Lots of epoxy

Spent quite a bit of time today getting the epoxy onto the fiberglass. The end result is really nice:

If it weren't for the scars on the plywood from the scarf joints, I'd be tempted to finish this bright.

The glass laid down very easily. The only spot that gave me even the slightest bit of trouble was one of the stern transom corners. I am trying putting a piece of wax paper over it to hold it down while it cures:

Hopefully that takes care of things. If not, I'll have to figure something out.

The day went pretty much according to plan. I got up early this morning and started digging in. I mixed a bunch of triple-batches of epoxy (I lost count how many) as I went, using the "slow" hardener. I used a plastic scraper/spreader to work the epoxy into the glass. It was a pleasant surprise how well the glass stayed in place. I had virtually no trouble with bunching or wrinkling or bubbles or any of that. It went right on.

And it used a BUNCH of epoxy. Took something just short of a half-gallon of resin to get the first coat down. Took me about two hours to get it coated. That would realistically get cut in half if I had had a helper mixing batches as I went. It pretty much takes as long to mix a batch as it took to put it on.

Then I went to the office. I figured the slow hardener would give me plenty of time (particularly since the temps here today are in the low 40's) before it tacked over and was ready for the second coat. 

After work, it was perfect: Just the right "cure" level. Still tacky, mostly.

So I set about putting another coat on, this one designed to fill in the weave. Since the biggest pain from this morning was measuring out the resin (it gets thick in these cooler temps, and the squirt pumps are SLOW) I had the idea of just using the measuring marks on my cups. I get them at a pro auto-body supply place:

And they come pre-marked with measuring lines for just about any proportion of two or three part mix you could need:

 

I opened a fresh jug of resin, and just poured it in up to the required line. I still used the pump for the hardener...it pumps easier than the resin and only needs half as much.

The second coat required way less mix than the first. I didn't keep track, but I'd guess it was less than 1/3 what the first took. I used a small foam roller I bought at the hardware store today. Went on very nice. I can't say the weave is completely gone, but its close.

For the second coat, I used "fast" hardener. My plan is to get back out there later tonight and get one more coat on, this time thickened with micro-balloons for a fairing compound. At that point, I'll be done until it fully cures. I'll go over it with the longboard and see how smooth it comes out. Then I'll mix up some more thickened epoxy and feather in the joints around the corners. I want them to completely disappear.

All in all, a great day. I was a little worried about this part of the project. Lou talks a lot about hating to put on glass, and I have to agree it was a sticky mess of a job. But overall, it wasn't too difficult and the result seems very pleasing. I'm very eager to see how this turns out after everything is cured.

Starting on the glass

Very satisfying result tonight.

I got started glassing the hull. This is something that's been pretty intimidating to me, having never done it before.

I've been thinking about my strategy on this for a while...how much to glass, etc. After noodling on it, and in particular seeing what sizes of glass were available from Duckworks, I decided to cover the whole hull (including the sides all the way up to the sheer). I bought my glass in 50" width, which means I can lay it on the bottom with one edge on the keel and the other edge will come down all the way to the sheer. Or at least get close.

So I started the job tonight.

Here is my initial lay-down of fiberglass:

Next I took a dry paintbrush and started smoothing it out. That stuff is remarkable. I can't believe how loose the weave is. The wrinkles and bulges just seem to disappear.

After a few minutes of work, including cutting points on the bow and stern corners, I had this result:

Came out great. I did the other side the same way, overlapping it at the center. Except for the part where the centerboard will be. I left a smidge of a gap there so I could get the glass all the way (almost) to the sheer at the boat's widest point. Since I'll be cutting the centerboard slot, and glassing over the opening, etc, there's no problem leaving this gap here.

I decided to let this "rest" overnight. Hopefully, whatever minor wrinkles there are will soften out.

At the moment, the plan is to get up in the morning and lay down the first layer of epoxy. Not sure how long that will take, but I'm guessing a couple of hours at the most (optimistic?). I'm going to use the "slow" hardener, and its pretty cool out, so I'm hoping its still tacky when I get home from work, at which time I will put on another coat. Then the following morning I'll go back with a coat of epoxy loaded with micro-balloons, then let that cure and hopefully be able to hit it with a longboard on Sunday.

