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12 Day Rd
Rockingham, WA, 6168
Australia

0423 284502

With over 20 years experience in wooden boat building and repair Tony O'Connor is pleased to discuss any aspect of Wooden boat construction mast and spar construction and repair as well as outfitting boats of all construction methods with boat owners in Perth Western Australia.

Tony is  also available to cut CNC parts to order for customers.

Tony is also delighted to be the Australian builder for Francois Viviers gaff yawl Jewell design and is the authorised  supplier of cnc kits for Jewell ,and will be happy to supply complete or partial  kits for other Vivier designs to  costumers requirements

 

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Naval cadet boats

Construction of Jewell began in May 2014.

 

NEW CNC

tony o'connor

Proud an all as I was of building my own cnc machine I had reached a stage where a faster machine was needed so given the interest in Francois Vivier kits I decided to buy a new commercial machine. It was a long process having it built and shipped and then commissioning  here but it is now up and running and I am pleasantly surprised how fast it is. It also has a vacuum table which means no need for clamps and weights to hold down materials , which was a pain and occasionally the cutter would hit one and ruin the work and the cutter.

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Finishing hull.

tony o'connor

The final few weeks passed in a flurry of activity as I pushed to complete the boat for the Hobart show, unfortunately there was very little time for pictures

Side view of cockpit

Side view of cockpit

Cockpit looking aft.

Cockpit looking aft.

Cabin roof panel made from 2 cnc cut pieces.

Cabin roof panel made from 2 cnc cut pieces.

Laminating jig for cabin roof.

Laminating jig for cabin roof.

Laminating cabin roof.

Laminating cabin roof.

Companionway looking forward.

Companionway looking forward.

V berths.

V berths.

Companionway looking aft, the spaces either side of the centreboard case are for a port-potti and esky.

Companionway looking aft, the spaces either side of the centreboard case are for a port-potti and esky.

The centreboard is cut from three pieces of 18 mm ply, this is the centre piece with 30 kg of lead inserted.

The centreboard is cut from three pieces of 18 mm ply, this is the centre piece with 30 kg of lead inserted.

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Spars and rigging

tony o'connor

planing scarfs for the staves.

planing scarfs for the staves.

preparing to glue the mast, two edges are masked as the staves are glued, so the mast is first glued in two separate pieces, then the solid ends are made and fitted, the inside sealed with epoxy and ducting for cables fitted.

preparing to glue the mast, two edges are masked as the staves are glued, so the mast is first glued in two separate pieces, then the solid ends are made and fitted, the inside sealed with epoxy and ducting for cables fitted.

Main mast glueing up.

Main mast glueing up.

Cable ducting in main mast.

Cable ducting in main mast.

Forward end of boom and partly made main mast.

Forward end of boom and partly made main mast.

Boom jaws.

Boom jaws.

Gaff jaws laminated from 4mm ply pieces cut from cnc files.

Gaff jaws laminated from 4mm ply pieces cut from cnc files.

Reef comb on boom.

Reef comb on boom.

Mizzen and boom

Mizzen and boom

Fitting mainsail, I used the mizzen mast to keep the sail off the ground.

In this picture you can see the duct for cables .

In this picture you can see the duct for cables .

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Fitting out hull.

tony o'connor

After turning the hull the first thing that struck me was how much of the boat was already built, usually with new construction when a hull turned over you have an empty shell to start fitting out, but with this kit almost all bulkheads and internal structures are already fitted.

The down side is that the next part of the job is to fillet all these pieces to the hull. Of all the jobs I do as a boatbuilder this is the one I like least, luckily I have Rory to help.


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Turning Hull

tony o'connor

Undercoating completed so it's finally time to turn her over. I began by making a frame to roll the hull in, the pieces below are cut to fit close to the hull and with equal radius, they will be on the far side away from the lifting tackle.

The two radiused frames in position, they are left clear of the hull, I used wooden wedges with padding between the frames and hull.

On the other side the frames are left square, the two sides are connected across the keel with a piece of 4x2, the frames are bolted to the building frames under the boat. Then each ring frame is bolted to a lenght of steel tube seen at the base with an eyebolt to take the lifting strap. Finally lenghts of wood are fixed  between both ringframes to prevent them from splaying.

The next step is to lift the hull far enough to dismantle the building jig, the bolts connecting the bulkheads to the building frames are removed  except on the two frames  holding the ring frames. 

Building jig dismantled and removed.

Before lifting the hull  straps are passed under the steel tubes and over the hull just in case there is any movement, the hull is taken off the plastic boxes that held her clear of the jig and lowered to the ground, then the lift begins.

Balance point, when I lifted the hull to this point the weight of the keel started to roll the hull over, the rope in front of my legs is taken around the leg of my (fixed) workbench and then up to the lifting tackle preventing the hull from rolling further, the next part of the turn is controlled with this rope , by easing the rope the hull continues to roll to the right, this was quite a nerve wracking operation as there was a lot of strain on the rope, without a turn around the leg of the bench I could not have controlled the operation. It is interesting to note how far over the hull could roll and still self right from looking at this picture, of course a finished boat would have the weight of roof, deck, and spars which would affect the centre of gravity but this would be counter acted by the bouyancy of the decks and cabin so it is difficult to quantify exactly but I feel sure that the righting moment from a complete knockdown would be considerable.

When the hull is over far enough the boat is lowered with the lifting gear.

Finally we are back down and I can relax.

Frames removed and I get my first look at the hull.

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Finishing hull.

tony o'connor

After a brief hiatus to deal with other work I was able to get back to jewell and begin finishing the hull. 

The first job was to make and fit the false stem . In the plans Francois advises to laminate this over the ply stem before it is fitted to the building frame, but at the time this didn't fit with my work schedule so I drew around the stem to get it's shape and then used this drawing to make a small jig. Then I could laminate the stem when I had time.

The false stem was laminated in two parts, the inner 5 layers are laminated then I drilled a hole for a shackle to use for launching, this hole will have a 12mm pipe inserted later for the shackle, then I let in a strip of brass into the outer layer to reinforce the hole, the two outer holes in the front are for a couple of screws that will help to secure this strip, then before I laminated the outer laminates I added a couple of layers of unidirectional carbon fibre to the stem at that point to further strenghten the area, this is the black line visible outside the hole.

Finished stem.

With the stem fitted the next job is painting and fairing the hull, the paint being used here is a two part high build paint which I apply with a roller, the garboard sole and stem wre heavily glassed and will need a lot of fairing and filling . The plan is to get the hull fair and smooth with the high build, then undercoat, and then turn the hull over for fitting out, the final coats will be applied then.

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