I met a boat builder on the Internet who lived out in Seattle who was building the model boat I wanted to build. I took a trip to Seattle to meet the builder, Bart Samaduroff, and check out the build he was working on. The afternoon spent with Bart turned out to be a great deal on my part as Bart agreed to handle the blasting, priming, and CNC plasma cutting of my metal for what I considered a reasonable fee. The package was a few months late getting to me so Bart handled some good faith negotiating for me and had the vendor pay most of the shipping costs from Seattle to New Richmond, Ohio. I did not ask for this sizable reduction in price, but Bart insisted and I kept hearing that old adage of not looking a gift horse in the mouth. If anyone has the chance to do business with Bart Samaduroff I only have great things to say about him.
The metal package showed up at my shop on a flat bed weighing in at 40,000 lbs. We made the lift off the trailer in two picks using our Cat 312 Excavator, and then spent the next day sorting and checking that all the parts were accounted for and present. Looking back I believe that only one frame member for the Portuguese bridge was missing.
The first step for me in actually starting the physical part of building this boat was to set up the jig that will support the bottom hull plates and the boat as it is being built. I used some 4" H beams for squaring things up and then I welded the building jig to the H beam frame. With the jig welded to the frame the building can now begin.
Conall
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