Commander 147

[Commander227]

Pretty snazzy Jerry!

I bet you're excited to lay down in the bilge and cut, grind and glue in the Florida heat. I'm sure you'd like to put it off til it cools down but you got new gizmos that are crying to be played with. It was winter when I did mine and I'm too cheap to heat much. I had a sweatshirt on under my tyvek suit. Make sure you have someone come out and poke you with a stick every now and again to be sure you're still moving.
Mike
C227

[Commander 147]

Mike

In this heat and at my age I can only tolerate the Tyvek for so long. And unfortunately thanks to my allergy to epoxy I have to wear it. I've been going to work on it at 5:00AM when it is ONLY 85 to 87 degrees on the weekends and working until approx 10:00AM when the temp hits the mid 90's. By that time I'm drenched in sweat and can no longer tolerate it. So I come in take a shower and open the door between the house and the wood shop in the garage and start working on some of the wood items. It kills me that I'm moving so slow on this but the heat is just more than I can deal with so I have to bide my time.

But you are absolutely correct that they are crying to be played with. Before I can start on it I have to reinforce my neighbors pole building so I can use it to lift the boat off the trailer and both fix the keel and remove the rudder so I can start the shaft log install. But I'm certainly motivated to do that now. :-)

[paulsproesser]

I know the feeling , congratulations , I picked up commander#5 on july 31st and have been sailing her everysaturday sinc and got some really great wind gusts up to40-50mph when hurricane earl skirted the coast on the chesapeake bay

[Commander 147]

Well, I lost about a month of progress thanks to a sinus surgery I finally had done that I had been putting off for close to 10 years. I can breath better now and in another month or so when I'm finally healed up completely I will be happy it was done.

In the last couple of weeks I have made progress in a couple of areas. First I did all of the final fitting to the wood for the companionway (picture 1 below) only to take it all back out for finishing. When I get to the end of the project and start putting all the wood back in I want things to progress quickly because I will be really excited to finally have her done. So getting all of the wood pieces final fit and finished now will really help then.

After I finished that I demo'd out the compression post and the little boomerang braces at the top of the cabin so I can start my strong back install. I never plan to do a solid door leading to the v-berth because in my opinion in these small boats it just takes up too much room. I plan to do a curtain on a track so the ladies can have privacy. That being the case I decided (after talking it over with my friend Tom) it would be good to try and keep the cabin as open as possible and still get the support I need for the strong back. So the second picture is a mock up of the direction I'm heading on the new bulkheads (I will be removing the old bulkheads and replacing with new).

[Ariel 109]

Nice work Jerry! That companionway looks so great.

Ben

[mbd]

Looking really nice Jerry!

[ebb]

Jerry, Excellent,
spiffy companion way there!

And the new proposal for the compression beam and bulkhead is obviously a vast improvement.
It'll be a perfect upgrade.

[Tony G]

Nice work, Jerry! She is looking F I N E!! Having the wood prefinished before final install ought to really speed things up in the assembly phase. And I can't say enough that your expert craftmanship shows in your work.

What's the plan with your mast beam and main bulkhead? Solid beam? Laminated beam? Laminated beams are easier, in my opinion, but solid may have less integrity concerns when it comes to glue choice, water intrusion, etc.. And how about the bulkhead shape? Honestly, I kind of like the shape you got in the photo with the pieces, that I assume are braces, meeting the existing Commander style bulkheads.

P.s. 'Glad you have the surgery behind you. Post procedure recovery really throws me of kilter for a while.

DOH! I just saw the yellow overlay on your photo. Looks fantastic!

[Commander 147]

Tony

I would love to get your input on my plans which by the way is an open invitation to everyone else also. The best part of this or any forum is getting insight and ideas from others on what you are trying to accomplish.

My plans currently are to vertically laminate white oak for the strong back. I'm using resorcinol glue to eliminate water and glue issues. I've kind of drawn in the new bulkheads in the photo below to better illiustrate the new look with the new bulkheads. Then I drew in some sections so you can more easily understand the plan of what I'm planning to do. Please feel free to offer suggestions.

