Beginning the framework

Today was a dreary and windy, but dry and not too cold day on the Savannah River.  Jim, my friend, yoga instructor and project expert carpenter arrived about noon and we got a good 4 hours work in before the light failed. We had spent a few hours Friday making a pattern for the aft cross member and mocking up joints in cheap southern yellow pine. That was time well spent.

At the start, the work looked kind of strange with just two fir 2x4s, a lot of clamps and temporary props:

At this point, we made many eyeball-type adjustments, seeking to visually connect the rearward slope of the hard top frame with the overall geometry of the boat.  After we got something that looked pleasing from the other side of the dock, Jim spent considerable time measuring and re-measuring to make sure dimensions were consistent from side to side, in and out, and up and down.

It's not obvious, but where the boat sits at our dock is only about 50 feet up a ramp and across a patio to my workshop. I thought a long time about whether this work would be easier done on the trailer under a shed at my boat storage place. In the end, the decison was made to stay in the water, near the shop and its tools. I think this was a good move. While we were subjected to a fair amount of ski boat wakes during the day, that annoyance was more than offset by not having to work with the boat high on the trailer. And, there's also the matter of all the travel time I would have wasted going back and forth to the shop for forgotten tools.

So, today, with a bandsaw in my nearby shop, it was not much of a chore to use Friday's pattern to shape the aft cross member, then tack it up to check the fit:

This cross member will be mortised into the longitudinal 2x4 stringers next week if the weather remains agreeable.

Probably the next step after that will be to build attachment pads for the 1-inch stainless steel tubular rail stanchions that will hold up the back of the structure. At this point, we will start glueing up the joints with thickened epoxy, and all those temporary clamps will go away. The glueing will be a temperature-critical operation, because the epoxy glue won't cure satisfactorily in temperatures below 60F.

Meanwhile, this looked like a good place for us to stop today:

Finally, I would be most grateful if you would let me know how you like the way this chronicle is unfolding. Too much detail? Not enough? Unanswered questions? Other issues?

I am new to Blogging, so there is much for me to learn. I would like to provide something useful and interesting here. If you have ideas about how I can make it better, please let me know.