The backyard building and adventures of a small shanty/houseboat based on the "Dianne's Rose" design by Roy Schreyer. The designs can be found at https://www.roydesignedthat.com/
I had been searching quite awhile for an affordable trailer.
Just two weeks ago I viewed a trailer that on the premise seemed good, but under close examination, the cross members were rotted through and would need replacing, along with much of the frame. The axles were good but that was all.. finding an affordable tandem axle trailer has proven to be a little tricky.
Well, I found a reasonable trailer for the right price. $700, and included new fenders, lights and light wiring.. some assembly was required. It was a little rusty, but trusty - no particularly bad spots, all surface rust. A good find.. with new rubber, bearings, and axles.. just a little TLC and I could turn this into a nice trailer for my build.
May not seem like much, but with some TLC this old camper trailer/frame will be great for the build!
Well, some more good weather means it is time to think about putting together in the inside frames. These will serve as the backbone of the boat and provide rigid support. The question is should I attempt to scarf the pieces of plywood together? I would need 3 scarfs to get the plywood long enough.
There are many ways to machine scarf bevels on plywood panels. The best method depends on how many scarf joints your project requires. For example, if you need to scarf only two sheets of 3mm plywood, using a block plane and sanding block is a good low cost option.
In my case I have 3 scarfs, and two sides to each scarf, so that is 6 scarfs a side x 2 = 12 total scarfs in 9mm plywood. In addition, I may want to scarf the plywood outer sides and possibly the bottom.
There is also a bit of debate on how long a scarf should be in boat building, I am going with an 8:1 scarf, so that is a scarf of about 3". There is numerous ways to achieve a scarf, you can build or buy a jig for a circular saw, planer, belt sander or router.
Circular Saw Scarffing Jig
The Gougeon Brothers are given credit for developing a circular saw scarffing jig for plywood. It first appeared in Robert M. Steward’s Boatbuilding Manual (1970).They Gougeon Brothers now have a great book on boat construction available as a free download from West Systems and is a worthwhile read: The Gougeon Brothers on Boat Construction (1979) 5th Edition. While it promotes West System epoxies, it could be read generically.
The Gougeon Brothers Jig is not for the faint of heart, but it works very well. It can be a bit tricky to make and use:
Gougeon Borthers Original Plywood Scarf Jig from Steward's Boatbuilding Manual
Based on the Gougeon Brothers design, West Systems makes a commercial device called the "Scarffer". It is an attachment, and basically allows the circular saw to work on an angle to cut a scarf. It is mainly designed for 1/4" plywood but can work on thicker wood with a hand planer.
The Scarffer is an attachment by West Systems that allows you to use a circular saw for making plywood scarfs.
The dis-advantage to the "Scarffer" is that it can only do ¼" thick Scarfs, due to the limitation of the saw blade size. When cutting plywood thicker than ¼", the blade won't
reach all the way through the wood. The scarf must be
completed with a hand plane
That is not necessarily a huge issue, as in this case it is only 1/8" material left, and could easily be planed.
When Scarfing boards bigger than 1/4" you need to hand plane the rest of the material
You can get a West Systems 875 Scarffer from Jamestown Distributors at at cost of $93.16 USD + Shipping or in Canada from Steveston Marine and Hardware for $122.39 CDN + tax and shipping. It can also be picked up locally from any of their locations.
I am not as comfortable with using the circular saw, particularly on end. So I tend to shy away from this type of jig, but it gets alot of positive reviews and results. There are other handmade circular saw jigs, but for the sake of $100 for the potential danger and safety issues, I would highly recommend using a commercial product.
Planer Scarffing Jig
Another for popular method for scarfing plywood is using a planer scarfer, this kind of attachment or jog works great for dimensional lumber. There is another commercial variety available from John Henry, known as the John Henry Planer-Scarffer. It allows a standard power planers, specifically Makita 1900B, Makita 1912B, and the Porter-Cable Model 9125 planers to be used to scarf plywood. John Henry says, that although it is designed for these planer models it is not necessarily limited to them and may fit other models.
