Plywood Arrives!

While trying to figure out where I was going to get the plywood needed for this build, I was able to make progress by cutting out frame components as noted in the previous post. Alas, the time came when I had to take action towards obtaining this important building material. I called several lumber and/or plywood suppliers in the mid-state area and the only thing I could find was some marine grade Douglas fir. The build requires a little bit of Douglas fir, but I was really needing a local supplier of the "exotic" plys that are typically used in plywood boat building - Okoume or marine grade Meranti. Despite my best sales pitches, I couldn't convince any area supplier to carry a selection of the "exotics". In fact, I couldn't even get them to place an order for me.

I've been conversing with a fellow Malahini builder who lives about 1.5 hours away from me and I asked him to combine our plywood orders to get a quantity discount. He thought that was a great idea but we still had the problem of locating a supplier. A little reading on the Glen-L forums gave us a couple of out of state options that fellow builders seemed to be satisfied with. We decided to go with a supplier from my former home state of Ohio - Homestead Hardwoods. We called in our orders separately and had Homestead combine the two orders into one shipment which was going to his dairy farm. We received a better quantity discount and saved money on the shipping.

The granddaughter and I borrowed a full sized pickup truck and headed out to the dairy farm to pick up 20 sheets of plywood. I was looking forward to finally getting the ply, but I was also excited about meeting the fellow builder whom I only talked to on the phone up to this point. It would also be educational to see a working dairy farm. As luck would have it, my contact forgot that I was going to his place to pick up the ply. Fortunately, a friend of his was able to give me access to my portion of the plywood order and he gave us the 10 cent tour of the dairy farm. The personal introductions would have to wait for another time.

Ashlee helping Pappy

Frame positioned on layout board

With the ply and lumber needed for the project in my shop, I now have what I need to build the hull. I cut out gussets for the frames from 3/8" marine grade Douglas Fir ply. I stacked (4) layers of ply and cut them all at once using the bandsaw and sander so that they are identical. I repeated the process for each set of gussets since they were not identical from frame to frame.The frame pieces were set on my layout board,  tacked in place with my brad nailer, and gussets epoxied at the joints by my wife, granddaughter, and I. Once dry, (I waited until the next day) I flipped the frame over and added the other two gussets. It is important to plan each session of epoxy work to minimize wasting this expensive material. We typically set up three stations during the frame glue-ups: 1) a new frame set up on the layout board 2) 2nd set of gussets installed on the previous days' frame 3) plywood component glue up. I estimated how much to mix and did the mixing and the wife did the spreading. I would go behind her and fasten the components together. This is working out well so far and my waste has been minimal.

My wife riding in the back of a 14' runabout
with "Ski King" who came from Oregon

A view of old dam from the
floating cabins dock

Now a side bar.......Before finishing the glue-up of all the frames, we took a break and joined fellow boat builders from the U.S. and Canada at the 7th annual Glen-L Gathering at Lake Nickajack near Chattanooga, TN. Even though the weather was rainy for about a 24 hour period, everyone had a great time. For a first timer like me, the experience was invaluable. To see the home built boats in person and to tap the brains of their owners was just phenomonal. EVERYONE was super friendly and were very patient with all of us newbies asking questions which I'm sure some of them have been asked over-and-over. I finally did get to meet Andy who is the gentleman whom I bought the plywood with and who is also building a Malahini. Next year's Gathering has already been scheduled and I am so looking forward to it even though my boat won't be ready.

Frames 1-4

Back from the Gathering and more energized than ever, we continued building 4 of the 5 frames and the plywood components. There are 5 frames (0 to 4) for the Malahini but I am holding off on the frame associated with the transom temporarily until everything is clear to me on how I need to make the transom. I am using very expensive Meranti 3/4" ply for the transom and I only get one shot at getting it right. The build of the other four frames went along and I double checked measurements of the components layed out on the board relative to the plan sheet to ensure accuracy. I tried to be extra careful in building frame #4 which is the forward most frame. The instructions state that this frame determines the shape of your hull and this is where the plywood stem will be mounted. The stem is the component that forms the "sweep" of the front of a V hull. This relationship will be shown in a later post.

One last note...I did purchase a boat and trailer for use on this project. The boat was junk but I was able to salvage the steering cable off of it and I will use the trailer. Until next time..........