Bulkheads in place

I finally put the bulkheads in permanently today. 

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Good News!! Tapping the Waste Stream

While the world economy as a whole might be circling the drain and every other country is having watercanon fights with its citizens, here in Alameda, we are making do with what we have, namely, leftover stuff from the times of plenty.  All this sort of thing is given catchy names like upcycling, diverting the waste stream, etc.  what it comes down to is that if you cant afford new stuff, you might want to use some old stuff instead.  And so the dog - woman boat featured a few posts back was made almost entirely out of old stuff, not as a stunt but out of necessity, the necessity being that when money is scarce, you make do by other means.

The builder, Inka had access to various pieces of cast off wood from her building jobs and the skin of the boat was made of scraps that I had left from other boat projects that Inka then sewed together on a friends sewing maching.  For the coaming rims, we scavenged some branches from weed trees in the neighborhood and when it was all done, we had a boat that for the most part wasnt that much different from a boat that we would have built had we used all new materials. 

Skin of sewn-together pieces from other projects, giving the boat a traditional look, although from a distance, you can hardly see the seams.

And that in a nutshell is what boat building in the Arctic was like in the old days.  You had to scrounge all the stuff you made your boats out of.  Takes a little more time than buying everything fresh at the boat supply store, but worth it, especially when you have more time than money.
So if you have more time than money, contact me and I will tell you how to make a boat from found materials.

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Hot Air Wood Bending

Steam bending of long pieces of wood requires a long steam box and a lot of time to get the steam box heated up.  So unless you intend to steam a lot of pieces, waiting for the box to heat is a pain.  Instead, we did some hot air bending.  The wood, black acacia had soaked to the point of sinking and so was thoroughly saturated with water.  So with a hot air gun and lots of clamps, we heated a few inches of wood at a time, bent, clamped and then moved on.  Simplicity itself.

Heat the inside.

Heat the outside, bend and clamp.

All done.  Wait for the thing to dry, remove clamps and glue.

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Wendy Tremayne and the Good Life Lab

I met Wendy Tremayne through my wife who participated in a Swap o Rama Rama event at the San Mateo Makers Faire.  The Swap o Rama Rama idea was Wendys and the concept is based on the calculus of what it takes to live a Good Life.  Is it better to be a wage slave and live a crummy life so you can buy commodities with money or is it better to live the life you want and get your commodities by some other means.  Wendy and her partner Mikey did the math and concluded that it was better for them to live the life they wanted and get their commodities by means that involved as little money as possible.
So thats what the book is all about, the math on what it takes to have a decent life when you have a job and money but little time vs. having a decent life when you have no job and little money but all the time to do what you want. Plus, having done the math and concluding that youd rather have a good life and little money, how to tap into the waste stream to get the commodities you need and developing skills to do stuff on your own that you used to pay other people to do when you had money but no time.
And having had some time to talk to Wendy, I also found out that she is one of those genuinely authentic human beings that radiate a goodness that outshines any ego that might still be clinging to their bodies.
Quitting your job to live the good life is obviously not for everyone, but if by some stroke of luck you get fired and cant find another job, you should maybe get this book and look at some alternatives.
For a more in depth review of the book you might also want to look here. The review also has an interview with Wendy.
Perhaps the best part of the Wendy approach to the good life is that is not a fixed prescription but rather a more general approach, that is, living off the waste stream of our culture is not a permanent solution, but rather a way to live right now while there is a large waste stream.  If that waste stream were to dry up, then some other way of living will be needed, but for now, its a good way to go.

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Eastern Arctic like Kayak closing comments

Time to bring the EA kayak building project back to life, on this blog anyway.  Time to make some comments on the building experience, a time when the building is done but the boat hasnt been in the water yet and provided feedback on its suitability as a water craft.  I could have waited another few days to comment on the completion, but Im thinking that once I try the boat out, I will become preoccupied with how the boat handles and forget all about what I learned from building it.
Part of what building an actual boat is all about is internalizing its structure in three dimensions.  Plans are flat representations of a boat and typically dont show any more than a top and a side view and some cross sections.  But the flow of the form of a boat in three dimensions is a lot more complex than the plans show and to get a feel for the form, you actually have to build the boat.  Once you have the feel, you gain the understanding of how that form interacts with the water and determines performance.
In any case, if you did some careful reading of the title of this posting, you may have noticed that called it Eastern Arctic-like Kayak.  What I mean by that is that when I laid out the shape of the kayak in the horizontal and vertical planes I improvised, that is, I didnt follow a particular plan but rather adapted length and beam to fit the wood that I had available.  I came close to building something that could be called Eastern Arctic, but not quite dead on.  Lets look at some photos.

