.



The mounts secured in the hull.



This piece will hold the KeyFob on-off device (on the right). On the left will be on-off switches.



Here is how this will fit in the boat. It will held in place by friction and gravity, and connected wires.



The mounting plate for the switches is GRP. Here it is drilled out for the switches. The paper taped to it is the artwork. The art was printed on my Laser printer on a page from a magazine. Had to be printed in reverse. The GRP was heated with a clothes iron, then the paper was flipped over then it was heated with the iron separated with a paper towel sheet. Removed the iron, then pressed on with a small roller. Let cool then soak in water. After it soaked for about 10 minutes, peeled the paper off.

The GRP was a 12x12 sheet I bought from McMaster Carr. I have two sheets. 1/32 and 1/16 inches thick. They come in handy for many things.



Completed. The terminal block at the left are all grounds, black. The terminal block to the right all positive, red. There is another post the explains the KeyFob device.



All negative lines get black heat shrink. All positive gets red heat shrink. Under the heat shrink you see here are bullet connectors. I used 2mm bullet connectors for most of the connections. The small yellow bands make sure the right wires get plugged in where they should be.



ESC's mounted in place. Under the ESC's are inline mini spade fuse holders. The fuses are between the ESC's and the motor.



You can see a fuse holder between the ESC's. Here the on-off switches and remote on-off device panel is mounted. Held in place with friction, gravity and the wires. Easily removable.



The Lipo battery tray.



Everything mounted in position. And all easily removable.



The ESC tray just pops off for access to the fuses. Notice the magnets.



Power is on. When the center switch is toggled to Remote, power goes to the remote device and I can turn power on & off to the ESC's with the Keyfob. If the toggle switch is on Direct, it does not use the remote device and power is applied directly to the ESC's. Why do this you say??? Sometimes you want to dock or tie off the boat while in the water. I can use the Keyfob to turn power off to the motors and not worry about any glitches, etc. If I were to be at a show with the boat on the table, don't need power for the motors. What if I forget the Keyfob at home? Just flick the toggle to Direct and I can still run the boat.
Why else do this?? Because I can and I like over engineering some things. And it looks impressive! Professional!



Another view. I can use the same Keyfob with four other boats. The remote kit came with two remotes.



One problem I had with the LED's. I had 'Direct' connected to the positive terminal block. I had the remote-on-off connected to the positive terminal block. And the two ESC's were connected to the positive terminal block. When I put the toggle to Remote, the LED came on. Then when I turned on the remote on-off device, the Direct LED came on. That should not be. I went on an electronics forum and the gents there had me rewire the connections a bit so the LED's now come on when they should.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I so enjoy your methodical approach to the subject -- a place for everything, and everything in its place. The amount of forethought and execution is so inspiring. And your wood work... I can almost smell the sap and glue as you show and describe your excellent work.

Posts like yours, and that first cup of coffee, is the perfect start of the day.

What a beauty!

David

[Bob Gato]

Sweet installation Ken!-and the woodwork is so crisp!

[trout]

Posts like yours, and that first cup of coffee, is the perfect start of the day.

That sums it up David. Ken, I learn and get inspired when you post. I have two surface boats to build, I will try to mimic your abilities.

[Ken_NJ]

Three comments from people I that I admire. Thank you guys.

Some more 'woodwork' to show. The doors for the cabin started out as 1/16" GRP.



The rails at the bottom here are the top rails with 080 machine screws soldered to them. The bottom rails are already fastened to the cabin sides. They were K&S square stock with one side removed to make it u-channel to act as a receptacle for the doors. Each door had a smaller size modified square channel which slides in the top and bottom rails. Strips of basswood were cut to size, stained and semi-gloss applied.



The smaller size brass stock is a friction fit on the top and bottom of the doors. Will not be glued. I glued styrene sheet to the outside of one door then changed direction what I was going to do, so I glued styrene to the other two doors so they were all the same. The inside of the doors were spray painted with white satin.



Gluing the basswood strips to the outside styrene covered side.



Frames glued, making up the door panel.



I added a beveled edge to the door panels to give added effect.



I made the basswood strips slightly oversized, maybe 1/32-1/16, in the window opening so the basswood would act as a stop for the acrylic windows.



