The Poet Creek Express - Foamie Hybrid

[KCStudly]

Thanks Tony. I had seen your towel holder before, and it is quite nice!

I was thinking more along the lines of a decorative bobble as a weight on a beaded chain (...550 cord or some such) draped over.

My thing with the chase is whether I want to drill thru the spars and compromise their strength.

[tony.latham]

Thanks Tony. I had seen your towel holder before, and it is quite nice!

I was thinking more along the lines of a decorative bobble as a weight on a beaded chain (...550 cord or some such) draped over.

My thing with the chase is whether I want to drill thru the spars and compromise their strength.

You've obviously been cogitating on this issue. I wonder what the ratio of hours spent thinking about various build challenges are vs. actually shop time is? It may be a wash.

Tony

[KCStudly]

I dunno. Sometimes I am doing them both at the same time!

[KCStudly]

I had this pic from the other night when I trimmed the hatch rib tails back to the new template configuration. The new trim router is working out great for little stuff like this. It is very easy to handle.


It seems that I am not being as diligent taking step by step pics lately. I seem to be forgetting, or maybe I’m just focusing on the work.

Even though I had culled out the two ribs that I thought looked best from the outsides of the hatch, I found that I had marked them differently earlier, so decided to double check them against each other.


I found that two of them were a little narrower near the top (a little less than the 3 inches planned), and the pairs didn’t quite match. I decided, even though I had already match drilled two of them to the hinge spar, that I would rather have the thicker ones inboard at the actuators; a little extra meat near the bracket mounting locations.

By clamping the tails and middles together I was able to align the differences in the upper profile together without too much force needed, so I am confident that it will all work out once everything has been screwed to the spars. You can see the middle pair is a little wider here.


Another thing that I noticed, but isn’t really a big deal (and may just be something that I have forgotten) is that on one of the ribs the miter sections/joints don’t line up with the others. I don’t know if this is just a mistake; maybe I had a knot that I was trying to avoid; or maybe I put the template on the blank backwards. Anyway, it won’t be something anyone is likely to notice. (Geez, I seem to be getting a lot of those piling up around me these days.)


Next I clamped the two center ribs together and laid out the bolt pattern for the upper hatch actuator brackets. I wrapped the pair with some chipboard so that we could clamp the ribs together in the milling machine and drill the holes. By doing it in the milling machine I can be sure that the holes in both ribs are exactly the same, and that the axes of the holes are absolutely perpendicular to the faces of the ribs. This way I can be sure that the three thru bolts and the double shear rod bolt will all align on both sides of both ribs. Here they are after the drilling was complete.


Here the red pencil represents the approximate location of the hinge centerline.


The inside of the rib profile will be exposed so I wanted to round over those edges. I decided to go with the 3/16 round over bit, but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t wrap the corners where the ribs glue to the spars, and I didn’t want to lose any material under the actuator bracket mounting points. To keep from wrapping the ends I knocked together a couple of run out waster blocks attached to a backer that would allow me to clamp them to the ribs without getting into the way of the router shoe. The tails.




The top before routing.


At the actuator mount location I found that if I just put one of the bar clamps on the centerline of the lower mounting hole, that would act as a good stop location. Here you can see one after a little sanding with 220 grit to blend the round over in a bit and knock the sharp edge off where the bracket goes.


So I rounded over all four ribs this way on their street side, and will have to flip-flop the stop blocks to the opposite hand to do all of the curb sides.

Train kept a rollin’.

[KCStudly]

Tonight I finished rounding over the other inside edges of the hatch ribs.



Then I clamped a couple of waster blocks to the top and bottom of either end of the hatch lower spar (shown here with the back edge clamped to the bench). This allowed me to round over the "inside" corner using the router.

These corners correspond to the rounded edges of the outboard ribs, and although I don’t expect that the radii will match perfectly when assembled, I am hoping that they will be close enough to blend by hand.

Next setup was to clamp stop blocks for the router and round over the top inside edges of the lower spar using the 1/8 inch round over bit.


