Building Steps

Please note that the images below are thumbnail of a higher resolution image. If you click on any of the thumbnail images you will see the higher resolution image BUT be prepared to wait for the image to load into your browser. High speed internet users should only need to blink a few times before the image is displayed.

The Pic's		The Comments
December 1st 2004 (ignore the date on the picture)		This picture show all of the wood I purchased to make the ribs of the UH-R12 hovercraft. I have been to many stores trying to locate 14 foot premium lumber (not grade #2 or #3) and I will be the first to say it wasn't as easy to locate as I thought it would be. After calling all the popular home improvement super stores and a popular lumber yards in my area I finally located some at a place called "Edward Heinz Lumber" in Downers Grove, Illinois. I purchased an extra 1x4x14 and an extra 1x6x14 just in case I made a mistake and needed to re-cut a part. Since these are 14 foot boards with no knots they were not cheap. The cost with the extra boards was around $180 in my neck of the woods. I chose to purchase lumber without knots because I wanted the ribs of the craft to be as strong as possible. That just the way I decided to do it. #2 grade lumber probably would have been sufficient.

December 4th 2004		The top half of this picture shows the first rib (R-2) that I cut after transferring the blueprint image the wood. The bottom half of the picture is an example of how I used pins to transfer the full size rib template to the wood. By laying the wood under the full sized blueprint I pushed pins along the pattern line to poke small holes into the wood that I would later play "connect the dots" to form part outline. The pins are currently marking R-3 rib that I will cut out next. When "pinning" your pattern onto the wood make sure that you smooth out as much as possible all the folds in the blueprint. No doing so could throw your measurements off by 1/4 to 1/2 inch and your drawn template will not match the dimensions printed in your documentation.

December 4th 2004		I used many pins when "Pinning" the pattern for the R-3 rib (above) because it is a curved line. The other ribs only require strait cuts (as seen in the photo on the left) and only a few pins are required.

December 5th 2004		No pictures for today. I have run into a problem where the lumber isn't as wide as I think it should be for me to "Pin" the pattern onto the 1x4 board for the bottom half of rib R-3. Before I cut this piece out I will need to contact Universal Hovercraft where I purchased my plans to ask them a few questions. They have always been very helpful in the past and I am sure they will clear up the confusion that I am currently experiencing.

December 6th, 2004		I placed a phone call to Universal Hovercraft and spoke to one of the staff. As expected he was able to clear up my confusion in a very short amount of time by reviewing their copy of the 12R blueprints. The answer I was looking for was shown on the blueprint, however, it was in an area different than I was looking at as I referenced the dimensions for rib 3- (R-3). Had I looked up about 6 inches higher I would have seen what was pointed out to me on the phone. Can you say RTFM? For future UH-12R builders please take note that ribs 2 - 6 are made from 1x4 inch limber but you will need to glue a small piece of wood to the bottom (in the shape of a triangle) of the rib to complete the width of the rib. I will make sure I take some picture and post them for you to see the next time I work on the craft.

December 8th, 2004		Here is a picture of the "triangle" piece that needs to be cut and attached to the bottom of rib 3. As you can see the outline for the bottom of rib 3 is traced on the board which will be cut out next.

December 8th, 2004		Here is the top curved piece I mentioned above that I gave the acupuncture treatment to. This is what the piece looks like after I removed the pins, connected the dots and cut it out.

December 8th, 2004		Here you see rib 3 with most of the pieces cut out. I only worked tonight for about an hour so I wasn't able to completely make all of the parts for this rib as I wanted to. If you look closely with your 20/20 laser corrected eyes you can see that the small triangle pieces (both of them) are attached to the bottom of the rib. If you cant see them, don't feel bad. I didn't get my eyes lasered either!

		Here is rib 3 (R-3) with all the pieces cut. The only thing missing which is cut but not in the picture is the steering housing. You can see the identical steering housing in rib 4 below.

December 11th, 2004		This is a picture of rib 4 (or R-4). Like the pictures above I cut the parts out and just placed them together for the picture. The darker pieces of wood are made from 1/4 inch plywood obtained from my uncle which he so graciously donated. All other pieces are made from 1x4's. The plans indicate that its best to cut the joints so they fit together like a puzzle to form a stronger joint before they are epoxied together. If you don't have the tools to do this there is an alternative way to put the joint together. Since I am somewhat of a tool junkie I purchased a 9 inch band saw to help me out with this task. I think I will have to fix my table saw (needs new motor) to make the cuts that the band saw cannot do. The other idea I had was to make a metal template and use a router to make the cuts. I think I really need to draw up an example of the joint overlap because I am sure my "puzzle" description above does not paint a clear image in your mind of what I am talking about. I want to re-emphasize that the overlapping of the joints are NOT a requirement so don't let this scare you away from building this craft!! I have spoke to someone with this same hovercraft who does not have the overlapped joints and they jumped an 8 foot dam without any damage to the ribs (at least not the hovercrafts ribs).

