Backyard Pirate Ship - Day 2

Day 2 is done. 

Got the last of the lumber today (pressure treated) for the base of the ship.  Essentially anything that is in contact with the ground will be PT.

By the time I had gotten all the lumber, a caramel latte for my wife and gotten my windshield fixed, it was lunchtime.  So around 12:30 we were back out there, finishing the site prep.  Took a little longer than I wanted as I wanted everything to be nice and level.

So it was finally time to start buidling.  Things went pretty good as I had designed the center portion of the boat to be done with just 2 cuts. 



So here is the frame for the base of the ship.



You can see things are moving along quite nicely.  This was one of the most important parts of the project, making sure the base was straight and level.  Now I expect tomorrow we'll be able to build the frame and I don't expect any surprises seeing as the "foundation" is laid down.

One last thing, I want to touch on that is extremely important, if not the most important part of any project; planning.  A good game plan will save you loads of time once you start your project.  The only reason why this project is going so well so far and that I only have maybe 2% waste from the lumber I'm using is that I planned ahead.  Everything from the design of the ship, the materials and the sequence of work has been planned.

I have sheets upon sheets of specs and instructions that I have given myself for this project.  Do I ever stray from the plan?  Of course, albeit just slightly.  This morning for example, I made a few changes to the plan which in the grand scheme of things won't use up much more material, in fact I basically ate into what would have been waste (scrap).  End result is that the base of the ship went from a planned 16 ft long and is now just shy of 17ft.  Anyways, that's my sermon for today, plan, then plan some more.

So once again, I bid you good evening and will try for another update tomorrow.

André