Heres a picture of the frame just before the skin went on.  If you let your eye follow the right gunwale line you will notice that it has some bumps in it.  I think in general EA kayaks had a smoother sheer line.

Heres a shot of the boat frame. Bow down.  As you can see, the plan view is more like a Greenland hull than an Eastern Arctic.  Part of the problem with working by eye in a tight space.  Should have dragged the frame outside at deck setup time for a better view and probably would have noticed that the back end should have been wider.  I suspect the boat will behave ok, just with a narrower stern wont have as much carrying capacity.  And anybody who knows anything will feel compelled to tell me that I didnt make the back wide enough.  Yeah, I know.

View from the side with the skin on.  The nose is unorthodox, a little taller than traditional.  Looks more like a northwest pacific canoe bow.  Also the sheer line is a tad extreme.  Well see how that works out.

Meanwhile, the cockpit turned out more or less standard, maybe a few inches longer than traditional.  Soon this boat will have some paint and then hit the water.  Till then Im holding off on any predictions re performance.  I am most curious to see how the flat bottom will feel and how much stability vs. speed tradeoff there is in such a flat bottom.  Stay tuned.

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Glen L Gathering 2013

Leave my cares at the dock? Done.

There was an old Chris-Craft ad from the 1960’s I stumbled across online not long ago. I don’t remember which model it was advertising (an early fiberglass runabout, I believe), but I do remember the tagline: “Leave your cares at the dock.”

Leave my cares at the dock. That’s exactly what I’d been wanting, and needing to do for weeks. So I did just that — I left my cares at the dock. After all, Sept. 20 was G7 weekend, and the Glen-L boatbuilders were back in town. What better way to relax than riding in hand-made classic boats?

This is now the third Glen-L gathering I’ve attended. Each year brings a little something new. This year, for me, it was an eye-opening lesson in fuel consumption. I simply had no idea just how quickly an outboard motor will use up a full tank of fuel when it’s pushing a boat fully-laden with adults up & down the river for any distance. Wow! I tell you, it makes me all the more grateful to the kind people who took me out for rides in their boats.

This year I rode in a couple of beautifully-finished Zips. I got some ideas to possibly use on my own. I also rode in a very nice Monaco, and in Bob Brandenstein’s splendid Malahini. There was a tent sale this year, and after the gale-force winds Saturday morning (which I luckily missed), I bought a pair of cleats & a U.S. Yacht Ensign flag for the Utility. 

I also bought a bell. My daughter’s been asking me to put one on the boat since I first laid the keel. She saw the bell at the tent sale & just HAD to have it... so I bought it. 

For now I use it to wake her & her brother up for school.

Buddys highly-modified Zip race boat.

There were several Zips at the Gathering this year.

Docking all these handmade wooden boats in Chattanooga.

1959 Mercury Mark 35A on Garfields Zip.

I was really intrigued by Garfields Zip, and all the unique, "out-of-the-box" thinking he put into it.

Paul brought his super-fast Hot Rod all the way down from Quebec

Bobs splendid Malahini.

Jeff Peters newly-built Zip is adorned with original hardware off of a classic Century boat. I really like his distinctive mermaid fenders.

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The Utility New motor First bottom panel cut

This first half of April has seen some progress on the Utility project, although not much that is visible on the actual boat itself. I ordered a new Nissan 8hp motor from onlineoutboards.com. The motor arrived very promptly... and I promptly realized I’d never operated a tiller-controlled boat before.

New 8hp Nissan Marine outboard

So, the kids and I fixed that by taking a weekend getaway at a nearby lake. I rented a 14 ft Jon boat fitted with a 9.9 hp Yamaha, and we ventured out on the water. There really is a lot to be said for the simple Jon boat. They may not be the prettiest things on the water, but it’s hard to imagine a more versatile boat in that size.

In any case, our little aluminum Jon boat was by no means a rocket on the water, but it did what it was supposed to. The Utility will have a shorter, and more streamlined hull, although somewhat heavier. I imagine performance with its 8hp motor will be similar to the 14’ Jon boat with the 9.9 Yamaha. Time will tell.

