Narfi's Life after EU: Chapter Two - The Boat Factory

I have worked with my hands my entire adult life as an aircraft mechanic.
However I have never had a place of my own to work on my own projects.
All money plus some was sunk into the basement project, so EU withdrawl money went to the ~2100ish usd with shipping ShelterLogic tent/shelter. Much cheaper than pouring concrete and building an actual workshop.



I purchased it from solarhomes.org which seemed to have the cheapest price I could find. They don't actually stock the shelters but request them drop shipped from the manufacture who stocks the frames and builds the covers on an order per order basis then ships the package together.

http://www.solarhome.org/shelterlog...zYW59KBS25vrQU7aE_QkcORkCcrYNahsaAmd3EALw_wcB

 

July 1, 2017

Opened up my "Ikea on steroids" package and started putting it together today.



Ended up being a much larger project than I expected.
Started opening boxes around 10:30 and had some co workers scheduled to come help at 3.
By 3 I had about 80% of the frames pinned together and nuts finger tight on them.
One guy showed up at 3 and by 4.30 or so everything was ready to stand up. We left everything finger tight as we weren't sure how being tight would effect setup.

2 young yahoos walked by the path about that time and I drafted them to help set it all up.
It went pretty smooth. 2 men, 2 women, and 2 teen boys got it all up and pinned in place.

The boys needed to go home for dinner so I gave them a ride and bought them $10 milkshakes at the new food truck that was having it's grand opening today. (We have no stores or restaurants here. You would normally have to fly somewhere if you want a burger and shake you didn't make yourself)

Same time I was taking the boys home another coworker showed up to help.
My broad strokes "good enough for who it's for" leveling became glaringly obvious as the horizontal braces were VERY wavey. Thankfully Chip (The last guy to show up) turned out to be my details guy and was huge help getting the first wall straight. Thankfully our front porch was torn down last week and so I had lots of scrap 2x6s. (We are getting a double decker arctic entry where the porch was)

I somehow didn't plan ahead enough to have a long tape measure so we will square up the second wall tomorow after church and lunch.
I will probably skip church and go through finish tightning all the connections and wrapping in duct tape to prevent chafing on the cover.
Hopefully finished pictures tomorow.

 

July 2, 2017

1 step forward 2 steps back.........

I tightened all the nuts down and wrapped everything possible with duct tape.
After lunch chip came over with a long tape measure and we squared it up and got all the legs secured down.

End pannels/doors went on easier than expected and looked great!



The main cover comes folded like an accordion and we slid 3 poles through the edge and tied 3 ropes to them and threw over the peak. Just then a neighbor boys dad came walking through the yard looking for one of his boys shoes left here so we conscripted him to pull on one of the ropes. It was amazing how easy it was.... literally we just pulled on the 3 ropes and the cover slid over the top and into place.
Just as we tight end the ends down it started raining.
Thankfully we had a new cover to sit under while my wife brought out steaks and potatoes and huge glasses of water.

After tightening down the ends we realized our problem.
We had squared off the entire frame and fastened down every leg, however the bottom of each wall has slots which poles slide through and fastened between each leg.
We had leveled each pole and got them perfectly aligned but we never measured them for 4ft between each. Pretty much every one was off .5 to 1 inch and we had to pry out all the nails and slide the legs around to get the wall bottom poles in place.

The next issue is the entire cover seems to want to be toward the back door several inches more than the front. It also seems like we couldn't get it really tight, neither of us wanted to tear anything ratcheting it down to far but both agreed it needs to be tighter.

We zipped it back closed and gave each corner a few more clicks on the ratchets and called it a night.
We need to go back and secure the legs at proper widths and in line. They spring a round a little towards the center when not secured.
We are hoping that time and a sunny day will let us stretch the cover tighter over the frame and get it all more comfy with where it's supposed to be.

I'm happy with the size, seems like it will give me a good area to work in.
Because we blocked it up for leveling the end doors have an air gap at the bottom I will need to figure out a solution for.
The walls have extra flaps hanging down I need to figure out, I think I can cover them with dirt to make a good seal around the edges.

 

July 3, 2017


If you look at my picture from yesterday, you can see that the walls look loose and the bottom of the walls are pulling toward the back while there obviously isn't enough room around the front frame to let the entire cover shift that direction.

I decided that the pockets for the wall braces were incorrectly cut from the factory and recut where I thought they should go.

You can see in this picture the original pocket gap to the left and on the right where I recut the pocket to fit around the frame.

With the cover fitting more comfortably I ran a line and nailed down the legs in a straight line again.

Then I was able to force the wall braces down and tighten them to the frames. (Would have been alot easier with two people) I stood and slightly jumped on the braces and squatted down and tightened them enough I could hold it down with one hand and finish tightening.

