Almost there.

I didn't get much done yesterday as I had Kat as a helper, and while she is more than willing, she's still a little young to be around power tools and a working boiler. Today, I had Eleanor for help and the pieces flew together. Here she is posing after a day of hard work. We bolted up all of the keel pieces and put all of the frames on except for 1 and 11. We missed those two mostly because we ran out of daylight, but I also left them until last because they'll need the most custom fitting to get on.

With all of the keel pieces together, you can really get an idea of how big the boat will be. You can't really tell from the picture but it just about fills the barn. (Granted I, designed it to to that, but it's still something else to see it all put together.)

The next move, once the final frames are on, is to put the chine logs on. I'm still a little skeptical that I'll be successful the first time bending them on, so I'll have to plan to both succeed and fail, and be prepared for either outcome. The hard part is the bow where the log must bend in to meet the stem and also twist 90 deg to match the twist in the planking. Stay tuned.

The good news is that tomorrow will be week two of no smoking, and I am finally past the stage of withdrawal signified by blinding rage at everything. Hopefully its all up from here.

Motion Study

At long last, I've put together an animation of the engine. I'm using SolidWorks and its one of those programs that has so much going on and can do so many high power, professional quality stuff that it takes some time to put together something simple. Anyway, here's the video:



It's only 5 seconds or so and as some jumps in it, it think because the video capture isn't exactly synched with the animation.

I stripped out a lot of stuff, like the piping and some structural stuff, so you can better appreciate the meshings of the scotch yokes, which I find mesmerizing. I left in some of the reference lines so that you can kind of see the pistons go up and down.

That's all I'm going to write on this right now. I'll answer questions, but I just fired up the boiler and am going out to work on the hull as soon as the barn warms up.

Progress at Last

The heat is working, all of the frames are cut out (including the stern post) and finally I started to bolt things together. I had ordered a bunch of fasteners from Jamestown Distributors, and I figured I had better start putting them to use. You loyal readers will recall my fear of drilling holes. Well no more. I'm cured of that. I'm full steam ahead, all puns intended.

As I was agonizing over all the things that could go wrong in the build, it occurred to me that I might be over thinking things a bit. It's only wood after all. And this isn't some high speed, high precision craft that will cause people to loose their lives if it pulls slightly to port. There is no leak so big that more caulk won't fill it. So drill away I did.

At this point I'm sure you're all expecting some tale of woe, a ribald tale of regret and remorse. Surely I'd pay for my rashness. Well, not this time. (At least not so far) Frames 4 through 7 are bolted to the keel batten just like in the drawings and the stem and fore keel are bolted to the batten.

As an aside, I have to just say what a handy thing a metal lathe is to have. I'm using threaded rod for a few connections and it always a pain the the *** to get it the right length. You either have to saw it or cut it or snap it and the threads are always f---ed up. I know, run a nut on there before you cut it and then run it off to fis the threads, but it never really works. What really works is chucking in the lathe and turning the front of it off just so, with a slight taper to ease the fit. Man, it was a beautiful thing.

I was going to continue this morning, even firing up the boiler and heating the barn but I was rudely summoned to the office. For those that don't know by now, I've been laid off (starting the end of Feb.) because my job has been outsourced and off-shored, so my motivation to do anything work related is at an all time low. But I still like to collect a pay check while they are willing to send one along, so Hi Ho, etc. Looks like I'll be in the office all week, so you'll have to wait for the weekend to see the finished frame. This time next week, we'll be discussing bending on the chine log and bracing everything for planking.

In the mean time, the only time that will be my own will be at night, when the barn is dark, so I'll be working on the engine drawings. I might, if you're lucky, I just might post some drawings later this week. Until then...

