Boatbuilding

9 Boat Bottom Types

9 Boat Bottom Types

Along the past decades, more and more people have learned how to use hand and power tools for their diy wood working projects and a lot has been done lately in the diy boat building area. Many of those projects often turn out very creditable jobs.

A lot of these people are turned off by the thought of making something that is not all square corners. Boat building process usually involves bending wood or other flat material to form curved shapes and that discourages people. When they look into boatbuilding plans and see that it usually starts with a lines plan and the attendant table of offsets that dimensions the curves they usually don’t move from there.

Constructing the first boat, doesn’t matter how small it is, is an experience not to be soon forgotten. Watching a hull grow from flat paper drawings and flat material into a shapely form provides hours of fun and is super therapy after a stressful day. When the job is carefully done, the finished vessel is a source of great pride to the builder. And unlike a piece of furniture, which is often put in a corner and soon forgotten, a boat is used over and over for owner’s pleasure for quite some years.

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Technorati Tags: boat bottom, boatbuilding, diy boat, diy boatbuilding, shappe

Boat Building Online Shop

I have just opened a brand new Boat Building Online Store so all of you will be able to find boat building and boating gear and accessories for your boats. Check out the boats store and let me know if anythng is missing so I can add it to the catalog. You will find all the importnat tools for building a boat, fiberglass materials, boat accessories and electronics, bolts and nails, boat covers, etc. The online store offers just the high qualitiy products that I also use in my projects.

If you are looking for marine electronics you must check out the Boat electronics section of the store and if there are any doubts about it check the 10 Things You Must Have On Your Boat guide. If you are in an early stage of the building process check out  the Boat Building Tools and Boat Maintenance and Repair section. If you are still hasetating about building a boat check the Boat Plans for Boat Builders article to select an appropriate boat plan that suits your needs and start building. You can also look at my boat building projects Lean I and Lean II to get some basic idea of the process, work and tools that are involved in it.

Technorati Tags: accessories, boat, boats, building, shop

Fiberglass DIY Step-By-Step Guide

Working with fiberglass is not so difficult as many people think and it if usually very fun to do. A lot of people has asked me how to do it and where I have learned all the stuff I do with fiberglass and where an individual can find these information in order to learn to work with it. Every time someone asks me about my work I take some time to explain to them how the whole process looks like.

Usually I get asked where I have learned all this stuff but there is no simple answer to that. I can tell you about many online tutorials that I have used to learn how to work with fiberglass but at the end you must try it on your own skin to learn how to master the technique. I read a simple fiberglass guide written by Drew Wilson at Explorer Forum. It gives you all the basics that you need to know when you decide to work with fiberglass.

After I read this great fiberglass tutorial I bought a very cheap fiberglass kit which included some fiberglass resin and mat. It was enough to try to start building a inflatable boat steering console for my first boat Lean I. I had no knowledge on the topic despite reading an article about it.

Since the fiberglass kit was cheap I decided that I can waste some money to try something new and so I read the instructions on the fiberglass kit box and started working. I build a wooden mold for my console which I then coated with one layer of fiberglass mat. The kit I bought was just enough to cover my console with one layer.

After my first layer dried I went back to the supply shop and bought some more materials, that is about 5 kg of fiberglass resin and about 3 kg of mat. I then applied another 5 layers over the first layer and let it to dry. When it dried I removed my wooden mold and what was left was my custom made fiberglass mold for inflatable boat steering console.

I then used some molding wax to wax my console mold form the inside and when it dried I applied white boat epoxy paint. I then fiberglassed the inside of the mold with fiberglass. You should apply about five layers of fiberglass to get a strong steering console. I also fiberglassed in a piece of plywood that was later used as a mounting for steering mechanism and steering wheel. And that was it. I had a brand new custom made inflatable boat steering console and it was a lot cheaper than if I had bought it. Read more…

Technorati Tags: boat, boat manual, boat renovation, boatbuilding, diy, diy boat, epoxy resin, fiberglass, fiberglass mat, fiberglass resin, inflatable boat, marterials, poliester resin, roving

Home made cheap boat seats

Finished seats mounted on my boat

Boat seats are often very expensive and it is not so easy to find cheap boat seats. I had the same problem when I was rebuilding my boat and so I decided to build my own boat seats that will fit my needs and will be cheap. I managed to build boat seats really cheap, for about 50 € a piece.

First I bought some plywood, about 1 cm thick and cut it to a shape that had no sharp edges. I made two pieces out of that plywood for each of my boat seats. One for the seating part and and one for the backrest part of my boat seats. The dimensons for both pieces were 40×40 cm for the seating part and 40×20 cm for the baskrest part. I then screwed both of the parts on an aluminum rod that I bent by hand. Now I had the frames for my boat seats ready. This is the type of frame that is very strong and you can easily use it for building your boat seats.

I visited my uncle at the time I was building my boat seats and he owns a woodworking shop. While on visit I saw that he has some old seat frames in the shop that are made out of plywood. I asked him if I can take two and he said yes. So now I had proffesional build plywood seat frame. You can see what I mean on the picture 1.