This looks like a great device and gets some good reviews, but cost and available is a factor. Sometimes used ones can be found on ebay or a new one from John Henry. The main advantage to the Planer-Scarffer is that it is capable of doing very wide pieces of plywood.
In the end, I decided since this was an experiment and I may not scarf the bottom or the sides depending on results, I would build a "router" style jig from parts on hand to "test" how feasible a scarf was... I mainly wanted to scarf the bottom and the middle frames.
Router Scarfing Jig
The router-type scarfing jig basically places the router on a angled plane that can be moved up and down. It is more difficult to do a full 4x8 sheet as limited by the jig size. There are many different type of way to accomplish this, but the basic premise is the sa,e.
We decide to try a build a jig with materials that I already had on hand. I did have a spare router - and found a good article in the Woodenboat forums.
The basic premise is that the router is mounted on two pipes, which sits on a sloped jig - 8:1 or 10:1, and the plywood is wedged underneath. It allows adjustment for thickness, but it limited in width. It requires very basic components most of which I had. I did buy the electrical conduit and PVR pipe, so I spent about $15-$20 in materials. This seemed safe and easy, and was a good budget for experimenting.
The designer gives a glowing review: "I built a router scarf jig. It takes 120 seconds for a 6cm 10:1 scarf in 6mm birch plywood. Perfectly flat, smooth, down to a feather edge. Completely idiot proof, and leaves a perfect 10:1 scarf that will match the next one. You can't do anything wrong. You just have push the router front to back until you've rubbed out the wood. The jig makes a skilled procedure, an unskilled one that gives a perfect result, and saves time if you've got alot to do. It also saves my back from alot of manual planing"
Here are a few pictures I borrowed from forum post to give the gist of how it works:
Mount the router on a set of rails, and get a long skinny router bit
Make a Sled Stand
The sled that the router slides on and insert your plywood
Adjust the bit to the correct height and then just slide the router along the sled
We'll, finished up the scarf jig, and put it to work today. It clamps on my tablesaw, bottomless frame so it could do wider pieces. Learned a little on first run what not to do but literally does a nice scarf in seconds.. can't wait to do more and see the glueup. I'll feather the edge a little more with fine sandpaper.
Wedged in the wood, and clamped it down
It made quick work, but I had the bit a little low.
Well, another nice Sunday, and managed to get the bow panel completed for Hull #98 - checking out the angles and B-sides, the A side will face the water. Still lots of panels to cut - its a journey - but glad to be underway. I will need to fully encapsulate all the pieces in epoxy resin to protect against the elements.
Finally, some good weather -- sunshine and a day off. As the saying goes, it is time to make "hay while the sun shines!" I began making the first cuts on the partial bulkheads. Its the start of a long project, but it is nice to finally be underway and have the tarps off the plywood.
Cutting the notches was a bit of a challenge, but the operation went pretty smoothly! Dianne's Rose Hull#098 is full steam ahead!
Well, Spring is coming again soon, and it is time to get some marine plywood for the new boat. This will be the first of many investments into lumber. There are a ton of choices to be made. Previously, I just used exterior radiata pine, and it works fine on the small craft. It is easily repaired and touched up.
With the Mystnyx houseboat project, it will require a higher grade of wood. The weight of the boat means it will be difficult to do any repairs. The cost of the project and the size makes it a prime candidate to use the best available materials.
That being said, its worth a look at the various wood types. Here is a good little primer that I wrote a long time ago about wood types: https://shadyislepirates.com/?q=node/39
This is an interesting write up taken from the Glen-L forums:
"The Baltic Birch plywood's are a sound choice if you can confirm that they are made with waterproof glues, more specifically the Phenolic Resin glues. Also with the Baltic plywood's the grading standard is considerably different than what you see here in the (West). While we have (APA grades) A, B, C and D grades, plus Marine grades (Mar A-B indicating that it's Marine rated with one face being A grade and the other side being B graded) plus the British standards BS1088, BS6566 (although now only used for historical sake - the BS standards are no longer "certified" by Lloyds) they do not equate to what you may see with these birch plywood's.