Over Easter weekend, I began the break-in period for the Nissan motor. The first two phases were to let it run at idle for 10 minutes, then to run at <50% throttle for two hours. That’s done. The next phase is to let it run at <75% throttle.

On the boat framework, I have faired down the side planking on the starboard side. I have not yet tried to fill in any of the low spots, or “hollows”, along the chine. Instead, I decided to go ahead and cut the panels for the bottom planking by cutting one sheet of Meranti in half lengthwise.

My plan is to begin dry-fitting the bottom panel into place, and to use that as a gauge to determine just how much I’ll need to fill in along the chine. It is possible that any gaps will be minor enough that thickened epoxy will do the job adequately.

Rough placement of the first bottom panel

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Our Plastic World

I saw a link to this video on Facebook the other day.

http://vimeo.com/8177268

Far as I can tell, its a promo for a kickstarter project to raise money to make a movie about how bad plastic is when you toss it in the ocean.  OK, plastic is bad.

No, those arent colored rocks, thats plastic on that beach.

The solution to the plastic problem is simple. Stop pumping oil out of the ground.  No oil, no plastic.  Of course that would impact lifestyles that people have become accustomed to.  What can you give the kids for their birthdays that isnt made out of plastic?  What sort of clothes can you get that arent made out of plastic?

Some day when we no longer make plastic, we will have to go down to the beach to get our plastic, like a five gallon bucket or a beach ball or a pair of flip flops.  Sorry, they dont wash up in pairs.  You might have to mix colors.  With luck, you might find a right and a left in your size.

Walk into any sporting goods or outdoor store and the smell alone will tell you that you have stepped into a plastic goods emporium outgassing massive quantities of plastic fumes.  I am surprised that the state of California doesnt require stores to put warning labels on their doors to warn customers that the air inside these places is toxic.

One of the grander REI plastics emporiums.  Looks like they set this one up in an abandoned cathedral.

The irony of it all is that the people who shop in places like REI are lovers of the outdoors and generally lead healthy lifestyles, that is of course except when they go into an REI store and breathe the air there.

Sally Jewell, REI CEO sporting some REI plastic products.

Oh, & I just read that Sally Jewell, CEO of REI has just been nominated by Mr. Obama to become Secretary of the Interior.  So how does this bode for the elimination of plastic from the environment?  Not well, I imagine since plastic is REIs number one money making product.  If you took all the plastic out of an REI store, what would be left?  Not picking on REI here in particular.  Its not any worse than any other store, its just that the irony is deeper.
Anyway, not participating in the plastic culture is next to impossible since everything made today contains plastic, at the very least in its packaging.

Is that a plastic gyre?  No its thousands of plastic kayaks come together for a photo op. 

And then theres myself.  I use plastic string to lash my kayaks together,  and then I cover them with a plastic skin and then I seal the skin with a plastic coating.  I could do like Svend Ulstrup, a kayak builder and teacher in Denmark who only uses non-plastic materials in his kayaks.  I used to be like him, but like the convenience of plastic. It doesnt rot as fast as natural materials.  You have to let it sit out in the sun for two years to get it to start breaking down. Still, people love plastic because its shiny when its new but Ill stop using it if I can convince people that shiny isnt everything.

 

But if someone wants to come and picket my shop and make a movie about how I am polluting the ocean, Id be willing to stop, and I would also stop wearing polyester fleece clothing even though its warm and fuzzy.  Yes, every time I run the fleece through the washer, thousands of little polyester hairs break off the thing and go down the drain during the rinse cycle and from there on to the waste processing center in West Oakland and from there into San Francisco Bay and from there with the next outgoing tide through the Golden Gate and into the Pacific.  And from there, into the digestive system of all sorts of marine creatures who have no idea why they are feeling bloated even though theyre hungry. 
Im starting to talk myself out of wearing polyester fleece.  How about you?

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Sail Powered Wheelbarrow

Seems like at one time or another, humans have tried putting sails on just about everything including, apparently, wheelbarrows.  The online Low Tech Magazine has a cool article on just such technology.
Apparently some of the sails were quite sophisticated, not just pieces of cloth, but battened junk rigs with control lines running back to the handles of the wheelbarrow.  This allowed the wheelbarrows to sail at an angle to the wind. 

