A Shipwright in Training

The upper ceilings are all now installed in Roann. Those are the ones between the bilge stringers and the sheer clamp. The last thing to do before calling them done and over was to bung the holes and pare down the protruding bungs. There were a lot of bungs. A veritable Wall O’ Bungs.And they extended the whole length of the boat.Kind of reminds me of the sea of holes in Yellow Submarine. After the epoxy dries we pare each one down to flush with the ceiling.It’s not exciting work, but it’s steady and, more importantly, it’s quiet. That’s a real treat when you’re in an enclosed space.Jeff and I have started working on the mast partner, mast step, and a compression post that forms the center of the forward bulkhead.Just to refresh:

• The mast step is the little structure that captures the base of the mast and keeps it from moving around
• The mast partner is the reinforced area that holds the mast as it comes up through the deck
• A compression post is just like a wall stud that braces a deck beam from flexing downwards. Ours rests on the keel and attaches to the floor and the deck beam above it.

These activities all involved some degree of actual joinery skill along with the ability to suss out how things were built in the original boat. For instance, we had the old crapped out mast partner to look at:We also had photos taken of the old compression post and mast step during the initial ripping out phase of the project. Those have been invaluable in figuring out details like whether or not the post sat flush up against the floor or if it was notched into it slightly. And, naturally, there were interesting little problems to be solved for a seemingly simple operation.  For instance, when bolting the post up to the deck beam, there was a little problem with spacing.This isn’t the best photo to describe what I’m talking about, but here goes.  The post is in the foreground, the thing with all the big shavings on it.  It’s sitting on a hatch on deck as I notch out the top of it with the slick (also in the foreground).  Beneath the post you can see deck beams running at an angle from the lower left to the upper right in the photo.  You can also see a couple of square holes in the wood between the deck beams.  The wood between the deck beams there make up the mast partner.  It’s not cut in a circle yet. Phew.  Now, here’s the deal.  The post goes in the smaller of the two holes there in the mast partner and butts up against the right hand deck beam.  The trick is to bolt that sucker in.  With the post in place, there’s 8″ of wood to drill through.  That means a drill bit that’s at least 8 1/2″ long (gotta fit it in the drill, you know).  We had one that was 14″ and one that was about 6″.  The right angle drill that accepts a 1/2″ drill bit is about 5″ deep itself.  The space between the deck beams is 14″. If you do the math you see that:

1. The short bit will fit in between the deck beams, but won’t drill all the way through the deck beam and the post.
2. The long bit won’t fit between the deck beams when you attach it to the drill

So, the solution: drill part way with the short bit, then put the long bit into that hole by hand and attach the drill to the end that’s sticking out and drill the rest of the way through. Phew.Oh, wait, now we have to deal with the bolt.  The bolt is 9″ long and the head has to be on the side of the hole where the mast goes through.  The space was not wide enough to fit the bolt into the post when the post was butted up against the deck beam.  Luckily, if I inserted the bolt into the post first, the part that protruded was short enough to fit into the square hole to the left of the post.  Of course there was barely any room to tap it through…Now, to attach the base.  Simple, just drill through the floor and post.Looking down at the post as it notches into the floor.  Hmmm, what’s that bung in the center of the floor?  Why, it’s covering a bolt that goes through the floor down into the keel.  That means that when you put your bolt into the post you’d best not hit that sucker.There’s another little problem.  The original post was bolted through the floor at about 2 1/2″ above the keel.  Looking at the post from the other side, see that bolt coming up through the keel?That bolt is just high enough to bump into the drill body as you try to drill a level hole.  Uh oh.  If you try to drill from the other side, there’s a few things in the way.  Another bolt to match this one, for one thing. And to make things more interesting, we installed a little beam just aft of the floor to hold up some temporary support posts while we were installing the compression post.  You can see it there with the nail coming out of it.There’s another floor about 14″ aft of the floor we need to drill through, so you get the same problem as we had with the deck beams: limited space to drill a deep hole.  You can see it beneath the staging that Jeff is standing on here.The solution to all these problems?  It’s really a big logic puzzle in which you have to find the right combination of drill bits that will allow the drill to fit between the floors and go forward enough to drill the hole, but not so far forward as to bump into the protruding bolt.

1. Draw a line on the beam to guide how you drill so that you’ll miss the bolt in the middle of the floor (you can see it penciled in on the beam 2 photos above).
2. Use a short bit to start the hole.  Drill until the chuck of the drill starts to hit the protruding bolt.
3. Use a medium long drill bit, started by hand as we did above) to go a little deeper into that hole.  Your drill body will hit the protruding bolt before you get all the way through.
4. Use a longer drill bit, again inserted into the hole by hand, to finish out your hole. 

Sheesh.  Just wanted to drill a simple hole. After that, it was time to take the staging down and clean up.  Back to manual labor.Looks pretty cool with all the staging gone though.Piles of bags, shook out and moved out of the way.So we can vacuum up all this detritus from a month of installing ceilings.It’s cleaning up pretty nice though as we go.  Next job is to mark out the locations and butts of the next set of ceilings.  It’ll be nice to get to work in a clean environment, and we won’t be hunched over all the time.  I can’t tell you now nice that’ll be.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Mystic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.