The Baltic grading system is typically the Russian GOST system. The plywood is made with two different types of glue. One is a phenolic glue, which is waterproof/boilproof - so what would be considered "marine rated" - it is identified on Baltic Birch with an "FSF" stamp. The second type of glue is melamine based, and while (technically) "waterproof", water "resistant" is more correct (on our side of the pond this would be classified as a sheet that can be used (structurally) if "protected" - like under shingles on a house roof etc. This second type of glue is identified with an "FK" stamp on the birch panels (and should be avoided on the hull/transom, but fine for interior stuff - bulkheads etc).
Also the grading system is typically with a double letter (single letters exist, but are not often seen on commercial panels), so you will see BB/BB or BB/CC. Just like over here the grade has to do with the quality of veneer layers, how well they are joined to form a single layer (higher grades = closer joins = less gaps etc) but the GOST ratings are actually a little more stringent than on our side so a BB rated birch panel has considerably better joins than a B grade in the APA rating system.
So while a Mar A-B would be a preferred structural marine panel and would roughly equate to a BS1088 panel (using the lloyds rating), a BB/CC FSF Baltic panel would be pretty close to the other two graded panels. There is one other advantage to the birch and one detractor. The advantage is that for any given thickness it will contain more plies than an APA panel, and usually "at least" equal to the BS marine ply, and considerably more plies as the thickness of the panel increases. A 12mm (roughly 1/2") panel with an APA rating of Mar A/B would have (typically) 5 plies. A BS1088 panel and the Vost panel would have 9 plies. On the downside, the BB and lower rated panels allow "patches" in the face plies. These are seen as very small football (not soccer) shaped "plugs" in the face veneer. These can "pop out" under extreme stress/flex and should be avoided for major structural panels. In the APA system you generally only see the patches (albeit about 2 1/2 times the size of those seen on VOST rated panels) on C grade faces and they are usually identified with a grade of "C-Plugged".
Now, for all my yapping here, this is my position on using Baltic Birch. Given the "crap" that the APA rated stuff has turned into in the past 20 years, I consider the B.Birch "far superior" to anything on the market with an APA rating. In the last 15 or so years even the (formerly) BS rated stuff has gone way down hill. So unless you are chucking big bucks for Joubert certified BS1088, the stuff that's being passed of as 1088 is barely better than 6566 Aquatek, so hardly worth the premium. Because of that, if you can find some BB rated Baltic Birch with the waterproof glue, FSF, stamp, you will have a vastly superior panel both aesthetically and structurally to anything else on the market. The biggest issue in North America is sourcing full sized panels. It is typically imported here in 5'x5' panels only."
In the end, I order a ordered a pile of yummy specialty plywood from Smith's Plywood for the new boat build.. U can spend quite a bit of time in a plywood specialty shop... I got the 1/2" in Baltic Birch, and had it delivered.
Alot of nice grains and beautiful wood. Smith's doesn't have Meranti or Okoume. I then went to PJ White's and was able to get both BS-6566 and BS-1088 Meranti for the build. I now am all set. Very excited to get going!
Picked up the first of many things to start off the "Mystnyx" Dianne's Rose project. I began a complete teardown on a 1963 FDL-17M which is an 18 HP Long-shaft Electric Start Johnson 2-cycle outboard. A relatively rare engine these days, but had a long and mighty run in the both the Johnson and Evinrude lineup, as OMC made Johnson and Evinrude 18's from 1957 until about 1973.
In that year, OMC changed the engine slightly, putting on bigger carburetor and began marketing it as a 25 HP. The old 18-20 hp Johnson/Evinrude motors were some of the best pound for pound motors ever made and very sought after these days. It was a good find for me at $200CDN, with a few things to be done, the motor was in a great condition overall.