That's the plan anyway. We'll see how it goes.

Finishing off the beams

First order of business tonight was to get the belt sander running again. I stopped at a local tool supply place this morning and picked up a new power cord.

What I learned in this is that it wasn't necessary to take the side cover off the sander. You can do the whole thing inside the handle. Oh well. If I ever have to do it again, next time I'll know. After an hour or so of messing around, its as good as new:

From there, I took the deck beams and sanded them smooth, taking off the epoxy squeeze-out and evening off the laminations. What I found in the process of gluing those up it is all but impossible to keep the various layers perfectly lined up. They all wanted to slide around a tad. In the end, they were off by a smidge (like maybe 1/32"). No problem. The belt sander made quick work of evening them out.

Those came out really nice. The spring-back from the jig seems to be pretty much identical on each of them, so they should lay out on the deck very well.

Oh, and be careful with the sander:

(That looks worse than it is...)

Oops: Porter Cable Eats Itself

Spent some time sanding off the hull with my longboard this morning. The wood is pretty fair to start with, so I am mainly concentrating on making sure the scarfs are nice and clean.

Then I turned my attention to the deck beams. I have three glued up and off the jig, so I figured this was a good time to clean off the squeeze-out and even out the laminations.

The first side of the first one came out nice:

But unfortunately, I had this much left to do on the other side:

When I screwed up and got the sander's cord wrapped up inside the belt. The result was terminal:

The good news is there is a place that services these not too far from my office. I'll take it in tomorrow. Hopefully they can get to it quickly.

I also had a bit of a learning experience on epoxy today. When gluing up the deck beams, what I found is that each beam takes about half of one "small" batch of epoxy. I'm using Marinepoxy, and bought the pump dispensers from Duckworks. With those, the smallest batch you can make is two squirts of resin and one squirt of hardener. I decided to use my kitchen scale to come up with a half-batch.

So I squirted out one squirt of resin. That weighed in at exactly 26 grams. Then I added 13 grams of hardener. Turns out that was pretty much exactly what I needed to glue up beam #4. 

But as I was working, it occurred to me that maybe the proportions by weight were not the same as the proportions by volume. A bit of research (yes, I should have done this first!) proved that to be correct. Here is the chart from Duckworks. Turns out I was just a tad long on my hardener. I don't think its going to hurt any, but we will see tomorrow when I pull the beam off the jig.

Some Jigsaw Work

Decided to turn my attention to the jigsaw tonight. I cut out a bunch of pieces, concentrating on the centerboard and the rudder assembly.

It started with pulling the 3/4" panel out of the pile. This was the one that was used to source the transoms earlier. I cut out a bunch of patterns from the Barlow plans, and laid them out:

Little trick: When you are taping down patterns like this, stick the tape to an open section of the board first so it picks up some dust and isn't so sticky. That way it won't tear the pattern when you lift it off.

From there, it was sawing and sawing and some more sawing. Eventually, I ended up with a complete rudder assembly (which I dry-fit together just to see how cool it would look):

And a rough cutout of the centerboard:

I particularly like the centerboard. I remember looking at these plans as a kid and liking that hook in the upper left hand corner. Its cool having one of my own!

Next job of the night was to pull yesterday's deck beam off the gluing jig, and get the next one started. Each of these takes about half of a standard quantity of epoxy (two squirts of resin, one squirt of epoxy). I hate wasting that stuff since its so spendy, but I don't have anything to do with the excess, so there it is. I might try weighing it out so I can make smaller batches. As it is, I've got about 2" or so left in the bottom of my first (of four) bottles of resin. As long as I can get through the project without needing more, I'll be ok, but the really heavy use (glassing and fairing the hull) is yet to come.

Here you can see last night's beam sitting next to tonight's.

It occurred to me tonight that I should have been keeping track of how much time I'm spending on this boat. Oh well. Nothing to do about that now. I will say that for the most part, each of these installments represents something like two hours (average) of work time. It seems to be going well, and I'm getting more and more comfortable that Seven Wonders will be in the water come spring.

Starting on the deck beams

The hull is essentially complete. I ordered the fiberglass today. Should be here next week.

In the mean time, reading through the plans, I decided that now was a good time to get started on the deck beams. There are five of them, identical, made from a lamination of 1/2" plywood.