This held the rounded edges uniformly short from running under the future glued ends of the ribs. (For some reason I only took a picture of the setup and not the end result.)


After that I rounded over the bottom edge of the spar on the three sides of the “muffin cup”; which will be the lower inward facing edge under the ribs, and the two short edges below the outboard sides of the outer ribs (no pic).

Karl had come along and was giving me a hand here and there. We finished up for the night by knocking together a clamping fixture for the ribs. I want to start the hatch assembly by screwing the lower spar onto the ends of the rib tails. One of my concerns is that the Red Grandis is a little splintery and if I let a rib flop over during this stage, it would likely blow the screws right out thru the side of the rib. So this fixture will be used as added support getting me thru to the point where I can screw the hinge spar on.


Since I didn’t want screw pockets in the sides of the ribs where they will be visible, I decided to screw up thru the bottom of the lower spar into the end grain of the rib tails. That means that I can’t make these connections in place, so I will have to at least assemble the basic framework, then screw it into place in the galley before applying the skin. I am also contemplating options for how to anchor the lower edge of the skin to the lower spar. Options include a routed or sawed groove in the top of the spar for the edge of the skin to dive into, or simple cleats on the back side that will get buried under the foam (leaning this way at the moment).

Train kept a rollin’.

[KCStudly]

.
Okay, we’re moving into another milestone territory; hatch frame is being assembled.

Screwing the lower hatch spar on to the rib tails using the rib clamping fixture. I checked the height of each of the top ends above the table and made sure that the outside of each rib profile was touching the table and seated on the top edge of the clamp fixture.


By using a temporary corner block clamped in place I was able to get everything nice and flush before pilot drilling the screw holes in the rib tails thru the predrilled holes in the lower spar.


Underneath curb side rib.


Street side.


Middle ribs in.




Turned the whole thing around on the bench and started installing the hinge spar.


Slipped temporary spacers under the rabbeted edge of the hinge spar.

[Mary C]

Looking good, KC. I am really impressed. Keep it up. You are getting there!!

Mary C.

[KCStudly]

Thank you Mary.

This morning and early afternoon was a members work day out at the sportsmen club, gives us a chance to work off our annual dues doing odd jobs and maintenance work.

Then out to Mecca for about 4 hrs. I finished pilot drilling and screwing the hinge spar onto the tops of the hatch ribs. The upper clamps are just holding temporary perches used to rest the spar on as a second set of hands until I got the screws in.



Next I ripped a length of 2x4 into some temporary struts, flipped the assembly over and screwed them on diagonals to help stabilize everything so that the clamping fixture could be removed (the side clamps would have been in the way).



Spun it around again and added a couple more temp diagonals to the bottom.


Finally I lifted the dry fit frame onto the galley and screwed the hinge spar back down using the temporary screws I had located previously.




It really gives a much better feel for the overall shape of the bustle in the profile.

I like it.

[GPW]

Looking Good !!! Really taking shape now !!!

[KCStudly]

Thanks GPW!

Karl keeps saying, "you're almost done", and I suppose relatively speaking I am, but to me there sure do seem to be plenty of things left to do.

[GPW]

Karl might be giving you a hint ... Just tell him with these trailers , “you’re never done” ... and see what he says ...

[working on it]

Karl keeps saying, "you're almost done", and I suppose relatively speaking I am, but to me there sure do seem to be plenty of things left to do.

Is he suggesting that you "should be almost done", as a hidden request to finish it soon? How about telling him that you want to start a second build (before the PCE is finished). That'll go over big, I'm sure. Ha Ha. Seriously, My build was started at my friend's shop, at his suggestion, and continued there for 13 months. 50 miles from home, really restricting the time I could work on it. And, for every hour spent working on the trailer, I spent many more hours on other work and cleanup of the shop. And the trailer was moved from one spot to the other, constantly, as it had to be moved for "paying" projects. Eventually, I felt that the time to bring it home for completion (it was still just a shell, after 13 months) was long past due. It strained our friendship to the breaking point, and I wish now that I had never started it there. Hopefully, your build will not be viewed as a divisive point (of even a small magnitude) for you with Karl.