Two-Stroke Versus Four-Stroke:
Most people shopping for a new motor assume that a 4 stroke is more powerful and, therefore, better. This isn’t necessarily the case. There are some advantages and disadvantages to each type of motor.
In a two-stroke motor, the crankshaft will turn once for every cycle of the piston. This engine creates power once every two strokes of the piston, which means more bang, for a smaller sized displacement.
Also, because it only takes two strokes for each cycle, there are less valves and gears which makes the motor lighter. In terms of horsepower to weight ratios, the two-stroke is an advantage.
In a four-stroke engine the crankshaft makes two rotations for every one cycle of the piston. This means that power is created one time for every four strokes. This means the engine works less hard, on each power stroke, and is more quiet.
The two-stroke requires that oil be mixed with the gas which can be messy, and reduce fuel economy. Burnt oil out the exhaust can also smell. These engines don’t require you to add oil, are more fuel-efficient, and have greater durability. However most four-strokes require professional service maintenance, while the two-stroke is easily maintained and repaired by the average do-it-yourselfer.
Contrary to popular belief, two-strokes aren't a dying breed. The fact is, carbureted two-strokes are going away due to their inability to comply with increasingly stringent emissions legislation. However, the DFI two-stroke outboards are thriving and remain popular.
In my case, it comes down to price, spend upwards of $2,700 and rely on a manufacturers warranty, or pay substantially less with something I can repair and maintain on my own. Currently, most lakes and oceans in B.C. still allow carbureted two-stroke engines, although environmental laws are changing. For now, I can get the "Mystnyx" out on the water - and look to a motor upgrade when the time comes.
The OMC 18 H.P. outboard was made from 1957-1973
This older style 2-stroke means that I will have to mix the oil with the gas. These OMC older motors were apparently one of the first that were built WITH needle bearings in the crankshaft and rods. However they still use a bushing on the top, or piston end of the connecting rods. I have seen see may ideas on outboard message boards as to oil ratios, all the way from factory recommended at that time of 16-1 up to way higher, depending on the age of the motor. What they usually do not mention is the type, or quality of this oil being used. These motors were recommended at 32-1 and with the full synthetic oils probably would have no problem with 50:1, although I will continue mix the recommended mixture.
After picking up the engine I needed to make an outboard motor stand - here is a quick and easy method:
Making a simple outboard motor stand
First thing will be to pull the carb apart and rebuild!
With the "Ethanol" blended gases, the old varnished cork floats need to be replaced.
The alcohol will cause the varnish to rub off and gum up the carb. In addition, all the fuel lines need to be made ethanol friendly, including the fuel pump.
Removing all of the "fuel" components and replacing them,
My 18HP FDL-17M Johnson Test-Running In A Barrel
All in all I repaired or replaced the following components:
Coils - Ignition Coil and Lamination with Grommet OMC Part Number: 0584477 x 2
Head gasket - Sierra International 18-2962 - Head Gasket OMC Part: 322332
Exhaust gasket - EVINRUDE JOHNSON Exhaust GASKET 316162
Replaced Thermostat and thermostat gaskets - Sierra International 18-0182-9 Thermostat Gasket - Pack of 2, Thermostat OMC Part 5005440, Thermostat Cover Gasket - OMC Part 0308328 - Thermostat Cover Gasket
In addition, I added the remote control brackets for the shift and throttle linkages.
It all came with a price, fortunately labour was free. The total cost of parts about $300 USD. So with the initial cost of the motor added. I am in it for about $700 CDN.
A great day! After investing $305 USD the plans arrived from Roy Schreyer and I was pleasantly surprised - they are very detailed - and have great illustrations!
Dianne's Rose in Rough Water
Looks like it can take some chop!
With the fall setting in and winter approaching it will be time to scour craigslist and the internet for usable and either low cost or free materials. It will also mean sourcing out marine-plywood. Searching for a power plant and of course, trailers. So much to be done!
