Sunshine! And wood!

I got my wood today! Two sheets of 1/4 inch marine grade plywood. They're gorgeous. Getting them in my truck was a project, because I have two gigantic sandbags in the back that weigh about 90 pounds each, a little more than my mother and I usually are lifting. Luckily, the man who sold me the wood was extremely helpful in lifting those and loading the wood. So here it is!

I think the patterns in the wood are so beautiful:

So I laid one sheet on the driveway, and began to draw the first set of lines. It was so sunny and lovely, I could sit in just a tee-shirt. These were just the simple, straight across lines 1' apart.

 I attempted to use the chalkline, or the mouse as I like to call it, to draw the last line, but the only thing that ended up covered in chalk was me. So I used pencil.

DRILLZZ N' SKILLZZ

Every time we've ever taken a family a family trip to Home Depot, Lowe's, or any other store that sells tools, my father threatens to buy a cordless drill. For years, we have not been able to pass the display without stopping for a look, but he has never actually done it. Well, finally he has a really great reason: his lovely daughter (eh em, yours truly) is building a canoe. So, now we have one! And it's really fun!! I like to drill!
We drilled some holes and put screws in and then took the screws out and practiced making the holes straight and I'm really excited. I'm getting to be a pretty good driller, not to brag.

Gleaning from the Past

Finally, the Gleaning from the Past entry. The idea was that we would read a journal, narrative, and research commentary of someone who had completed WISE previously. This entry is a little late, but I still remember the journal I read quite well. I read the journal of a girl who graduated in 2004, and her project was building a dollhouse. I saw some similarities between the two of us. She too did not have much experience with woodworking, she was working closely with her father, and she had trouble keeping readers up-to-date with what she was doing. I know that I don't necessarily put everything in my journal, but after reading hers, I see that details are very important. I also saw that she got quite frustrated quite often with her dad because they often disagreed on the best way to go about things. Things usually went his way. I kept wishing she would have been more assertive. Not that I plan on any disagreements, but I know I struggle to be assertive as well. I think that reading a journal was a great thing for us to do-It's a reminder to try not to be to boring when we journal, and a reminder to explain vocab words and ideas as if the reader has no idea what your project is.

Out of the Rut

7 Things I want to accomplish in the next week:
Finish cleaning the garage
Finally do  my "Gleaning from the past" entry
Pick up wood (IT"S HERE!)
Draw lines on the wood where to cut
Journal about my mentor meeting (which I should schedule...)
Play with tools
Journal about drills

4 ways my project has changed thus far:
Strip canoe to a pirogue
No more steaming
Used plans instead of my own plan
I am a little behind on my timeline

5 things I enjoy doing in relation to my project:
Journaling-the writing can be fun!
Getting messy with sawdust and garage-grime
Talking to other people in the class about my project and theirs
Interacting with people I come across-for example the man who made the plans
Reading canoe books

5 things I've learned about myself in working on my project:
It's really hard to spend time in the garage when it's cold out
I still hate to make decisions.
It's hard to talk about what has gone a little wrong.
I don't like talking about budgets.
It's hard to journal about what I'm doing without becoming the "Diary of a Cat"

17 Years of HBIs

Cleaning The Garage

The garage is a source of contention in my household. This is a place you will never, ever be able to park your car. It seems that somehow everything that is ever brought home ends up spending at least a little of its life in the garage. Things were put on a shelf "temporarily" ten or fifteen years ago, and no one really knows when they will find a "permanent" home. So cleaning the garage is no small job. This is where I plan on doing my building, so though it is a feat, the cleaning had to be done. And because yesterday was the first beautiful, sunny day in a long time, it seemed as good a time as ever to venture into its depths. My dad and I began. I  My dad has a lot of HBI's (or hair-brained ideas) and each box of old split screws and bins filled with mysterious liquids somehow related to painting or varnishing represents one of these. Each thing brings out the story of an old project, and the question of whether it will ever be finished. Mostly, it just makes a mess. We put an hour in yesterday sorting through the chaos, and I'm impressed with how far we got. There's now room enough to twirl around through the middle, as long as you don't get too carried away.

