Frames

It's been raining here for what seems like months. House renovations are creeping along slowly. Most of the trim, crown molding and closet doors are up. I have some baseboard yet to lay and one hallway left for crown molding. Then it's painting and I'm done with it. In my down time when the rain prevents me from putting my chop saw on the deck (so I avoid running down to workshop for cutting) I have been carefully been laying out the frames for the boat on the computer. I don't need to do it, but it familiarizes me with the project and as a check to make sure I'm interpreting the plans correctly. Plus it's fun. I checked the measurements against the main plans and all is where it should be. If i didn't add dimensions and just printed my templates with one or more incorrect, it would have went right to the building stage before the error got picked up. I guess I'm adding unnecessary complexity to a simple boat. Like I said, it's fun.I had to reduce the resolution so nobody could read the dimensions. That would be embarrassing. I took the parts and nested them onto a area the size of a sheet of plywood. It looks like I'll use 2 sheets for the bulk of the frame members, not including the transom.I just have to print them full size and glue to poster board for my working templates. I have the means to print this large format, so I am fortunate that way. If not I would have just laid them out onto a piece of 1/8" thick MDF board and cut for templates.

I must say, the frame details on John Welsfords plans are easy to follow and someone venturing on building the Pathfinder don't need to worry about complex hard to follow sheet sets. His hand writing skills are not great (jokingly) but it's legible and that's all that really matters. I'd rather have the right information handwritten any day over pretty looking incorrect computer text which ruins a $50 sheet of plywood. Accuracy, legibility trumps all.

John has his own forum for folk building from his boat plans. he's always just a click away from answering questions. So even if you were to have problems it's their as a back up. So you not only get his plans, but tech support, fantastic. Thats my plug for his fabulous plans. See links to the side of my blog.