Category: Painting and Varnishing

Building Out the Interior

Overview

When I was finished building my Biscayne Bay Sailing Skiff, one lesson learned was that the building was only about one-half complete when I began working on the inside of the hull. Building Justine has not been much different.

Completing Justine‘s interior includes adding many, many compon ents. Some are obvious like bulkheads, decking,  and cockpit seats and sole. Some are less so unless you are quite familiar with traditional wooden boat construction. Even after completing the interior construction, you still need to make spars, fit the 1200+ pound ballast keel, install hardware, and complete running and standing rigging. And all the wooden parts need paint or varnish. I’ll describe all of these topics in my next posts.

First steps

With the hull right-side up, I began by removing the eight remaining construction molds from the hull.

Just after turning over the hull, you can see the construction molds that I’d left in to both brace the hull and as fastening points for the 2 x 4 crosspieces we used to facilitate carryout and turnover.

The molds are held in place only by the thin steel straps that hold the frames onto the molds. (The straps went on just after the frames were steamed, just prior to bending the frames to conform to the mold shape.) I simply sawed the frames between the straps and the sheerstrake, releasing the molds from the hull one at a time. After removing a mold, I cut a 2 x 4 to appropriate size and shape and temporarily fastened it to the frames with drywall screws, to hold the hull to its proper beam at that station. Then I went and freed the next mold and braced that station with a 2 x 4 and repeated the process until all 8 molds had been replaced with 2 x 4s.

I also needed to protect Justine from the elements, so Annie kindly offered to buy me a capacious 12′ x 24′ Shelterlogic shed for my 66th birthday! It was necessarily a large structure, but I erected it with the help of some friends, and we didn’t drop any parts onto Justine in the process! (And after three Maine winters, the shed is still in very good condition.)

Soon after turnover, I removed the remaining construction molds and inserted 2 x 4s cut to the proper length and bevel to keep the hull’s beam at the designed dimensions. Framing for the shed I erected is beginning to go up, too.

I had left a little bit of extra material at the top of the sheerstrakes, anticipating I’d want to trim that down later. Trimming offered the chance to correct any unfairness to at the sheerline (top of the sheerstrake) and also to plane a winding bevel along the top of the sheerstrake that would match the curvature of Justine‘s deck when it went on.

Justine‘s plans showed dimensions for a “deckbeam mold” that is useful in adjusting the sheerstrake bevels. The deckbeam mold has constant curvature, and it it wide enough to span Justine‘s beam amidships. The suggested use is to plane the bevel angle at each station so it will conform to that of the deckbeam mold when it’s placed across the hull at that station. (I learned as I was getting ready to install the cuddy top that there’s a better way to do this. I have a bit more to say about this when I do a post about building the cuddy top.)

At this stage, it’s also a good time to trim off the tops of the frames so that they line up with the top of the sheerstrakes. And of course, it’s the ideal time to paint the interior of the hull before any other parts are installed. I chose Kirby Paint’s “Green Gray” color for this.

I knew I should give the interior of the hull several coats of good paint while everything was accessible. I’ve also begun to trim the top end of the frames down to their final level, and to bring the top edge of the sheerstrake to its final profile and correct athwartship bevel.

The best way to trim the top of the sheerstrake is to clamp a long batten in place and make any adjustments to bring it (the sheerline) to a fair curve. Sighting along the batten from several perspectives allows you to refine the shape. All the actual shaping is done with a hand plane, working very carefully and paying attention to the grain direction.

I’ve attached a long batten at the top of the sheerstrake to use as a guide in refining Justine’s sheerline to a very fair curve. I am simultaneously beveling the top of the sheerstrake to match the curve of the deckbeam mold that is visible lying across several of the 2 x 4 support pieces.

I still had not fastened the forward ends of the sheerstrakes to the stem, but I knew that they should be steamed so they could be more easily bent into position for fastening. So made plastic sleeves from thick polyethylene sheet that would slide over the first three feet of the sheerstrakes,  then fed steam in through a piece of plastic pipe for about 90 minutes, clamped the hot end of the sheerstrake into position, then did the fastening.

I steamed the forward end of the sheerstrakes by inserting it in a tube of thick polyethylene sheet instead of a steam box.

The steaming did not noticeably affect the few coats of varnish I’d already applied to the sheerstrakes.

I’ve steamed and bent the forward-most end of the sheerstrakes and driven fasteners to secure them to the uppermost part of the stem rabbet.

