12 Foot Catboat

12 Foot Catboat
Designed by Edson Schock - Circa 1940's

Follow me as I build a 12 foot catboat from plywood and pine. The boat was designed by Edson Schock in the 1940's. This is a project born of a desire to have another boat to sail here in Puerto Rico that will stand-up to the Trade winds. The sail plan will be changed to a gaff rigged sail. All the lumber is locally bought and pine will be substituted for oak, which is not readily available here. Marine plywood will be used.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Rough Cuts

My order that I placed Friday from Jamestown Distributors arrived Monday morning. Pretty darn quick!

I bought lumber on Monday from the local lumber yard, including my first panel of 3/8" thick marine plywood. A standard 4' x 8' panel runs $69 here.

I have to use it to make sure that the plys do not separate, like they might with exterior plywood. Also, there are no voids in marine plywood, no open gaps.

The longest piece was a 1x8" x 16' long piece of pine that I will use to make 1-1/2" wide stringers that will be attached to the corners of the frame. That will come later but I also will cut a thin strip from it to use as a batten and help make sure the curves line up correctly between the frames as I erect them.

I began ripping the boards into 2-1/2" wide pieces this morning, until I had 86 linear feet, this is supposed to be enough to supply wood for all the frames according to the designer, but I am not so sure.



After the frame wood was ripped, I began to cut pieces to the rough sizes I will need for each frame. I cut 3 of the smaller frames today and they alone used nearly 36 linear feet of frame material!



Frame #2

At this rate, with 8 more even larger ones to go, I am going to use a lot more that 86 linear feet! I see more ripping in my immediate future.



Frame #3

It felt good to finally begin the building process. There is a lot to do before I can begin to assemble the frames into their final form but stick with me and you will see how it gets done!

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