Bending over backwards

Finally, I've gotten something done. The steam box is complete an on line. This piece of equipment is for steaming the wood so that I can bend it into position. It was actually done on Wednesday but I only just got a chance to hook it up and test it today. It's 12 ft long and made out of white cedar that I reclaimed from some extra sections of fence I had laying around. Some of you may recall the lobster steamer I made last summer out of the same stuff. It's fairly knotty stuff and a good thing too otherwise I'd be ripping down my fence for planking. Knotty or not, it serves well for steam since it's rot resistant and is a fair insulator. The box has a door on one end and is just capped on the other. There are two steam inlets which are just some 1/2 in copper I sweated to fit and it connects to the boiler with the same heater hose everything else does.

For those of you who weren't in the NE this past week, it was extremely cold (for around here anyway) and my new hot well (see previous post for details) froze solid, but didn't crack or pop any fittings, so I'm viewing it as an unqualified success. I also fixed the radiator for heating the boat shed. I used a putty called FastSteel and it seemed to so the trick. Also, it cures in about and hour. I highly recommend it.

So I put 5 gal of water in the boiler this afternoon and got up some steam and opened the valves. The first thing is that the radiator exceedes my expectations. I couldn't get more than 5 lbs no matter how much wood I put in the firebox and the radiator turned it all back to water. It was about 90 deg F in the barn at one point.

I then tried the steam box. As I mentioned before, all of the oak that I have is kiln dried and very stiff and I'm not sure how it's going to work out. So I tried a scrap of 1X1 just to see. It was about 4 ft long. I cooked it for about an hour. When I took it out is seemed fairly flexible, but I wanted to see what sort of radius it would take. It wasn't much, but there was a lot that I did improperly (like leave the board rough instead of finished) so it wasn't a fair test. It bent about 30 deg before letting go so it worked fairly well. I had hoped to try to see it it would take a twist, but it snapped in half during the bend test so I just threw the whole thing in the boiler. To the left is a pretty neat pic of the inside of the steam box. It's shut down in this pic. The wisps of steam you see are just the cold air getting in. If you look in while it's running you can't see more than about 6 in. inside.

Well, the circulating hot water de-iced the hot well and now I have heat in the barn again so we should see a lot of progress now.

The Heat is ... Off

For those of you eagerly awaiting news of my progress, prepare to be disappointed. I squandered most of the weekend going over the drawings, making the pieces for the steam box (for bending wood) and trying to set up the boiler.

The boiler in question is the one from the old boat which I had removed (by myself, all 589 lbs of it) and set next to the pole barn. I had originally planned on using to fill the steam box when I was ready, and I still do. Also, while I was constructing the barn I also happened to remove the massive pre-war air conditioner from the house. I took from it the main condensing coil, strung that up from the rafters, but a fan behind it, ran some steam, and viola, heated barn.

For those of you who hadn't heard, the old boiler developed a leak in the seam around the firebox door after I had misjudged the weather and left water in the tank during a freeze. Nothing major, but that same freeze caught some water left in the coil and blew that out as well. So it was cold in the barn again.

Not to be deterred, I got out the mig gun and fixed the boiler some weeks ago good enough for steam now. For a new condenser, I visited a local junk yard and pulled a radiator from a Ford Expedition, milled some bushings to fit the hose inlets, put the fan back in place and ran the hoses to the boiler. Here's a pic of the installed radiator and the fan. Everything is held together with wire ties for those interested in the mounting tech.

I filled the tank up with the hose and it looked like I succeeded in my repair. No leaks from the previously busted seam. I then got up a few pounds of steam, turned on the fan and opened the valve to the radiator. There was an immediate hissing sound that was obviously a leak somewhere. Walking inside the barn, it was obvious that the seal around the inlet bushing was leaking a fair amount of steam. The bushings are run around with a bead of JB weld, which I had inadvertently cracked while putting on the plumbing, but I had machined the bushings to be within .01" of the opening, so I had hoped that letting it heat up would seal it up. But alas, it was not to be. The leak was not from the bushing seat, but whatever new fangled hose attachment plastic PoS that was still on there. I'll have to take it down and and figure something else out.