Next step was to buy some seating foam. I as was searching for foam suppliers I found out that there are several different types of foam and that not all of them are good for seating purpose. I bought a piece of green foam which is the best I could get for my boat seats. It cost me about 40 € for a piece that was about 2 meters long and 1 meter wide and 5 cm thick.

I then put the foam on to the seat and marked the shape of the seat and then cut out the foam. I repeated the process twice so I then had two pieces of foam that matched my seat shape. I then used a stapler to attach the foam to the seat frame with INOX staples.

I also bought some artificial leather for upholstering my seat at the end. My mom owns a sewing machine so I made her a template out of paper for the seat coating. She then sewed the coating together and I finaly had everything ready for building my seat. Read more…

Technorati Tags: boat, boat manual, boat renovation, boat seat, boat tips, boat tutorial, boatbuilding, boating, build, building boat seat, custom boat seat, diy, diy boat, foam, home made boat seat, seat, seat frame, tutorial

Batteries switch and battery wiring diagrams

I am an electrial engineer so it would be appropriate for me to write about electricity on boats. I have quite some knowledege on the subject mainly becouse I DIY built two boats along with all the wireing an electrical systems. I know a lot of people who don’t have a clue how a 12 Volt system works. They don’t even know how batteries are connected with the alternator (engine). So I will now try to explain to you some of the possible wireing diagrams.

Of course there are a lot of different ways in which you can connect your batteries on to the engine. I will show you the basic three types. They are most commonly used with inboard engines but can be used with outboard engines as well.

1 engine – 2 batteries – 1 switch

1 Engine 2 Batteries 1 Switch

In this type of batterie connection we have 1 engine (alternator), 2 batteries and an 1-2-ALL-OFF switch. You switch the C terminal between the A and B treminals and connect the two of them when the switch is in ALL position. This means that we can choose between the two batteries or use them both to start our engine. Of course this means that our engine will only charge the selected battery or both if we select ALL position on the switch. You should put an extra care in you batteries. Your start battery should be the classic lead start battery and your service battery should be a deep cycle batterie. The difference between the two is that the service battery should be capable of multiple losses of capacity without loosing its max capactiy value. So this means that if the battery will get empty you will be able to recharge it multiple times to its full power. If you do that to your lead battery you will permanetly damage your lead battery.

The common use of the ystem is that we use our start battery (switch in position 1) for starting the engine and when driving and our service battery otherwise(switch in position 2). The all position of the switch is usefull if both of your batteries are empty or we wish to charge both of our batteries.

WARNING: You must not move your switch between positions while your engine is operating becouse it will damage your alternator.

1 engine, 2 batteries and ACR

1 Engine 2 Batteries with ACR

I prefer to use this is a type of connection on all my boats. It is more expensive than the first one but it is automatic. We have the same wireing than in the first connection diagram just in this case we use a switch that switches 2 connections. This switch is called a dual circuit switch. The switch has 3 positions (ON – OFF – COMBINE). Combine position is used only in emergency cases when both of the batteries are empty. You will mostly be using only the ON and OFF position.

We use our dual circuit switch in combination with ACR (automatic charging relay). We connect it to a positive side of the battery. It disconnects the link of both batteries when the engine is not running. Each ACR has a min and max voltage limit. When it reaches min voltage limit it connects the first battery to alternator output. When the start battery is fully charged  the voltage on the batterie increases. Whenit reaches the max voltage limit of the ACR service battery is automaticly connected to the system and starts to charge from the alternator.The best thing when using this system is that you don’t have to care which battery you will connect becouse the ACR will do that for you.

WARNING: You must not move your switch between positions while your engine is operating becouse it will damage your alternator.

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Technorati Tags: 12 volt, batteries, batteries connection, battery, boat manual, boat renovation, boat tips, boatbuilding, build, diagram, diy boat, diy boat repair, electric, electrical guide, engine, rebuild, service, start

My second boat – Lean II PART 1

Elan T500 cabin cruiser - side view

As I was saying in my previous post about my first inflatable boat, I sold for quite good amount of money considering what it was worth. But honestly I sold it becouse it was a little to small for our needs. My dear Andreja was always complaining when the water was a little rough (she was right, it was a very bumpy ride ) and you all know the problem when your boat is one meter too short.

So I decided that I will bring another beauty to life. This time for real.

I started following all the local classified ads for old boats in need of renovation. I found a lot boats, but there was allways some issues with them. One didn’t have all the neccessary documents, the other had a price like it was just out of the store, etc…

After a couple of months of searching I finnaly found it. A nice V bottom cabin day cruiser about 5,5 meters in length, manufactured ba Elan Slovenija in 1976. It was out of the water for about 12 years but it was very well stored so it was quite good preserved. Of course it needed a lot of work but as it proved later on it was a good base to start my diy boat building project. Read more…

Technorati Tags: boat, boat renovation, boatbuilding, build, cruiser, diy, diy boat, epoxy resin, fiberglass, marterials, poliester resin, rebuild, roving, stern plate, stern wall