[KCStudly]

No not at all. I think Karl's comments are of genuine encouragement and excitement that the project is becoming a reality. In fact he has said that he finds himself wanting to build one, but he doesn't know why, because he has no inclination to go camping.

I think, because he mostly works alone with no employees, often times in isolation since he doesn't need to leave the home shop much of the time, he truly likes to have me there to bounce ideas off of and just generally being a friend. He doesn't do metal work upstairs at all, so there is no conflict over the space; at least for now.

His wife had some cockamamie idea that I needed to be out last April so that they could move all of the contents of the house up to the loft. The story was that she wanted to have contractors come in and repaint the interior of the house all in one go... ... and Karl sort of went along with the idea because it was easier than trying to explain to her how inappropriate all that work would be. I mean, really, you push everything to the middle of the room and tarp it. Why in the heck would you go to the trouble of emptying the house, then haul it up into the loft, only to move it back again. In fact we discussed how he would be off the hook when April came and the camper still wasn't done.

Maybe it was just a ruse she tried to pull on my wife's behave to get me out, and back home doing chores?

We've talked about it many times. He likes keeping me close because we collaborate on many things. My relationship with Karl is stronger than that. If he needed me to be out he knows that he can talk to me.

Stay tuned for today's build update.

[KCStudly]

No big moves today, just a bunch of details working out where to round over, where to stain before gluing, and making some minor adjustments.

The dry fit of the bare hatch frame had the lower end skewed to the curb side, which was easy to shim back. The curb side rib had rolled in away from the wall about 3/8 inch at the hump. To correct this I repositioned the temporary diagonal brace at the bottom and added another temporary brace higher up. I will tape a temporary spacer down in between the ribs to hold this out while the skin is being installed. Here you can see the hatch frame back on the bench with the extra bracing, and the cabin side hinge spar clamped to the edge of the bench getting the lower edge on the galley side rounded over.


Here you can see the hinge spar mocked up overhanging the bulkhead and how the round over on the lower edge ends at the inside face of the side wall.


Next I masked off the future glue areas and stained the two sides that will be exposed when the hatch is up.


Before removing the hatch side hinge spar I ran the router over the lower edge between the ribs to round over those edges. Here, after removing it from the frame, you can see how the round over meets the footprint of the ribs.


At one point I thought I might assemble and skin the whole hatch and then stain all of the exposed wood surfaces with the red chestnut stain. Then I got to thinking that the woods are all dissimilar (Red Oak, Red Grandis, Okoume and Maple) and would all take the dark stain differently. I think that the first three would be pretty close because they start out similar, but the Maple starts out so much lighter and the grain is so much different. I decided to stick to the theme and do the Maple in the natural oil. If I don’t like the final results I can paint any of it, or everything but the skin in the gloss black trim color that I used on the side door surrounds and that I plan to use on the rear edge of the walls in the galley seal area. Bottom line, I removed the lower spar and masked off the future glue areas.


Screwed the spar back onto the rib tails and trimmed around the bottoms of the ribs gently with the razor knife.



Once back apart I trimmed another 1/16 inch or so of tape off so that the stain would dive under the rib and not leave any unstained areas visible.



Then applied the oil.



Thinking about how I might proceed with finishing vs. assembly. Options are to do what I have been doing, blow it apart, stain it all, poly, then assemble; or assemble from this point, get the skin glued and screwed on, mask off the lower spar, then dark stain on the rest of it and poly it all at once. If I choose the latter, probably need to get a new spray gun.

Since I won’t have a surefire way to mask the skin for the rib glue joints, I’m leaning toward doing the glue assembly first, then staining and poly afterward.

[wagondude]

Put a scrap piece in place of the lower spar. Skin the hatch being careful not to glue to your temporary pieces, then reinstall and glue the maple after your dark stain is done and poly all at once.