One Sheet, One Weekend, One Boat

The concept of a one sheet boat has been around for a while. I saw it as a challenge in time as well as space. Work is doing summer hours right now, so I took off Friday afternoon and went out for supplies.

It's pre-boat, and this is it!

I really liked the idea of the One Sheet+ plans from Ken Simpson so I bought them. The BOM called for a single sheet of 1/4" plywood, a 2'x4' section of 1/2" plywood, and 5 1x2 furring strips. The furring strips came bundled as 6, so I figured I could use the extra one to cut some chines. This was laid out so I was ready to roll on Saturday morning!

Starting to cut up

I didn't follow the plans exactly. They call for tape & glue construction, with no screws at all until you add the skids to the bottom. I couldn't make that work, so I decided to cut some chines. It looked like there would be plenty of scrap furring strips so I decided to cut first and chine later.

First I cut out the split parts from the 1/2" plywood. They go back to back to get the same angle cut into the sides, and that helps you line up everything else. Then the plans had you start cutting at one end of the full sheet of plywood and eventually spec down to the other end. Cut then assemble, then cut more to spec then assemble again. I decided to cut as much as I could first, then assemble as I could. Mostly this gave me the flexibility to measure the gunwales out of the 1x2, then use the scraps from those boards to cut chines and assemble with screws.

Problem #2 was that I didn't have screws that were the right size to go through the 1/2" plywood! oops. I used a 3/4" flat head screw setup for most of it. But then I had to make a return trip to Lowe's to get some 1" screws, d'oh!

Rough cut is done, time to start assembly

Hot in the workshop today

Assembled the front half with a spacer installed

detail on the stem

The plans actually did not call for a stem but I wanted to add one anyway. I've been reading about stem construction from lofting lately and wanted to try those same techniques on my experimental boat here. It's a straight stem, so I marked out the rabbet, apex, and bearding lines and cut it out on the table saw. Then test fit with the cut plywood sides and finally cut out the bearding angle onto the front. This was a really nice detail when it came together and the one part of the project that I'm actually pretty proud of. And nobody can see it in the final product. ha!

the back half

Now it's starting to look like a boat

ah, it's more boat than plywood now! With no bottoms yet, you can see the basic shape of how the boat comes together. This is a nesting plan, so the front half is supposed to fit inside of the back half. That means you have to build the front & back separately. At this point, I was able to measure & cut the 1x2's for the rubrails (gunwales) meant for the outside top of the boat - creating scraps that I needed for assembly!

I already had one extra furring strip, figured I would use that for the chine rails to attach the bottoms. I started by ripping it in half, getting two strips that were 3/4" square. Then with that same setup on the table saw I ripped three of the scraps in half to use for the corners. I needed three strips at least 11" long, then ripped in half to make 3/4" square strips for the vertical corners in the back/back, front/back, and back/front of the sections. The stem already took care of the front/front.

I used Titebond III this time because it is totally waterproof, that's what the plans suggested. Glue & screw the plywood into the chines, keep those joints nice and tight. Then it's time to cut the bottoms to spec by tracing them out from the assemblies.

The front has a bottom

It turned out some nice clean lines

The Back got a bottom too

Happy boat builder

And that all happened on 8/5/17. That is one solid day of boatbuilding!! I started out buying supplies on Friday and ended up with fully formed boat parts on Saturday. They might even float in this condition. I've got roughly $38 invested in this project so far, and still have plenty of woodworking to go on Sunday.

Canoe Forms

I finally managed to get a weekend free from the deck building in order to get some other stuff done. That stuff started with the two extra sheets of 5/8" plywood clogging up my shed that needed to be cut up into canoe forms!

You can barely see the pencil outlines on there

These sheets have been laying around since before I started working on the rowboat. I had the plans duplicated around the time of the Masters golf tournament, then cut them out shortly after. So now the plywood is there, and the first step to building a canoe is cutting out the stations. Next up I'll have to buy the cedar and cut it down into 1/4" strips, then attach those strips to these forms. Time to cut some forms.

getting there!

Now that's a pile of plywood

Forms are cut and on the shelf until I buy the cedar. Glad to have those sheets out of the way.

Finished Deck Project

Wrapping up our deck project isn't really wrapping it up. It's one of those projects that never really finish, there's always more to do with the landscaping, or building the next patio. But now we have enough finished to show off a walk through and put a button on this series of posts. It's time to get back to building boats!

