We are Moving

After more than 10 years in this spot, we have sold our house. We will be moving both home and office between Christmas and New Year. Our mailing address will remain unchanged, as will our telephone numbers and email.

There will be disruption in our service during this period. Aside from moving, we will have to set up all of our computers, plan printers, network and internet connection. It may last the full week between Christmas and New Year. We also have a new 36" roll plotter that must be set up and brought into the network.

Anyone wanting to order plans before Christmas must please do so in the next few days. Any orders received after Tuesday 23rd December may not be shipped until after New Year. I apologise for any inconvenience but ask you to please bear with us during this period.

Here are our contact and other details:-

Dudley Dix Yacht Design
1340-1272 N Great Neck Rd #343
Virginia Beach, VA 23454, USA
Tel (757)962-9273  Fax (888)505-6820
Email dudley at dixdesign dot com
Website http://dixdesign.com/
Blogs http://dudleydix.blogspot.com/ & http://boatbuilder-tips.blogspot.com/
Facebook http://facebook.com/DudleyDixYachtDesign/
http://psoriasis-spot.blogspot.com/

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Review Philly Planes Moving Fillister and other things

Contd from Rabbets are in season

Serendipitously theres an article by Jim Tolpin in the November/December issue of Woodenboat magazine about rabbet planes. In it he reviews a number of different types: shoulder planes, moving fillisters, whacking great carriage makers planes (what sort of clinker lethiathans does this man build?) woodies, side rabbet planes and little bull nose planes.
He identifies three uses for them in a wooden boat: rabbets, gains and fillets (cross grain rabbets).
Gains are the sloping rabbets at the ends of the planks that I was most interested in when I was choosing a plane. I took Phil Edwardss advice about this but neither of us considered one important factor that Tolpin doesnt discuss either: moving fillister planes only cut one way.
My lovely Phily Planes moving fillister cuts beautiful rabbets from right to left. This means that gains at the left end of a board are childs play. Gains at the right hand side are a mess. No plane likes cutting up into the grain and this one is no exception.
The solution is simple. Buy a left handed counterpart for another £240.
Perhaps not.
On a recent trip to Maine I paid a visit to the Lie Nielsen showroom. I spent a happy couple of hours testing dozens of tools and established the following:
I dont have enough tools.
I dont have enough time.
I dont have enough money.
I do, however, now own a very large shoulder plane which, despite its low angle iron for cutting end grain, cuts very good gains. Particularly with a fence clamped on top of the plank.
The two planes work well together. The moving fillister will cut a perfect rabbet and an excellent gain at the left hand end and then a rather ropey gain at the right which the shoulder plane will then clean up.
Happiness, it seems, is an overflowing toolbox.
I learnt one other important lesson: take a first aid kit with you when shopping for hand tools.

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Moving forward

Sometimes during the build when I would abruptly run head first into the learning curve, I would get a little discourage, feeling like I was doing two steps back for each step forward. Right now, I feel like good progress is being made and things are headed  in a good direction.

I chipped out all the burnt foam and prepped and primed the metal where the paint was burned off from welding on the super structure. This was a pretty tame job, which did not take much time and had me more convinced how easy foam is to deal with.

With all the metal now primed, I spent a morning patching in the framing and cleaning the boat to be ready for the foam crew. Once the foam job was ordered, we waited about a week for them to show up, and watched them blow through our job in about an hour.

The last big welding job on board is to weld the exhaust stack between the salon deck and the roof. I had to buy a sheet of 1/8", and some angle to build two access panels. I was tempted to not sand blast this last welding job, but Ive blasted every piece of metal in this boat and theres no reason to start doing things wrong now. All the chimney parts are cut, fabricated, blasted and primed, waiting for me to weld them in the chimney. Ill post a blog on that job after I get it finished this weekend.

All the lumber to finish the ceilings is sitting in the barn ready to get primed. 4" bead board will be used for the master cabin and dressing room. 6" V groove will be used for the salon and wheel  house. The ceilings will go in before the wall material. The ceilings will get painted.

When I started on this build I did a lot of reading on what  trawler is, and what makes a trawler a go anywhere type boat. Naval architects use ratios to qualify their work, and one of the important ratios for me was the displacement to length ratio or the D/L. This ratio tells one what the heft of the boat is. How much fuel you can carry, how much water, food, parts, tools, toys, etc... can be put safely on board. For me having a go anywhere boat meant having a relatively heavy D/L. The D/L ratio has sort of been relegated to my brains back burner until the boat yard put a 38 Marine Trader next to me. True, Im a 44 boat vs the 38 Marine Trader, but the difference in the D/L between the two vessels is stark.

This time next week, I should be full blown back in to wood working. Winter is sneaking up on us, and Im looking forward to how easy it will be to keep the boat warm, and the sweet smells of the freshly milled Cherry lumber.

Cheers

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