The Montauk Catamaran Company Chronicles, 12/19/14: Winter’s Coming

(The Montauk Catamaran Company Chronicles is an ongoing series of posts detailing the construction of Mon Tiki Largo, a James Wharram Designs Pahi 63 MkII. The author’s current boat is the catamaran Mon Tiki, a JWD Tiki 38, which he built in 2012 and currently operates as a day-sailing charter in Montauk NY. You can see all the posts in this series by clicking here.)

Again, no hurdles crossed or profound insights into life, the universe, and everything at the boat shop today. Just another ~12 man-hours banked. Here’s the play by play, with photos.

This is an end view of yesterday’s completed beam. You can see the microlam engineered lumber core, the triangular cheeks, and the top and bottom laminations of 1″x6″. With just a top or bottom cap my wife and I can still lift them, but once  they have both top and bottom caps their just too heavy. (My guess is over 400lbs.)

Here’s Dave and my wife preparing to move the finished beam onto our storage trestle. Even with three of us, it’s a pretty big lift.

And onto the storage trestle where it joins the other three completed beams.

This is a two-piece half-bredth template we lofted. The various markings are notes for how to align it on the stock. Once one side is traced, the template is flipped on the centerline and the other side of the beam shape is traced.

We clamped up two pieces and then ran the saw about 3/16″ proud so cutting out the first lambeam leaves a line in the second lambeam.

Here’s Dave following the cut-line in the second lambeam. The first lambeam is on the sawhorses next to him, with the finished beams off on the trestle on the grass next to the driveway.

This photo shows, from left to right, a lambeam core before the cheeks are dry-fit, a core with cheeks temporarily fastened with screws (dry-fit), and the finished beams on the storage trestle.

A close-up of the dry-fit beam. Once these cheeks are epoxied in place, the beam will get stacked top and bottom with three course of 1″x6″, just like the beam first photo.

Glueing up the cheeks on one beam takes two people two hours. Glueing up a triple lam takes two or three hours. That makes about 14 hours (28 hour man-hours) to finish these beams. That will let us close up the garage and tackle some smaller pieces working indoors. Just in time — winter’s coming!