I plan to use 1/2" marine ply for the bulkheads and cover it with 1/4" mahogany ply for looks. For the trim material on the edge of the bulkhead I plan to glue up thin strips of mahogany (as thin as 1/16" if necessary to make the curves) that will end up 3/8" thick and follow the curves of the bulkhead.

[Tony G]

Jerry,

My input is start right now. What you have planned is fantastic. Clean and functional and why ask for anything more? Maybe Ebb has some wisdom on the vertical laminated beam he can add but it seems a ok to me. I never thought of laminating in that orientation... And resourcinol is the glue to use. (I wish I had used it so that nagging fear would go away)

I am already envisioning the pictures. She is going to be saw-weeet.

[Commander227]

Looking great Jerry! Your companion way looks first rate. I wish I had the old style. My strong back is of similar dimensions and also white oak. I used West sys. and stainless dowels. Its only been two years but it hasn't busted yet, knock on wood. I like the look of your bulkhead.... but dude.... chicks dig doors!
Mike
C227

[Commander 147]

But the three "chicks" that matter most to me are the admiral and my two grown daughters who are all OK with the curtain as long as there is a mechanical means of keeping it closed when in use. And the admiral has a custom window treatment business and already knows how she plans to make it. So I guess I'm lucky this time.

I spent some time today making templates for the new bulkheads. So far they are just partial templates, I need to do some demo tomorrow to make the bottom part but tonight I want to start bandsawing the strong back. Here is a picture with the partial templates in place with the template for the strong back. I tried in the second picture to stitch two pictures together to get a more complete view of the whole area but it only "kind" of worked.

The layout did not work out quite like I thought it would. I tried to make the upper portion of the bulkhead slant parallel to the cabin side. And I wanted 10" of support under each side of the strong back. What you see is the result of those efforts.

[Commander 147]

I just was not happy with the look of the bulk heads yesterday so today I took another inch off both sides and I'm much happier with the look of the layout. See for yourself below.

My biggest concern is that now I have 2 more inches of unsupported distance between the bulkheads. The total distance unsupported is 35-3/4". I know the beam will be stronger when glassed to the deck tying it all together but I still feel the need to find some way to test the strength of the beam. I would like to see it capable of handling 2500 lbs. Do any of you have any suggestions?

[ebb]

2 cents worth.
Early on in A338 I decided to replace the original sawn beam with a laminated one out of white oak and epoxy. Not the best choice.
On the last current page in ebb's gallery thread you can read what I later decided to do
because I really don't think that white oak can be glued.....totally, including with resorcinol.

If I was to do it over again and I couldn't find the scantlings in a piece of oak to band saw the single piece out like the original
I would definitely do the beam with vertical pieces as you suggest.
BUT also mechanically lag the pieces together with BRONZE screws.
Iron is a notorious enemy of oak, so I would not use even 316.

I really can't imagine the arch being bent by the downward pressure of the mast.
If the arch is non-bendable even when supported by partial bulkheads then the arch must be made immovable.
Gluing it to the roof is a good idea. So to the bulkheads with thru fastenings.
You might think about adding gussets on the inside, on the other side of the beam.
This can be done by adding a piece of solid oak as a strut along side the cabin down to the hull.
The struts would completely immobilize the ends of the support beam.
Imco I would not depend on the bulkheads alone to hold the beam in place.
If you do you are only adding support off the side of the beam even if you thru-fastened it to the bulkhead.

Since you are band-sawing the vertical beam pieces out you don't have to have a parallel sided
lamination. You can increase the thickness of the beam as goes toward the ends. Yousometimes see bridge structures that do this.
In other words the exposed part of the beam would LOOK like it got skinnier in the center of the span. But you could keep the scantling you are happy with but increase the height of the beam as it goes toward the bulkhead supports - essentially loosing no head-room.

Could also add extra width to the beam, an extra vertical lamination.

[Commander 147]

Ebb

I always appreciate your 2 cents worth.

I will take your advice and use bronze screws to lag the beam together. I already bought some #12 x 2" screws that I had planned to use for the combings. I can drive them in from both sides and they will overlap a 1/2" in the middle.

Did you notice my plan to use a double bulkhead with lumber spacers between in post 288? In the area under the beam ends I will use white oak spacers between the two sides as posts to transfer the load all the way down to the hull.

BTW what were the final width and height dimensions for your strongback?