For the inside of the door, I ran molding around on the wall and put a relief inside of the jamb. We custom cut a threshold as well, then ran baseboard and quarter round. I actually replaced all of the baseboard for the entire room. Since that picture was taken, I have gotten a coat of paint on the walls and the first coat of paint on the molding. It still needs some caulk to fill in some gaps and another coat of trim paint. I wish I had sanded more as well. But it's up and the floor has been repaired and the wife is pretty happy with it.

Just outside of the door we see the ledger board for how the roof attaches to the house. There was a part where the gutter was removed and the roofline juts out. I had to adjust the height of the ledger board and overall length of the roof to accomodate this discrepancy. To the left of that white part the board only attaches to the exterior wall of the house, but the part to the right attaches to the soffitt where the gutter was attached. It was an interesting wrinkle to the roof design.

Sky chair from amazon

couch from Pier 1

stole a chair from the table set

Level 2 got the table set (gift) and the grill (Lowe's)

Of course I went for an App State grill cover

Side of the roof & screened porch

Level 3, love seats and fire pit from Lowe's

Side view of the entire system

from deeper in the backyard

View from the other side

We added a deck box to store the cushions

Other side of Level 3

Concrete tiki guy and planters

So there is still some work to go. We need to add skirting around the bottom of level 1 and 2. I still think we need to add soffitt around the roof edges, but that might not happen. Hardscape is still going into the landscape - I've got the bricks down and that is going to lead into a pea gravel path. The side with the deck box is going to get a stone patio of some kind. There's going to be lots of plantings all around. We're expanding the grass area of the backyard significantly so when the time of year is right, there's lots of seed to spread and beds to define. Until then it's all this:

Happy kids making s'mores

Youngest loves the hammock chair

Lets Build a Porch

So I got the first wall of the screened in porch built and standing during the July 4th building vacation. That meant any further progress would be nights and weekends after work, but there was still plenty to go until we finished this build.

Got the other two walls built

The top sill plate extends a foot over the sides to support the roof

Not much room left for roof joists

The next weekend I finished off the other two walls. The outside sill plate extends for a foot on each side to support the roof. I cut the walls to finish at only 94" high. We want to put up a ceiling fan inside, so any shorter than that and I wouldn't have enough clearance for the fan. The problem occurs a couple of pictures up. The existing roofline comes down to some gnarly bend where I had to remove a gutter. Creating this shed-style roof over the porch is the kind of problem that kept me up at night trying to figure out. There wasn't much slope to begin with, how in the world can I figure this out?

Kelley moved this concrete guy next to the stairs and put a fern on him! Looks like sideshow bob

Rafters and center support

First section of handrail

Some rafters are up

Rafters and handrail are done!

I added a 1x10x12' center support for the rafters and a ledger board where the gutter was removed and on the side of the house. This is the only place in the entire build where I didn't hold up to normal building code. The low slope of the roof only left me space to use 2x4x12' rafters. Since I put up a tin roof they are spaced 2' apart. Code says use 2x6's for a 12' span, spaced 18" apart. But my architect cousin told me that tin was lightweight enough for the 2x4's to hold up.

In hindsight, I should have built the deck about 6" lower to the ground. I wanted it level with the bottom of the door & interior floor, but there is no way I could have known there would be a roof slope problem before the floor was up. I mean, unless I actually used drawings or plans and the architect would have seen that and solved the problem before I started. Originally we wanted to shingle the roof and tie it in with the existing shingles. We also wanted to extend the roof over part of level 2 as well. Once we decided to go tin the extension was gone.

This really goes to show the lesson in planning. I'm a builder. I sketched out the basic outline of the rims of the deck on the back on an envelope to get the 3 tier design, then started buying lumber. There were no other plans or outside input. Now I've got a flat roof. Well, it's not really flat water does run off fine. But the rafters are not up to code.

Trimmed rafters and added end cap

furring strips are up

Added tin roof & screen with 1x2 furring strips on the outside

family is assembling furniture inside our new porch!

Don't notice the 1 missing furring strip all the way on the left

better view of the whole deck from the left side

I still have to install the screen door

Overall, yes, we are thrilled with the way the porch came out. We still (as of 8/10/17) have not gotten electrical run out there. But it's going to happen eventually. This porch is 10' x 10' square with a 36" door. I used 2x4's for all of the framing even the roof, and 12' x 26" tin pieces made the roof. I added flashing where it hit the side of the house and more flashing where it hit the existing shingle roof. Used a special gray caulk made for bonding to metal I caulked between each sheet of the tin and went heavy where the tin hits the house. This roof is 12' wide so it took 6 pieces of tin and 2 tubes of that caulk. But it is watertight! Overall, we love it.