Step one was to cut some boards out of the ply. These are 72" x 6":

The actual beams are 1.5" wide, so I needed to rip four strips out of each of the boards:

The result was a big pile of sticks:

Next, it was off to Home Depot to get an 8' 2x8 to make the bending form. The making of this is pretty much the same process as I used for the strongback back at the beginning: Mark the offsets, tack in a finish nail, use a limber batten to establish the line, cut it off. The only think I noticed that was different is that this curve is too sharp to cut easily with a circular saw. I used a jig saw.

I grabbed a piece of scrap plywood and screwed it to the bottom of the bending form so I would have a good surface to clamp to the sawhorses.

From there, it was just a matter of mixing up a batch of glue, coating the sticks, and clamping them down. I was trying to be careful...applying just enough force to bend the beam into position, but not so much as to squeeze out all the glue. Not sure there is any getting that right.

You'll also note that I put some plastic over the bending jig first. We will be doing four more of these beams, so I don't want the jig getting munged up when I take them off.

On a totally unrelated note, I sold the Evinrude that came with the "throw-away" boat that I bought for the sake of getting the trailer. I put it on Craigslist for $100, and the guy handed me a $100 bill. Somehow, at that moment, that didn't seem right, so I gave him a $20 in change. I wasn't trying to make money on that. I just wanted it to go to a good home. I feel better at $80, since that's pretty much what I had in it.

I did a little research on it, and it turns out its a 1957 "Big Twin", 35 HP. Pretty cool. I hope the guy gets her running. 

Rounding Some Corners

Had a great conversation with Lou Brochetti today. I really can't express how appreciative I am for his generosity with his time. He has been a tremendous help on this project.

Thanks, Lou!

Tonight was pretty fun. The sole task was rounding over the corners around the hull. Simple enough. I went across and hit it with the belt sander, then I went back and smoothed it out with the mouse sander. An hour later, my hands are still buzzing.

The corners look good.

Did have a funny moment. You know that scene in "Captain Ron" where the kid is working the belt sander, it comes unplugged, gets plugged back in and zooms off the boat...knocking Martin Short into the water?

I did the same thing. Without the falling in the ocean part. Good thing the Porter-Cable is built like a brick.

Anthony (kid from across the street) was with me. He thought it was the funniest thing ever.

A little cleaning up

The task of the day was to get the excess from the bottom panels planed off and sanded smooth, and to fill in the rest of the screw holes.

Here's the joint at the starboard side of the stern. Came out nice. Its pretty cool how these joints come out looking nice and tight after you clean them up.

And here's the bow transom:

The spots on the sides where the bottom wasn't quite wide enough worked out fine. I buttered them up with thickened epoxy yesterday, and today, after smoothing them off, here's what we have:

The only evidence there was ever a problem is that slightly thicker bit of epoxy along the seam there. That stuff sure can hide a lot of mistakes.

I used "fast" hardener on the screw fillers, so hopefully those will be cured and I can sand them off after dinner. And the big task is to sit down and calculate exactly how much glass I'm going to need so I can get that ordered tomorrow.

Planking is complete!

Nice milestone this morning: The planking is complete!

The last piece (the front end of the bottom) went on without any drama. I decided to use up some "slow" hardener on this, since I'm in no hurry for the next step and have plenty of time to let it cure.

I started out by dry fitting a full 4x8 sheet. I had my 4 year old grandson sit on the end near the center joint while my daughter bent the bow end down flush. Then came the unpleasant task of crawling underneath and marking all the fairing surfaces.

The only issue I noticed was that the boat is ever so slightly too wide. After careful positioning, we were still about 1/8" too narrow at the boat's widest point. Not much to do about that, except to fix is up with some epoxy fills and beveling when I fair the hull.

Pulled it off, cut off the majority of the excess wood, drilled a bunch of screw holes, and started mixing epoxy.

I started out with a triple batch that I left clear. I used that to pre-coat the mating surfaces on both the frame and the panel. I'm getting the hang of this now, so I realize that there is no rush here. In fact, better to give the epoxy some soaking-in time. So I stopped, grabbed a quick lunch, then got back to things.