I also wanted to try out two other systems that I had worked up. The first was the new hot well system, I previously had the condensate dripping into a bucket which I then put back in the boiler with a foot pump. That was very tedious. I also wanted to have a place to blow down the boiler at the end of the day so that I wouldn't have to either leave it full and risk another freeze or waste the water and refill it each time. Luckily (not so much according to my wife) I had kept a plastic 30 gal drum from my biodiesel days. I put some fittings on that to both catch the condesate and as a holder for the blow down water. I have to say that it worked like a charm. We'll see how it handles a freeze. I may be back to the bucket yet.

All the valves worked fine, including the one connected to the accessory I was most excited to try out. The Earl has lent me a fine three note steam whistle to replace the little tooter that I have now. This thing is massive, with the longest horn coming it at a whopping 32"! It had to come off of some old steam tug or locomotive. I had hoped that I would get some fine notes out of it today. But it was not to be. I raised 20 lbs of steam and pulled the cord to only get a massive cloud of steam and a faint moan. We'll see when the new boiler is on line if it's even usable.

Norm Abrams can kiss my ...

Those of you who have seen the 'New Yankee Workshop" and have an affinity for such things can't help but be in awe of the fine pieces of word craft that he turns out. Of course no one watches that show for the projects, since they are invariably useless (make a Chippendale reproduction chair) or of such impracticality (5 tier, 6 drawer family credenza out of endangered tropical hardwood and tortoise shell inlay) as to be impossible without staff. What the show really is about is Tool Porn.

First, it's the 10K sq ft workshop (heated I might add). Then it's every word working gizmo that, unless you're doing a show for PBS, you might only use twice in your life. Like most of PBS, its for people with more time and disposable income than talent. Anyone could make anything with a shop like that. With tools like that, Norm should be making a working difference engine out of recycled pallets.

What I've always aspired to, and of course is a show no longer aired, is The Woodwright's Shop. You know the one. It has that skinny guy with the mustache who was always turning out some little wonder with hand tools. He had that foot powered drawing bench made out of a log. It was so primitive, it was amazing that everything didn't turn out looking like it was whittled with a cub scout pen knife.

What this post is really about, besides my contempt for over tooled hacks, is to sing the praises of two fine hand tools that I recently recieved as gifts. The first is an antique 18" jack plane that my uncle bequethed to me recently. The other is an amazing rabbet plane my wife got me for my birthday. The jack plane smooths lumber better than my electric joiner. The rabbet plane cut 24 perfect rabbets in some old cedar I had around in less than 20 minutes. It would have taken me that long to get the bit in my router. Anyway, here's some tool porn of my own for you to drool at.

Hard Going

After a flurry of activity its been slow going here at the boat shed. The frames are cut, the jig is built, the shed is waterproof at last, why haven't I put it all together and started bending my planks on? In a word, fear.

Too many times I've gotten to a point in a project where it suddenly dawns on me that I should have done something differently 5 steps ago. You have to remember that I'm not working off of plans that some naval architect came up with and has already been built before so that all of the pieces and curves have been thought through. This is straight from my head to the wood (with a quick stop in AutoCAD) and although I fancy myself a competent craftsman it's a big step to take.

So I've been reviewing the drawings and trying to imagine the difficulties I'm sure to run into and trying to see if there are stes I can take now to cut down on headaches later. The books I have on the subject are fine up to the point where they say "Now take care to follow the drawings carefully." Well, you can image how useful that advice is around here.

At any rate, I hope to have at least the forward frames together by the end of the weekend. In the mean time, I've exported the plan views from my drawing to post here so that you, my faithful readers, can see what I hope the finished product to look like. What you see are the side and top views with the frame uprights fore and aft (forward is on the right side). For an idea of scale, the stack (chimney for you land lubbers) on top of that box that is the boiler is 6ft high. The boat itself is 21.5 feet long and displaces about a ton unloaded. I figure it will be about 3k lbs loaded up, at least that's where I put the waterline (which isn't marked here). It looks now that most of the weight is in the stern, but that doesn't account for the coolers loaded up in the front. You can't believe the quantity of liquor it takes to operate one of these things.