Before:

After:

The Two Row Wampum Renewal Project

I attended a lecture yesterday during Economics class, and it was on the "Two Row Wampum Renewal Project", which was a treaty between the Haudenosaunee, who at one point occupied most all of New York State, and the Europeans. The two row wampum looks like this: 
The white represents the river of life, with one purple stripe representing the indigenous people in their canoes, while the other represents the Europeans in their ships. The wampum is meant to symbolize that the two groups are equal and can live in proximity and have economic relationships peacefully. The renewal project has begun because for the first time the U.N. will be talking about rights for indigenous peoples, so this group will be canoeing from Albany to New York City to arrive at the U.N. just in time for the conference. I thought this talk applied quite interestingly to my macro research, and I look forward to reading the brochure I recieved again more thoroughly.

Making Sawdust

I started practicing some scarph joints today, until it started to snow into the garage and I froze. I guess this is spring in Ithaca.  I'll post some pictures tomorrow, they're looking kind of cool!

Monday

Just a few thoughts from class today:

We talked a bit about blogging and journaling- what the appropriate amount to do is, what we should be journaling about, etc.  I was impressed by Maria's post on her blog on how she was disappointed in her classmates for not blogging as often as we all should, and I'm glad Ms. Lord shared it with the class. I know I may be slacking a little in my own journaling, and so I will be trying a bit harder to keep up with that.

We also talked about the "Gleaning From the Past" assignment that was due today. We were each given a copy of the journal, narrative, and research commentary of a past WISE project and were asked to evaluate it. I read a project from 2004 on building a dollhouse. Today, Ms. Lord asked us to list:
2-3 gems of the project
The love this girl put into her project, what she learned about her relationship with her father
2-3 oops could've gone better
I wish she'd been more assertive. She was doing this project with the help of her father, and whenever they disagreed, everything always ended up his way. You could tell this was not okay with her, but she never did anything to change it, and you could tell she desperately wanted to be in control of her own project.
2-3 things you're going to borrow
I should borrow her lack of procrastination, and her excitement for her project.

Just a crazy idea...

An Email That Made My Night

So what I did not write about it my last post was that the plans actually call for 3/8th inch plywood. This is non-existent. I emailed the man who created the plans, but then left it up to chance that he'd actually answer. So my dad and I decided that 1/2 inch would work the same. But just now, I checked my email, and I had a response. It's pretty interesting, and there's so much helpful information. I think it means a quick change in my order(Danby Hardwoods is probably getting pretty sick of me!) I also put in bold a line that I particularly liked: 

Hello Julia:

Thank you very much for finding a glitch in the plans. Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth when I first made these plans I apparently had a slip of the memory. The 3/8" plywood bottom was supposed to be optional for extra strength, 1/4" was supposed to the the standard version. My wife and I went through several rounds of proof reading and we brought in a friend of mine who is an experienced professional boat builder. None of us caught the oversight. Over the years that this design has been on the market virtually all of the buyers have been first time boat builders. They have all not questioned my call for 3/8" plywood bottom planks and apparently none of them are psychic and couln't read my mind to divine my true intentions. So there a re a whole fleet of Zydeco 14s out there that are a little bit heavier than they need to be. Fortunately, the Zydeco 14 is an inherently light canoe. This a pretty embarrassing mistake. However, I guess that if our mistakes in life are of the non-lethal kind, we should count ourselves as being lucky.

Just to be clear, 1/4" plywood is the standard thickness for the bottom planks and side planks in these canoes. I have had a couple of Zydeco Pirogues over the years. A few times they got some pretty hard knocks in whitewater and elsewhere. They were undamaged. There are hundreds of these Zydecos out in the world from the Yukon Territory to Germany. I have never received a report of structural failure of any kind.