 

The Chinese wheelbarrow differed from the European wheelbarrow not only in the size of the wheel, bigger, but also in its placement.  The load was balanced on the axle of the wheel which meant that on a level surface, the barrow driver only had to overcome friction.  The total weight of the cargo was being carried by the wheel. On a European barrow, the kind that is still being sold here in stores, the weight is centered between the axle of the wheel and the handles, which forces the barrow driver to carry half the weight, limiting the use of the barrow to short trips.

In any case, check out this and other articles in low tech mag.

Which reminds me, every once in a while, you will see articles on wheelbarrow boats in the small boat magazines.

Unfortunately, the wheel is usually on one end of the boat and is small, which limits its use to short distances. With a larger wheel placed in a centerboard trunk, the boat could be transported a good distance.  Of course we are now talking integral boat trailer, something which probably doesnt work as well as a conventional boat trailer and results in a boat which doesnt sail as well as a boat without an integral trailer.  Perhaps I should just quit thinking about this concept.  This sort of one thing does many things poorly design is something best left to the military procurement people.

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Bottom panels complete

Here are the two bottom panels taped and cut to shape.  I feel as if I am in the groove now and can get the side panels out a little quicker now. 

 

I did experiment with a number of release films for the fiberglass epoxy tape joints.

1.  6 mm plastic - was hard to get flat and fair.  wrinkles developed easily

2.  packing tape - harder to apply, but left a relatively smooth controllable surface.

3.  wax paper - best looking joint, but waxy residue must be cleaned.  I was warned by a more experienced builder that the wax could separate out of the paper, leaving a ghastly mess to clean up.  I did experience a little of this in the top joint, when I tried to remove the paper prior to full cure.  

Bottom line - will stick with the 6 mm plastic.  a little extra filling and sanding is part of the project.   

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A Tale of Bears Beers and Anglers

The Kings River, our destination at the end of a two mile hike downhill.

One day while camping, we found a trail that goes down to the Kings River.  Not that you have to hike down to the river necessarily.  There are places where you can drive right along the river.  But we were looking for some exercise and diversion from sitting at our campsite and so we hiked the trail from the paved road down to the river, a distance of about two miles of switchbacks that drops you down 1000 feet to the river below. The trail is just wide enough for one person, no walking side by side.  Who created the trail we dont know. It probably precedes the creation of Kings Canyon National Park, but there it is. 

At the trail head, our car was the only one there, so we had the trail all to ourselves.  A sign posted at the trail head informed us that the portion of river accessed by the trail supports native trout and that catch and release was the only form of fishing allowed.  So apparently, this trail is commonly used by fisher people. I dont know how many hikers use it since once you hike downhill for two miles you have to hike back up two miles.

So we hiked down to the bottom of the river and had a lunch of crackers and hard boiled eggs.  I was musing that it would be nice to also have a bottle of wine.  Its nice to drink wine in a beautiful place, but experience has taught me that once youve drunk a bottle of wine, even with the help of others, hiking becomes much harder since your legs feel like lead and are much harder to lift than when you havent been drinking.

After our little lunch, I did some exploring around the next bend of the river and tucked in next to a large boulder was a pile of litter spilling out of a plastic cooler.  The litter consisted mostly of aluminum beer and soda cans, some empty plastic chip bags and some plastic catsup and mustard bottles with chew marks on them.  My guess was that the chew marks had been made by a bear who had gotten into the cooler and rummaged through the contents. And when I rummaged around the cans myself, I found six of them unopened, four Buds and two Bud Lites. The bear apparently did not have a taste for beer.  I looked around for a way to carry the beers back with me and found a discarded tee shirt which I turned into a tote bag.  

Aside from being pleased to have found some beer, I was also wondering why people would drag heavy coolers full of beer and sodas two miles downhill on a narrow trail.  Apparently it was enough of an ordeal to dissuade them from carrying the empties back.  Or maybe they thought they could leave their stuff down by the river and come back another time and drink or eat what was left over.  Who knows?

Later, we ran into some more abandoned litter, one stash was a plastic tub full of clothes - 4 pairs of jeans, some sweat shirts two pairs of sneakers and an assortment of tee shirts and a disintegrating pair of waders. Was someone planning on living down at the bottom of the hill?  Again, who knows?  by the looks of it, the tub of clothes had also been searched by a bear. 

The Buds cooling in the river.  I had two and Joan opened one but didnt finish it. 

Knowing the ill effects of too much beer, we left the remaining cans for the next hiker.