		The time I have to devote to my hovercraft project has been very limited lately. We were busy planning for our sons birthday party which naturally took priority. I am happy to say that he enjoyed his party thoroughly. Now if I can just make it through the Christmas and New Years celebrations I should be able to get back to project fun.

December 15th, 2004		Today I was able to put about 30 minutes into project fun. I am thinking of renaming the project to "Project I cant spend as much time as I would like to". At any rate even a little progress is still progress. This is a picture of the bottom of rib 5 (R-5) outlined on the 1x4. I have already cut out the small triangle pieces for the bottom of this rib as I spoke about earlier for rib 3. The zip saw in the picture is what I am making most of my cuts with. Make sure you occasionally change blades to make cutting easier.

December 15th, 2004		Rib 5 cut out. Need I say more.

December 15th, 2004		Here is a close up of the left side of rib 5 with the small triangle piece places at the bottom. As mentioned above, these pieces are not yet glued/epoxied.

December 19th, 2004		Today I finished cutting the remaining pieces for rib 5. I have placed the parts together to form how the rib will be assembled. Remember I still need to cut the overlap joints and cut in the notches for the stringers which you will learn about in future steps. One thing I forgot to add into this picture assembly are the bottom triangle pieces that you can see in the close up image above.

December 19th, 2004		Here are some pictures I took of the first overlap joint cuts I made. These pieces of wood are the parts for the left most and rights most parts for rib 5 that connects the top of the rib to the bottom. Just to show you an example of an overlap joint I placed both of these cuts together. They would be exoxied together to form a stronger joint than if the two pieces had straight cuts and were epoxied together without being overlapped. As you can see my first attempt at the overlap cut was not a perfect cut but the epoxy will fill the gap and still create a joint that is stronger than the wood itself.

December 21st/22nd 2004		This is rib 6 that was cut out and assembled for the picture to post here on the web site. I noticed that the full size picture (when you click on the thumbnail image on the left) is fuzzy when you view it. I imagine that the last few picture I put on here are fuzzy because I forgot to take my camera off the macro setting which is used when taking close ups of objects. I will try to get better pictures for the fuzzy one the next time I can work on the craft. Today (Dec 22nd) I was able to put about 1 hour into this project. It amazes me that my life is so busy during these holidays that I can only spare 30 minutes to an hour. Such is life. At least I enjoy the holidays too.

December 22nd, 2004		This is a close up of the left side of rib 6. I took this image because you should notice that the bottom half of the rib has an additional cut that the other ribs do not have. The blueprints make this perfectly clear but a picture make it even clearer. (even if it was a fuzzy picture!) The only rib left to make is rib 7. It is a very easy rib to make which you will see when I post a picture of it. I will try and do that rib tomorrow night. After all the ribs are cut out I will go back and cut all the "overlap" cuts for all pieces of wood that will be epoxied together. I will also need to cut the stringer notches for the stringers that I will have to make that connect all the ribs together and form the basic shape of the hovercraft. There are a few other miscellaneous cuts that will have to be made as well.

December 23rd, 2004		As mentioned above I cut the parts out for rib 7 which is the last of the ribs to be made. I can tell you it feels great to have built the major "skeleton" of the craft with little to no problems. If you recall the issue I ran into earlier in the process was because I was not looking in the correct place on the blueprint. The information was there but it took a support phone call from where I purchased the plans to help me see what was there. It was kind of like not being able to see the trees because of the Forrest. Another reason I took these picture is to point out something I did not see earlier on a particular 1 x 4 (now rib 7). If you look closely I said earlier that there were no knots in the wood I purchased. After careful inspection I see that there is a very (very) small knot in one of the pieces of wood. The knot actually fell out and a small hole remains about 2/8 of an inch wide and about 2mm high. Although this knot will exist there is no real measurable weakness caused but a know if this size. Just to make myself feel better I will put some epoxy in the knot hole which will make it just as strong as the wood around it (actually stronger). Take that you sneaky piece of 1 x 4! The last thing about rib 7 is that it is super easy to make. It consist of one piece of wood cut to length and your done. The only thing remaining to do is to cut the notches for the stringers. As mentioned above you will see the stringer steps in later steps to follow. The total time I put in today to make rib 7 was about 3-5 minutes. If I had to do it again it would take less than 30 seconds.

December 23rd, 2004		I thought I would show you another picture of the remaining wood. Remember that I purchased an extra 1 x 4 and 1 x 6 lumber just in case I had to re-cut a part do to a mistake. If you take away those two boards it still seems like I have a lot of wood left when you consider that I made all the ribs for the hovercraft already. As time goes by we will have to see how all that wood gets used up as we continue to build the UH-12R.
BACK (Main Menu)	BACK (Main Sub Menu)