Making sawdust begins

I don't have a garage, so the boat will be assembled in a back yard tent-like shelter, but I do have a work shop in my basement. 

As it's probably too cold to do any epoxy work, I thought I would start the process by cutting the frames, bulkheads, and transom.  By splitting a few of the frames down the center and cutting them as separate pieces (scarfing them back together later), I can get all the frames out of 4 sheets of plywood.  

I carefully drew out each piece on the first two sheets of plywood, then rough cut around them with a jigsaw, making them small enough to carry the first four major pieces into my basement work shop.  That was all the time I had this weekend.  Next weekend I do the fine cutting and maybe epoxy the transom together.

layout in fine ink, rough cut in sharpie marker.

 

Raising the sheet on blocks for cutting.  

four pieces in the basement work shop.

 Although the stack of plywood in the shed looks flat, this Okoume marine grade plywood is highly flexible and it has sagged and warped a little because the supporting saw-horses and frame are only 3 feet by 12 feet in size.  After putting the 4 new pieces on my basement work bench, I added some weights to hopefully flatten them out again during this work week.

Shed Door

 Built the shed door from scrap plywood.  Covered the outside with plastic.  Hung it using some spring loaded hinges.  Added a catch on the outside to keep the wind from banging it in the night.

 

Plywood Arrives

 Here's the mostly completed shed.  Originally I thought it would only have a roof tarp, then I decided if I want any chance at all of working during the winter I'd better wall it in.  Even with the walls, the greenhouse effect may not be enough to do epoxy gluing in the dead of winter (December, January).  I left the end open to carry in the plywood. 

 An inside shot.

 When I was ready to go get the plywood (90 miles away), I thought I'd better call them a day or two ahead and confirm.  Glad I did, they only had 4 sheets in stock.  After talking to a couple of different people, they said they would place an order for more and it would be 2 weeks because its got to come from the east coast.

7 weeks later....  The plywood finally arrived! 

Had borrowed the brother in-law's trailer with the thought I would tow it with our Nissan Rouge, even though the tow capacity is technically less than what the trailer and plywood would weigh.  But the week the plywood arrived, the Rouge was in the shop.  Ended up using the brother in-law's car and trailer.  

The good news is that the plywood turned out to be nearly as beautiful as their brochure showed it, and the new price was only a little more than the original price they quoted.  Even at the new $80 per sheet it still saved me $1200 more than what I could find locally.  20 sheets of 12mm (1/2 inch) and 4 of 6mm (1/4 inch).

Here's the stack of plywood.  2 stacks making a 16 foot long table to work on. 

 

The work shed all battened down.  (I still have the door to make.)