Here are a few thoughts on marine plywood. Fir marine plywood seems to have suffered a decline in quality in the past few years. Be careful if you buy some, inspect it closely. Everyone is all enthusiastic about Occume plywood these day. It is pretty, is well made and is reasonably priced. I hate it. It has virtually no rot resistance and is quite weak. It has about one half of the sheer strength of fir plywood to resist puncture by rocks and logs. I have repaired a driftboat made from Occume that was only a year old and had extensive dry rot in the plywood. I repaired another Occume driftboat that had it's bottom plank completely ruptured by a minor hit from a rock. If you absolutely have to use Occume, it MUST be fiberglassed on BOTH of the plywood. Sapele plywood is top of the line. It is always my first preference, if you can stand the weight and cost. Sapele is an African Mahogany. Meranti Plywood is pretty good. Hydrotek is one brand name that I like. Look for the old British grading code BS1088. There are some east asian plywoods. I am suspicious, they seem to be similar to Occume.

Thanks again for spotting my mental slip.

WOOD

I got a call back from Danby Hardwood, and they can indeed order wood for me! They told me they could have the wood in a week, or maybe a little bit more. I ordered a sheet of 1/4 inch and a sheet of 1/2 inch. They also have a bit of the hardwood I will need, but I haven't exactly begun to think about that yet. This means a real canoe will be built soon!

Meeting with my Mentor

I met with Mr. Heurich again today, 4th period. This week has been a little strange, so I haven't stuck to my schedule as much as I should have. Therefore, I'm a little behind. We talked about how to keep up with the timeline, and what I should be doing while I wait for supplies. It was a good meeting.

Marine grade plywood is much harder to find than one might think.

My mom, brother, and I drove out to Danby Hardwood today to talk to the guy we'd contacted over the phone, and who'd said to bring my plans and he could look at them and try to help figure a few things out. We got out there, and the guy who was there was not the man we'd talked to, but a different guy, so we explained who we were and what we were looking for. He was not exactly the friendliest person in the world, and I think he was looking forward to heading out soon, so I don't think he was exactly happy to see us. In fact, he was a bit chilly. He didn't have any of the information on marine plywood that I had come looking for, but he said he'd call with it tomorrow. Essentially, the trip was sort of a disappointment.

however, I heard from a faily friend that there's a lumberyard in Syracuse that sells the plywood, and I wouldn't have to order it, I could just go get it. So I'm now searching through all 41 Google Search results for lumberyards in Syracuse to find the right one.

Practicing

Two questions from class today: What are you doing well? What can you do to improve your practicing?

I think a lot of my project has been "practicing" rather than "playing" if we're using the guitar metaphor, because this project is all so new to me. I think I'm doing a good job researching and figuring out little problems and puzzles, but I know I need to start being a little more courageous. I think I'm a little timid about "playing new songs," or really beginning the canoe building. To improve, I should be journaling more often about my research and project process, and I really need to just dive in and start working with wood and getting a little messy.

Questions

I met with my mentor, Mr. Heurich, again today. We talked about a lot of things, one of which was time. I can see that if I'd like to do each step carefully and well, I may not finish the boat in time for the end of the class. I realized that is okay with me. I'd love to finish by then, and have a completed project, but I'd rather not rush through the important things. I think I'll learn more by not rushing, and be happier with the end result.
We decided that while I wait for wood to come, which should be late March, which is a little later than I wanted but at this point is my only option, I should practice the woodworking skills I will need, particularly the types of joints I will need to make, on scrap pieces of wood.
Today I also made a list of questions I'd like to answer before beginning the boat:
How necessary is it to use fiberglass cloth?
Do I need to use oil finish?
Do I need to use epoxy filler of does sawdust work the same way?
What does "unmanilla" mean?
Is chine tape the same as fiberglass tape?
What are the pros and cons of copper wire vs. steel baling wire?
What are the pros and cons of stainless steel vs. bronze screws?

Lists and more Lists

So I've spent a bit of time looking for the recommended reading books in the Cornell library catalogue. Apparently they have none of them. So I will keep looking.

I also made a list of things I will need that the supplies list did not include, but were listed in the instructions. Among these is a propane torch, which I thought was sort of a big thing to leave out, but what are you going to do? The other things are acetone, squeegee, notched plastic spreader, cardboard, and a sharp plane.

 I also found some diagrams that will be helpful in identifying parts of the boat.

Good Things Come in Threes

So this is indeed my 3rd post within the last four hours...but blogging should happen when ideas are fresh in your mind right?