I'm not sure what sequence you are supposed to do that in but I started in the middle and did pairs opposite each other working my way to each end and tightening the 4 corners last.

Ratcheted the four corners down as tight as I was comfortable with again and am pretty happy with the results. It's nearly as tight as a drum between each section.

Hindsight being 20/20 I would have done alot less before getting the cover on. Just squaring the 4 corners and letting all the other legs do their own thing. Then once covered and wall braces loosely installed worried about spacing and aligning the legs and securing them down.


I'm not sure the thickness, I think I knew when I was researching and purchased it. I think 9mil? Does that sound right?
It's a single piece (not sure if the inside and outside are two different materials though... It's white inside and grey outside.

We get cold winters here but not usually huge dumps of snow at once. Worst I've seen is probably a foot in 2 days or so.

You just heat from the inside to melt it off?
How much heat is needed (it's not usually below 20ish if it's really dumping so only need to raise it 15-20 degrees?)

Tonight I dug a shallow trench around the outside and burried the wall flaps. Then put an old steel pipe along the bottom of the back door I don't plan on using and burried it as well.

Then I raked a bunch more inside getting the edges filled back in and the entire room a bit smoother. Raking got all the stones off the surface as well.

I plan to put some shelves along the edge and stretch a tarp that is a little smaller than the room out to keep it a little cleaner. It won't be a sterile environment but hoping I can manage not to mix too much dirt in with my work.

Maybe I'll be ready this weekend to build the strongback for the fs17 this weekend and get it leveled. (I know the floor isn't perfect so will take some shimming to get it level)

The plan is to use it as the work table for building the hc14 first and then as the strongback for the fs17.

 

The tarp for the floor came in today so we staked it down offcenter to one side and the front.

On the uncovered side we setup shelving. 3 sets of shelving broke down to half night makes 6 table height shelves.

Drug out all the random toolboxes and random boxes of junk that's collected unsorted over the years of not having a work area at home. Landon started digging it out and setting it on the shelves as I setup the last one.

Tomorow hopefully have enough energy to go through it all and make some sort of order out of it. (Probably need to toss some of it)

The boss came out and set up her throne. Then announced she would be supervising.

 

July 6, 2017

terrulian wrote: ↑
Thu Jul 06, 2017 4:25 am
Quite impressive amount of progress in a short time!
It will be great to have a spacious shop to build your boat(s). You're making two boats, right?

That's the plan.
Starting with the hc14 for the learning curve and to get Landon in the water quicker.
Then the fs17.
I have all plywood resin and primer/paint for both here already thanks to BBC so now I just need the time :p
Working 60hr weeks but its light past midnight so doing as much as I can in the evenings.

 

Landon out in front of where I work in his blue plastic kayak.



Got all my boxes from BBC opened up and on the shelves. Can't give them enough praise for how well they packed it all.


There was one rainstorm since it all got here and even though I had several old sheets of plywood laying over the boxes and fiberglass It looks like one of the rolls got a little damp on the packing.


Is this a concern?
I removed the cardboard and for now it's just sitting on the shelf wrapped in the plastic it came in.
It's the cloth for the fs17 so probably another month or more till I use it. I think it should be fine but would welcome any advice.

 

July 7, 2017

Forgot I needed to stay up till midnight to change oil on our villages generator.(usage is usually low enough by midnight in the summer we can switch to our smaller generator during the oil change)

Since I was up with another hour to spare I moved all the marine plywood inside.



Thus concludes this chapter of my story.
Hopefully we will see a new HC14 build thread started here in the next day or two :p

 

July 20, 2017

Got a 12 Pac of led tubes off Amazon showed up today.
I got them put up mounted to thin strips of old plywood and held to the tent frames with a couple zip ties at each frame. ( ugly but should hold)

I still need to wire them up. Just the powered switch at one end and a jumper between banks at the other. They came with wire 'couplings to connect the ones in a line to each other which I did while installing them.

I did test each bay individually and they are going to provide all the light ull ever need


12 Pack Hykolity LED T5 Integrated Tube Light Fixture, 22W 4FT 2200lm 5000K Daylight White, Utility Shop Light for Garage, Basement, Ceiling, Under Ca https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071Y4LPBC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_ehrnbRFaZhiTI

 

This actually concludes this chapter of my adventures... Interesting how I used the same term in the previous post copied from the boating forum.
Next Chapter will be The HC14, aka Hiawatha Canoe 14'

 

That is a great looking model, did you design it yourself?
I can recognize the shapes are simple, yet the finished example looks amazing.
I don't have the ability to visualize and design like that, I can follow plans, but I guess my mind is wired differently in that regard, I have very little artistic abilities in those regards.

It is amazing to see what people can do though.