Next, I mixed a double batch. This time, I added a TON of thickener. I wanted this stuff to be really heavy...like the consistency of cold Crisco. Once that was mixed, I applied it to the boat-side of the mating surfaces. Nice and heavy.

Then I recruited two helpers, and we carefully got the panel back in position. From there, it was just a matter of drilling/countersinking/screwing a bunch of stainless steel screws. I started from the back and worked my way forward, screwing along both chines and the keelson as I went. The last bit on the bow required a helper to bend the panel down to the transom. A few more screws, and PRESTO: It looks like a boat:

If the epoxy is cured by tomorrow, I'll go ahead and plane/sand off the excess and smooth over the corners. Otherwise, I'll wait a few extra days. The next big step is glassing the bottom, and I still need to order my fiberglass from Duckworks, so I'm in no hurry at this point. I plan on spending a fair amount of time glassing and fairing and such. I'm hoping to get this smooth and even enough for a nice, gloss finish. If that proves impossible, I'll compromise and paint it semi-gloss and call it good.

I also have to decide how much to glass. Lou Brochetti says just to glass to the waterline, but I'm thinking maybe I'll just do the whole thing. Time to decide, I suppose.

Starting the bottom planking

I didn't have a lot of time tonight to stop and take pictures, so here it is after I was done:

The back half of the planking is on.

Not much to the process at this point. I cut the panel to rough length, put it on the boat and got it into position. The next part was the worst. I had to crawl underneath to mark the position of the joints on the panel so I would know where to apply the glue. Then I marked the outside of the panel as well.

Took it off, cut it to size (leaving a half inch or so all the way around). Pre-drilled the holes in the panel, mixed up a double batch of glue and started coating the faring surfaces. Ran out of glue, mixed up some more, and finished coating. Then I mixed up even more glue, thickened it a bunch with wood flour, and put that over the first glue. After it was all said and done, I grabbed one of my daughters and we carefully placed it back in position. From there it was just drilling and screwing, back to front, until it was done. 

Seeing as I am getting more comfortable every day with the epoxy, I didn't go overboard quite so much tonight. There was much less squeeze out than before. Still just a little, but not ridiculous like it had been. That made the last job of the night (crawling back underneath and dealing with the interior squeeze out) slightly more pleasant. 

I should be able to get the front panel on tomorrow, which means this thing is pretty close to actually being a hull.

Some small-ball tonight

Nothing big going on tonight. Just a few odds and ends in preparation for planking the bottom of the hull later in the week.

The hull planking will have a seam, running thwart-ship, around eight feet back from the bow. Rather than scarfing things together, the plans call for 1" thick floor boards that will run underneath that seam. Those floorboards are made from laminations of 1/2" ply, just like the keelson.

So I dug out what was left of "Sheet 'C'" from my stack (having already cut into it for the keelson pieces), and got to work. First thing that was apparent was that it only made sense to cut the "thwart" out of the sheet first, since everything after that would be straight cuts.

So, here is one (of two) thwarts. These will eventually run from the sides to the centerboard box.

Liking my Bosch jig saw more and more. I bought that a few years ago for a different project. Its true what they say: Buy the best and you only cry once.

After that, what was left of Sheet 'C' got ripped into a bunch of 3" strips that will eventually become the "footlings" (strips glued along the bottom of the boat to strengthen the hull and provide a better walking surface). I taped them into a bundle for now, since I won't be getting to them for a while.

And we also got the floorboards. Actually, these are two pieces, 6" x 44". One was cut from Sheet 'C' and the other from Sheet 'B'. (First time I've cut into Sheet 'B'. Progress takes odd forms on a project like this, it would appear).

Rather than cut them to individual length (22"), I decided to glue them up first. This was one of those times where it was hardly worth mixing up the epoxy, but whatcha gonna do? These have to be ready and shaped to fit before I can start planking the bottom. There are going to be some interesting bevels on those. They run from the keelson to the chine on each side. The keelson side will be square, but the chine side will have a compound miter, and it may even be the case that there is enough curve in the chine at that point I will need to carve around for that. We'll see.

For now, things are setting up nicely. We'll get to the compound angles tomorrow.

Fairing the sides

Not much to report today. I took my belt sander and faired of the excess planking on the sides. Looks nice:

If you look close, you can see Anthony, my neighbor-kid/helper. He always wants to run the ShopVac. Who am I to complain?

