First Mistake

Well I made my first big mistake. I glued the upper transom frame to the transom before I cut the slot out of the top corners for the shear. The shear is the longitudinal stick of wood that forms the top of the boat connecting the transom to the bow. You can see where I marked the frame to be cut in the upper corner but overlooking actually cutting it before I epoxied it in place. Now I need to figure out how to make the cut without cutting into the plywood transom that the frame is glued to. Im thinking router, chisel or dremel tool will fix it. Not a huge mistake but its going to cost me a few extra hours.

Right now I am working on cutting the notches for the battens the run lenthwise along the bottom of the boat and gives strength. Also the plywood planking attaches to the battens. Unlike the transom which is notced just for the battens width and depth the frames have quarter moon shapes cut out on the uphill side of the batten notch. These allow any water that is in the bottom of the boat to flow through each frame along the battens and to the rear of the boat where it can then be drained. Forward movement of the boat simply causes the water to move aft but without these notches along the batten the frames would not allow any water to flow past them. Since I plan to water ski behind this boat I plan to drip water all over when I climb back on board.

Also here is a picture of the Poxy Grip epoxy, bronze screws, bronze ring shaft nails and hot dipped galvenized bolts that are used to build the Zip. Bronze hardware is used due to its resistance to corrosion but they sure arent cheap.

At this point I have spent around 40 hours working on the boat and have spent around 5-600 dollars. I keep a to the dollar and to the hour log of the cost/time invested and it will be interesting to add up at the completion of the project.

Frames

I purchased the Zip plans in late April and began building the frames the last week of April. Tracing the frames and cutting/sanding each part was easy. I have a local supplier for all of the required marine plywood and mahogany, Northwest Lumber, 15 minutes away in Indianapolis.















I purchased a Belt/Disc sander to make sanding faster and easier. I cut the parts out with a simple electric sabre saw and a fine tooth blade. The plans only print one half of each frame member so you must use carbon paper supplied from Glen-L to trace the outline of each frame part to the wood and the backside of the plans in order to line up the opposite side and make a full length frame out of a half of a plan.














I have just about completed my frames, I just need to cut some notches for the lenthwise members and nail the gussets. Also need to cut the transom. In a couple days I will be ready to build the building form. I could not resist laying the frames out so I could picture what the boat will look like.