On our way out, we spotted another cooler stashed a little ways up the hill next to a tree.  Seems like the bears hadnt found this one yet.

Another camping spot next to the river, obviously a site for many a cookout.

Canned food seems to be the preference on the Kings River. Skeletons of many cans remain in the ashes.

Assorted kitchen implements generously left behind for the next person.

And a few essentials, also unopened and left behind for the next visitor.

So on to some possible morals of this story. Zero or more options may be true. You may be able to think of more. Option 1, maybe this story has no moral.  Simply, hikers find trash left behind by other hikers/fishermen. Option 2.  Sometimes when you wish for something, it appears, in this case, six cans of beer.  Actually, I wished for a bottle of wine, but a six pack of beer is ok.  Option 3. This particular moral relates to my previous post as space travel.  When youre camping, you cant expect food to be there when you get there so you have to bring it.  Option 4.  The caching of food in remote location has always been a practice.  Part of wilderness etiquette has always been not to disturb someone elses cache of food.  If food is cached, someone expects to find it there when they come back.  If you mess with their cache, you might put them in a bad situation. If you used their pile of firewood, you were expected to build the pile back up for the next person to come that way.  Seeing that whoever left the beer around, had already drunk most of it, I did not feel that I was violating their cache.  I suspect that whoever left the beer behind had had enough of it and just didnt feel like dragging it back up the side of the canyon. Option 4.  Traditional wilderness etiquette does not involve packing your trash out of the wilderness.  Wilderness was everywhere. You would merely be packing trash from one part of the wilderness to another.

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Iqyax Baidarka Research

I am currently working on the improved Bay Boat, that is, San Francisco Bay Boat.  The baidarka I had been paddling most frequently is about 20 years old, re-ribbed once and reskinned a number of times and a fairly close replica of an Atka baidarka.  This particular boat just got a paint job.  The old paint job consisted of a varnish base covered some time later by a color coat.  The color coat was peeling badly, probably because I never sanded the base coat before putting on the color coat.  The re-paint is done now.

 

The baidarka is on the left with its new coat of gray latex house paint.  I store my boats outside so the most critical job of the paint is to keep the UV rays from degrading the nylon skin.  Opaque paint does a good job of that and more cheaply than exterior varnish.  Thats my King Islander to the right of the baidarka.

The only drawback of the old baidarka is its narrow width and fairly deep hull which makes it a challenge to keep upright.  Its actually not that bad once you get used to it, but its not a boat that you can just sit in and relax.  When youre not moving, you need to brace or have the paddle out as an outrigger.  

So, enter a wider version of the Atka iqyax^.  The idea behind this boat is sufficient width to allow lounging without constant bracing but not enough width to make it slow, a boat suited for longer stays on the water, like a bay crossing, about a one hour affair.

Inside view of the hull.  Good width and flat rib profile to make the boat stable. 

And an outside view of the hull with the stringers temporarily taped and lashed in place.  Also note the open jawed bow, a configuration I have been playing with, mostly because this configuration makes it easier to align the keelson with the bow assembly.

Also the upturned nose of the other bow configuration is more prone to breaking because the grain runs across the upturned part instead of in line with it. 

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Finally got the center support glued down

Last night, I finally got the center support for the rear thwart glued to the keel with thickened epoxy.

The delay was caused by a slight change in course in the way Im trying to straighten out the bend in the plywood seat. I had removed the seat & was prepared to epoxy four 15" reinforcing pieces to the bottom, hoping that would keep the seat "flat." However, the warp seemed minor enough that the only way to keep it flat this way would be to run full-width reinforcing strips. I cant do that, due to the center support.

So, the change in course was to clamp levels to the plywood, to keep it flat. THEN, after trimming the sides to fit, Id attach the side blocking. In theory, once the blocking is in place at that "level," it should force the seat to stay flat once its attached. Thats the theory, anyway.

Center support, finally glued down.

This is my effort to keep the plywood flat until the side blocking is attached.

I used the extraneous epoxy squeezed out from the seat support to fill in imperfections like this in the plywood.

The structural part of the thwart is basic A-C grade exterior plywood from Home Depot. A little tip-of-the-hat to William Jackson here...

Heres where I had marked the sides of the hull for measuring the seat support dimensions.

Im still undecided on whether to install a drain tube, or to just use a bilge pump. If I do install a drain tube, this is where the hole will be drilled.

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