Once this preliminary work is done, the hull looks quite spiffy. You see the inside shape, the varying heights of the floors, the butt blocks, the sheerline, the fresh coats of paint, and feel a sense of anticipation as you’re about to begin adding additional structural members and building out the boat’s interior spaces.

Inside surfaces painted, frame tops trimmed and painted, and sheerline refined—ready for sheer clamps!

Some Finishing Touches before Turnover

With the hull still upside down, it’s a very convenient time to do some painting and varnishing because access is so good. I decided I’d get several coats of bottom and topsides paint applied, and build up a good varnished finish on Justine‘s transom before bringing her out of the barn and turning her over.

Marking the waterline was the first step. The load waterline is a key feature in the table of offsets and in the construction plan that were part of the Flatfish plans set I purchased. But the main reference line on the plans for construction purposes is designated as the “construction baseline.” The butts of the construction molds are all cut at this line, and it is effectively the plane of the building floor.

For some good reason, I’m sure, the Flatfish plans do not have the waterline parallel to the construction baseline, so you have to do some interpolation to lay out the position of the waterline on the hull when it is still on the construction molds. I marked the locations on the stem and transom where those parts intersect the waterline, then measured the height of both points above the construction baseline. (My laser level was very useful for this: I set the height of the laser at the mark on the stem, and had the laser scan a horizontal line. Then I had a reference line from which to take measurements 0n other points on the hull.) I measured the horizontal distance from the stem and transom points, then I divided that distance into suitable intervals (about 10). Then I calculated what the waterline height should be at each of the intermediate points, knowing that the waterline on the hull must lie in a plane. This enabled me to mark about 10 points on the hull that the waterline would have to intersect. (Again, the laser level made marking the lines pretty easy.)

Once I had marked a series of points on the hull for the waterline, I lightly tacked a batten onto the hull to connect the points in a fair curve.  With the batten in place, I used a saw to lightly score the position of the waterline on the hull planking, removed the batten, and was ready to apply masking tape to the line and apply some bottom paint.

Justine’s seams have been caulked, payed, and smoothed with seam compound. Here I’ve marked a fair curve along her designed load water line.

I used Petit water-based bottom paint and applied several coats. I didn’t apply bottom paint to parts of the keel plank to which the ballast keel, deadwood, and forward fairing piece would eventually attach. These already had been given a good coat of red lead, and eventually they would be covered with these other pieces of the boat and those joints bedded.

I applied several coats of water-based antifouling paint below the waterline, and am building up a good coat of varnish on the transom. The bottom paint and sheerstrake have been masked off, in preparation for painting the topsides.

For topsides paint I used Kirby Paint’s color “Green Tint.” I applied it according to the directions on the can and it took three coats to do a good job of evenly covering the underlying planks and seam compound. I expected to apply at least one more coat once the boat was much closer to launching.

It takes several coats of paint to get a uniform color and gloss because some places are bare wood and some have been covered with seam compound. Here you can still see signs of the seam compound..

 

Many Herreshoff designs have a distinct concavity in the forward sections, above the waterline. It is hard to capture in a photo. I only have a thin coat of finish on the sheerstrake, as it will be some time before I can bung its fasteners and bring its top edge to a proper bevel.

I also wanted to get a really nice varnish finish on all of Justine’s brightwork, so the outside surface of the transom was where I started. I closely followed the Rebecca Wittman’s excellent articles on “The Art of Brightwork”, Part II, Sanding—True Grit, WoodenBoat Vol. 82, p. 88; and Part III—A Professional’s Approach to Finish Application, WoodenBoat Vol. 83, p. 66. For mahogany, this involves applying several coats of an oil mixture, followed by a minimum of eight coats of varnish. While it’s a long process, it’s not bad if you are in the midst of doing lots of other tasks and have the time to spread the work out over several weeks. And the results are fabulous!

Finally, I purchased a book of gold leaf and some sizing for it, and applied gold leaf to the carved “Justine” on the transom. I read a few articles on how to do this before starting, and I used gold leaf that had paper backing to make the transfer onto the carved surfaces easier than the technique in which the leaf is transferred with a brush. Once the gold leaf was on, I applied one thin coat of varnish over it.

I’ve just finished applying gold leaf to “Justine” on the transom.

I was done with about everything that could be done before turning over the hull. That’s the subject of my next post!