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After waiting for info on my transverse side frame question I decided to get moving on this project again. Here are a few photos of where I’m at today (just finished up for the night). I ran the welder a little too hot and blew a few small holes in the bow. I'm going to fill them in later and buff out the entire hull to help blend in some of these issues.

I'm going to start laying up bottom plating next. I will keep this tread going for updates as I progress..

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Charles Brammer

Neat to see a metal build. I gotta say Im a little jealous that everything in your shop is not covered in sawdust. I bet your tool handles arent sticky with epoxy either.

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My Zip build log...
http://www.vupilot.blogspot.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/vupilot/Chr ... O0x7SvsQE#

"Nothing screams poor craftsmanship like wrinkles in your duct tape."

You stated in the other post you had a couple of good welders who would be doing some the critical TIG welding on the boat. If so if it were my boat I would eliminate the round rod on the joint where the bottom plate joins the side plate. The only purpose the rod serves is to make it easier for a novice welder to use MIG to make the weld. The joint formed by the .160 and .125 plates will be a very easy weld for an average aluminum TIG welder. The resulting joint will be a lot smoother and nicer looking. It will actually be as strong if not stronger than the designed joint.

Looking good so far!!!

Some of the critical welding I wanted to have done was the frames. Which it turns out weren’t so critical. So as I dived into this project deeper I have decided to do the rest myself. I’m going to mig weld most of it and I’m reading up on tig welding and will be practicing to see if I can be comfortable doing tig by the time I flip it. If not then I will be doing it all with a spool gun.

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Charles Brammer

Just watch the toes of the weld puddle and make sure you see the weld metal tying into your base metal and it will be fine. Using a thicker plate on the bottom connecting to the .125 on the sides will not be hard weld at all to make. Keep a little more of the gun angle towards the larger plate and it will tie in to the thinner sides with no problem. If you keep the round rod make sure you are getting good tie in to it and the plating. Use a lot of your scrap pieces and try to get your machine settings dial in good. Even with doing that you will find you will need more heat on the full plates than you do on the practice parts. Aluminum disapates the heat so rapidly it will take a lot of energy to make good welds.

Keep us posted and good luck!!

Charles,

These photos are great and just we needed to push us into getting started. My son is a good welder but we're entirely new to boat building and don't really know how to get started other than buying some material. I don't want to buy it all at once and have most of it laying around over the next 3-4 months. Can you tell us which of the materials we'll need to build what you've got in your photos here? Also, can you recommend cut lengths for the BOM listed at 25 or more feet? e.g. frames, chine bars, channel stiffeners, carlin, misc. stiffeners

Thanks,
Larry

Hi Larry,

When you look at your plans your going to want to order material for your frames, bow & transom plating, 1x2x1/8 tubing for bottom/bow stiffeners. I had my frames plasma cut on a table and the frames notched to fitting the bottom stiffeners (longitudinals) was a snap. Best of luck getting your boat started. I'm working on getting my bottom plating on this week.

Dont worry about not having built a boat before...This is my 1st boat too. In fact, I have had issues forming my bottom plating so this week I have a guy coming in to show my how to use a Oxyacetylene torch with a rose bud tip to form the front bottom plating so it lays nice on the contour of the bow.

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Charles Brammer

Well, I feel a bit foolish thinking I needed to torch the front bottom plating to get it to lay down. I guess I shouldn’t have tried to do the bottom bow plating out of one piece. It was way easier just working with two pieces to get this plating all lined up and welded in place (*smack head*).

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Charles Brammer

I dont feel like I got very far this week but the bottom is all welded up. I just need to touch up a few spots around the tunnel.

Next I need to trim the outside of the bottom plates then lay up the side plates. I hope to flip it by next week!

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Charles Brammer

Not many metal builds around here. This is really cool.

Just curious, what do you do for any dips or bumps after it's all welded up? Do you just treat it like finishing a car, and bondo and fair it?

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Jeff

My Celerity build.

I only have one area that would need any fairing and that’s where the four pieces come together. I have a 1/8” dip along the weld that runs from port to starboard and that’s because of my impatient and putting too much heat to soon in welding those areas up. I’m not going to fair it. I will try and tap some of it out and live with the rest. I’m either going to be on plan (which it won’t affect) or rowing down river (it shouldn’t matter much here either). I promise to be more patient welding the seam on the side plating.

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Charles Brammer

You will not have the issues welding the bottom to the sides as you do on strickly across the grain butt welding like you have there. But like you said you will not have any performance issues with the boat because of this. I would be careful beating trying to get the dips out,,,, the metal stretched and drew and as such when you beat it out of one place it will just transfer to another area. You will not be able to "shrink" the metal back in place. On the bottom/side panel joints I have always ran my beads on the hot side and very fast. I weld about 3' on one side and then move to the other and keep switching back and forth.. You cannot keep from having some warpage but it will be minimal. You biggest area that will effected by warpage other than your completed sections, will be anywhere you have to make weld running across the bottom such as welding a latitudual brace to the bottom. If your plans call of any welds of this type do not weld solid. A few 3-5" staggered welds will suffice.(I am not talking about the transom LOL!! you will have to weld it solid)

Just curious, where the sheets not available in 20' lengths?

Don't know whether it works on aluminum or not, but you actually can shrink mild steel panels if they have a bulge in them. ( My old body shop experience here )
Simply heat up an area with the torch untill it bulges up, hammer the area down flat with a hammer and backing dolly, then quench it with cool water.
I chased a bulge/high spot all over the trunk of a car once trying to get rid of it, and a friend who was an excellent body man came by and showed me this technique.

Doug
On schedule to launch the Titan in June of this year.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm ok with the slight dip in the bottom. I will be more careful welding the sides. I'm just looking forward to getting back on this project so I can flip it over. The weather here has been great this week and the steelhead are all packed in the rivers right now (guess I should have started this 6 weeks sooner).

As for your question on the 20' sheets. I could only get 20' sheets in 1/8" and those were 5' wide so I went with 144" sheets @ 3' wide.

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Charles Brammer

I got my side plates trimmed out tonight. I still need to weld them up but I need a 2nd person to help hold it in place while I tack it from the inside.

On the transom I have overhang for the bottom to weld to on both sides. Should I have that same overhang for the side plates?

3/20 Got the side plates done on the inside! hope to flip it by weeks end.

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Charles Brammer