How far we've come

Here's some pics of the old boat I had on my drive. I kept everything except the hull and the seat, both of which were truly decrepit. The second is a closeup of the home made engine that came with it. The whole getup was severely underpowered and could barely make headway against the mildest wind. And as the boiler was (is) of questionable condition, I never had the guts to run it above 15lbs of steam. In all it put out about 2 hp with everything wide open.

The new engine should put out about 10 hp and I'm hoping that the new boiler will be good to about 70lbs. I'll probably hydro it to 300lbs as that's as high as my largest gauge will go to and will give a nice safety margin.

For those waiting for new developments, I'm working on the steam system for the boat shed. I had to upgrade the old heating system as it didn't drain properly before a freeze and developed some serious cracks. I also added some fittings for the steam box and whistle and re-welded some seams on the boiler that developed some serious weeping under pressure. I'm usually a "safety last" kind of guy but something about high pressure steam makes me a lot more cautious.

A History Lesson

In case you missed it, here's the link for some press I got on the old boat "Piney Steemer".

http://blog.nj.com/boating/just_plain_fun/

There are some good pictures of the boat and the tiny engine that drove it. The hull by now hopefully living out the rest of it's life as a couple thousand beer cans. The working bits are currently strewn about my back yard waiting for their chance to sail again, much to the pleasure of my wife.

Framing the question.

After a month of design and another of cutting out and assembling the pieces, I did a loose fit of some of the framing. And I even remembered to take pictures. Here's one looking back from the bow. Eleanor is between frames 5 & 6.

This is inside the boat shed which is a 10X25 pole barn covered with plastic sheet. It's construction is a story in itself.


As you can see, its put together on a building jig made of 2X4s that gives a nice level surface for reference. The cross pieces are spaced at the same distance as the frames so they rest right on it in all the right places.

This is the view to the bow with frames 9 & 10. There are 11 frames in all. Frames 3 through 8 are basically straight boards bolted together. Frames 1,2, 9, 10, and 11 are cut to shape.

All the framing is local white oak purchased from Agincourt mill in Hillsborough, NJ. It's kiln dried plain sawn and very stiff. I'm hoping it doesn't swell so much as to pop the bolts holding it together. All in all there's about $700 of wood in it so far. I think I have enough to finish the frame with .

You can see the cut notches for the chine log. I'm going to try and bend that in from the same batch of lumber. I know air dried or green would be better, but I'm notoriously frugal and am hoping that some extra time in the steam box will make up for the dryness in what I already have.
This is the stern view. As you can see the stern post is missing! I originally tried to fit the curve by cutting and splicing 4 different pieces, but I met with limited success. My first attempts at bolting them together didn't work out as planned and the epoxy failed at one joint. So contrary to my nature, I went and purchased a suitable board to make it all in one piece. I haven't cut the new one out yet.

For the love of God, Why?

The problem with having a blog is you need to have something to say, and the discipline to post it regularly. We'll see if I have either of those. (I'm sure those who know me will have something to say on the matter.) So here it is, my personal bridge between the 21st and 19th centuries, a chronicle of my attempt at constructing a working 22ft wooden steam boat from scratch.

My love of steam power goes far back, but it only started to be fully realized last summer when I happened to purchase my first home-made steam boat from another local steam enthusiast. After running that boat until it broke, I resolved to try my own hand at it. We'll see how it goes.

For those interested, the designs are all my own. I'm not an engineer by training, but I figure, considering the engineers I have known, how hard could it be? The hull is a scaled down version of a classic side-wheel carvel planked river boat. The boiler is a modified steam tube Yarrow type and the engine is a single expansion, double acting 6 cylinder in a rotary configuration.