Silva Bay Shipyard School Blog

David has been working on the mast – 16 sides in this picture! All hand planed!

16′6″ long, solid fir.

The bottom of the keel has a large chunk of bronze strapped to it for protection. You can just see the centerboard installed. Bob is installing beach strips.

The beach strips are made of Oak and are fastened into the frames.

The stem, faired and ready to have bronze strapping attached…

Trevor made patterns for our pintles and gudgeons. They were sand cast in bronze and sent to the shop. My job was to make them pretty and drill all the holes for fastening. After 2 days of work they will have a mirror finish!

Here they are rough sanded, drilled and countersunk. Trevor’s patterns are the 2 in the foreground. Pretty swank.

After heating the bronze to red hot on a huge propane Bunsen burner Trevor and I installed the pin. First it had to be covered in flux and then pounded into the red hot bronze. Then we used a propane/oxy torch to braze the pins into place. Serious metal work for woodworkers!

Primer coat #1.

With the paint on we can see all the spots that need some sanding on the hull… looks pretty good for a first round.

Shiny!

The rudder needs to be installed on the deadwood and transom. Here is the gudgeon being mortised onto the deadwood.

Here is the rudder almost fully assembled. The slot is where the removable tiller will fit, after the top ‘cheeks’ are installed. The pintles have been aligned on the boat and installed. The fin on the bottom, with epoxy fillet is also on the go – paint next.

This pintles will be covered over with the rudder cheek – when the rudder needs replacing in 100 years, the hardware will have to come out and all will be revealed.

David has finished the spar and is now starting the 7-8 coats of varnish needed for launch day.

We used 4 different methods to get the waterline – finally settling with this taped off version.

Bottom paint with stem and sheerstrake left ‘bright’. Looking pretty swank.

Check out the mirror finish on the transom. Hot.

Boat is back over and ready for carlins, flooring, seats and interior details. Paint and varnish on the topsides – Hateras White.

Here are the floor boards going in – removable for storage and bailing.

The funny looking cat boat rudder.

Another coat of 3-2-1 on the interior for protection.

Another coat of topsides, starting to look pretty sweet. The hull shape is looking hot with some gloss.

Floors fully installed with seat stanchions in place.

Carlins finally installed and faired to the deck camber.

The coaming glue up #1. What a gong show. Very cranky bends in this coaming, but it is going to look great as one continuous piece.

The glue up had to be done over 2 days, as we used all the clamps in the shop and can overlap the joints until they are scarfed.

The deck is on!

Another view of the deck in place.

Trevor fabricated the traveler or horse for the aft deck. Looks sick rad.

The lines are all coming together -the camber, the sheer, the coaming. We have decided to leave the cabin off the boat for a myriad of reasons…. we will see.

The doors of the shop are open – its just painting and rigging left. One week to launch!