Here is the inside of the doors. You can see the lip created by the basswood. A black marker was used to color the acrylic edges and the inside of the lip to simulate a rubber gasket.



Here the windows are glued in place with canopy glue which dries clear. I also fashioned the handles.



The final finished product will be seen in the next few posts.

[Ken_NJ]

The cabin was masked then painted satin white from the rattle can. It was then wet sanded with 400 grit sand paper and then I decanted clear satin and gave it a top coat with the Paasche air brush that David uses.






Prepping the windows. On my other party boat I hand painted the inside window frame and the edge of the acrylic windows. This gave the effect of a gasket around the window. On this boat I did it differently. I used brown magic marker only on the edge of each window. I did not color the frame. Is it good enough for me? To be determined later.

Here I was cleaning up the edges of the windows and using the marker on them.



The windows were glued in place with canopy glue which worked out well. Each window was custom fitted to its own opening as each opening was different in shape. The windows are a close friction fit, although not all sides come in contact with the frames, but good enough to be glued in place.



Close up. Here you can also see the starboard door in place. The top rail is held in place with machine screw bolts so that if it needs to be serviced the rail can be removed. Have to be very gently on the nuts as it would be very easy to pull the machine screw out of the solder.

[Ken_NJ]

And finally for today.

I started with satin spar urethane spray as a finish on the seats then ran out. I tried semi-gloss and I liked that so went with it. The bow wrap around seats were glued together, touched up then all seats were sprayed. Three coats, sanding, then another three coats of urethane.





Why do some pictures poste smaller than others??

Seat were glued in place on those 'brackets' that were so dangerously sticking out.



Here you can see the starboard door in place with the handle added onto the door. Seats are in place. And, you can see the four support brackets between the windows. I can only surmise that those brackets are there as further support to where the pilot house sits on the cabin deck.



Door closed.



Door open.



A view with the cabin deck on top of the cabin.



That will be all for a while. Next work is the cabin deck area getting everything fitted and painted.

[rwtdiver]

Hi Ken,

My goodness! Your skills as a boat builder are really remarkable. Such attention to detail is something to ponder and admire. The true scale of patience here for sure!

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

[Bob Gato]

Awesome Ken-so real that I can almost smell the sunbaked clam bellies and stale beer from here!

[Ken_NJ]

Long overdue update. I have made much progress so far but have not had the enthusiasm to make any social media updates, or updates to my web site. The upper deck of the Big Marie S has a rowboat that can be seen in 2-3 pics I have. The rowboat is inverted and most likely tied down. There are no pics to give me details so I have to fudge recreating it. I searched online for pictures of rowboats and came up with a few that I liked. Also looked for construction pics of rowboats. The rowboat will follow lapstrake construction.

This is what I'm shooting for. At least something close to this.







And so it begins.



The frames are tacked down at the edges with CA so those points can be snapped away from the build board. The frames slide into what will be the keel and will not be glued to the keel. Once the boat is removed from the board, the frames can be slid out from the keel. Except for the transom which is glued to the keel.



Paper strips were made and measurements were made for the distance from sheer to the keel for each frame. Those measurements were put in a spreadsheet then calculations were made for the thickness of each strake at each frame.



Here are the measurements at each frame.

[Ken_NJ]

I won't bore you with all the pics I have. Each strake (plank) is approximately filed down according to the spreadsheet. After each plank is applied, new measurements are taken and the spreadsheet is updated giving a new measurement for each plank at each frame and that is used for the next plank, the repeat, repeat etc.



Progress



Etc



Eventually all of the planks are applied and both sides need to look somewhat identical.



Not bad for a 7 1/2 in scratch built model with a build technique that I never tackled before.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Beautiful work. And top-notch photography to boot. Good stuff!

[Ken_NJ]

Thank you David, much appreciated!

Before breaking away from the board, some touch up was done with Nitro Stan. Pliers were then used to snap the frames away from the board.



Here the frames were slid out from the keel. I did spot glue some of the frames to those frames to hold them down. Not much thou. They slid out pretty easily. The glued planks held each other in place to keep the shape.



Size comparison to my hand.



Beginning to remove the wood down to the inside part of the keel.



Inside all cleaned out with notches in place for the bent frames which will be styrene.