So I have begun dissecting the "Instructions" packet. I must say, it is quite thin.

The first segment is "Recommended Reading." I have found one of the books online in a pdf format.... http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/HowTo-Publications/GougeonBook%20061205.pdf
And I do indeed have a copy already of Wooden Boat Magazine, but the rest are cannot be found too easily. None of them are at the Public Library, and none at the school either. I might have to venture up the hill a little to Cornell's libraries and see what I can find.

The next section is "Tools and Materials."  I'm making lists.

Minimum Required Tools

Have:                                
pencil
eraser
handsaw
tape measure
carpenter's framing square
try square
hammer
screw driver
pliers and wire cutters
old scissors
2-3 saw horses
clamps (and more clamps)
safety goggles
sanding block

Will look for in garage/figure out what I should be looking for:
chalk line
1/4 dia round rasp
plastic autobody filler spreaders
#8 combination drill bit
electric drill motor
jigsaw

Optional useful tools:

I have no idea what any of these really are. So under the What is this? column is:
band saw
table saw/chop saw
3/8" cordless variable speed reversible electric drill (I think there's something like this in the garage?)
orbital palm sander
2000 rpm electric palm sander
router
jointer
planner


Supplies

Have:
sandpaper
masking tape
bristle brushes
foam brushes
waxed paper
paper towels
cloth rags
plastic sandwich bags
stirring sticks
16 oz plastic tubs

Shouldn't be too hard to find:
acid brushes
rubber gloves

There is advice on plywood, lumber (white ash is recommended?), fasteners (stainless steel sounds like the way to go?), epoxy, and finishes. Though the instructions say that epoxy is better than polyester resin, I am going to use resin anyway, because it is less corrosive for people to work with, far cheaper, and I'm still not sure the difference is as pronounced as many people say it is.

Also, here is the Order of Assembly: (time to brush up on my parts of the canoe vocab)

1. Cut out plywood planks
2. Precoat planks with epoxy
3. Sand planks
4. Assemble hull with wire loops
5. Install temporary cross spalls
6. Apply fillet to joints
7. Fiberglass inside joints
8. Turn hull upside down
9. Shape outside joints
10. Fiberglass outside joints
11. Turn hull rightside up
12. Install gunwale ends
13. Install decks
14. Install ribs
15. Remove spalls
16. Install inwales
17. Assemble seats
18. Install seats
19. Apply paint or varnish finish
20. Install stembands
21. Install rope seats

A little vocab here:
gunwale: the top edge of the side of the boat
inwale: the inside finished edge
fillet: the "glue" of "stitch and glue" method; done when two plywood edges meet
spall: a temporary wooden brace, goes horizontally
stembands: a hole for riggings

BIG THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

I didn't want to double post, but the mail came!!

PLANS PLANS PLANS PLANS PLANS

They are here! Finally.

They are crazy and complicated and I think I'll be spending quite a bit of time just sort of looking at them. 

I now have a real list of materials, a better idea of how far in over my head I am, and things to do!
My favorite sentence of the introduction is "First look at the plans to get familiar with the boat and your building process. Decide what building materials that you want to use. Then go ahead and build your boat."
This guy makes it sound so simple! 

Also, a shout-out to my brother for picking this up for me at the bookstore-Thanks Nick and Mom! This will be very useful.

Barnsong

Today in class we watched a documentary about a student who built a barn as his WISE project. The cool thing was that while he was building the barn, another student was creating the movie that followed him through his process, so it was really the story of two intertwined projects. I really enjoyed seeing it. I see now that a WISE project really can take any form you want, that it might take longer than you expect, and that you don't necessarily need to a finished product by the end-this student raised his barn in August of that year. I was amazed at how ambitious this project was. If this kid could go from the trees in his woods to a finished barn-then I give him a ton of credit. It's awesome! I makes me think that I can definitely build a canoe. The footage from the movie was beautiful-it captured all the details, like you were there in the woods cutting down trees too.
From these two projects, I see the amount of dedication and love that went into each. It makes me wonder how everyone's projects will turn out, as well as my own. I'm curious to see what happens.