I was going to start on the bottom planking, but I've got some other chores to do, and I also promised my wife I'd get her side of the garage cleared out for her car once the sides were installed, so that's the priority.

Gluing on the sides

With a certain amount of trepidation, I went ahead and glued on the sides today. I re-read the plans last night, and the more I did, the more I have the feeling I scarfed the sides the wrong way. At the same time, the more I study on this, the more I conclude that it doesn't matter. Absolute worst case is that the sides of my boat are about an inch lower than they otherwise should be. I can live with that.

They went on pretty easy, although this is definitely a two-person job. I was fortunate enough to have my daughters around to help me position the sides, and Anthony (the kid from across the street who has taken such an interest in this project) was there to hand me screws as I drove the sides home.

While dry-fitting the sides, I marked them where the mating surfaces make contact with the chines and transoms. I also made some marks on the edges to allow me to return it to the exact same position when I install it during gluing. I also marked the location of the screws holding the chine laminations together so I didn't try to drill through one of those.

Then I pulled them off, trimmed off the excess (mainly on the ends), and then pre-drilled screw holes every eight to ten inches along the entire side. I used a bit that was slightly bigger than the screws I am using, so there is no chance the sides aren't pulled tight.

Next, I wrapped some wax-paper around the jig in those spots where the squeeze out might end up binding the sides to the jig. Last thing I want is to have trouble getting the hull off the jig when its time.

I used way more epoxy than I needed to on this, but I wanted to make sure I had good joints, so I was willing to waste some. I started out by mixing a "double batch" (four squirts of resin, two squirts of hardener) using the "fast" hardener and brushed that on all the mating surfaces....the chines and the transoms, as well as the side. Its pretty cool out in the garage today, so that stuff was fairly thick. It took the whole batch to coat one side.

Then I mixed a "triple batch" (six squirts of resin, three squirts of hardener) using the "slow" hardener, and added thickener (wood flour) until it was almost peanut butter thick. I brushed this on all the mating surfaces as well. It went on thick, and again, I ended up with pretty much the exact amount I needed (doing one side at a time, of course). 

Then it was time to round up one of my daughters, and carefully position the side on the boat. I had made a location mark near the center, and I started with that. Then it was a matter of getting the edge fair to the chine stem to stern, and temporarily clamping it in place.

With the side in position, I started at the middle, drilled and countersunk a hole in each hole I had pre-drilled, and installed a 1" stainless steel screw. There was a TON of squeeze-out, which I wanted. I'd rather waste glue than have a dry joint. After getting all the screws installed, I went back with a mixing stick and scraped off as much of the squeeze-out as I could. This is what I got off of the port side:

Here's some shots of the boat as she sits right now:

As cool as it is, there is a chance that it won't be cured by tomorrow. If that's the case, I'll take the day off. This was done using mostly "slow" hardener, and that stuff has proven to be maddenly slow. As I've gotten more comfortable using the epoxy, I pretty much only use the fast. I used the slow here because I wasn't sure how much working time I was going to need. As it turned out, I could have used fast just fine. Problem is, I've got a bunch of the slow that I need to use eventually, so I may as well put it to work.

As for the potential for having done this all wrong, we will have to see. I will say that the Barlow book would be better with less text (that isn't particularly clear) and MORE PICTURES! That's part of why I am keeping this blog...to help fill in those gaps for the next guy building one of these.

Test Fitting the Side

Well, I tried calling Lou this morning, but his voicemail says he is out until the 15th, so I guess I am on my own.

The scarf that I glued up last night came out very nice. It will take just a touch of finish sanding and should be perfect.

So, I decided to dry-fit it to the jig and see how much trouble I am in:

It came out really good. Hard to imagine it fitting any better.

The only thing that has me scratching my head is that the diagram on "Plan B" has the "notch" (the gap between the wider board and the narrower one) on the bottom, not on the top (as it sits in my pictures):

When you look at that diagram, and see how Barlow has the outline of the boat sketched out (the dashed line) you see that the notch is supposed to be on the bottom.

Well, I'm thinking Ed got that one wrong, because there is really no way mine could fit any better. I'm going to trust the boat and not the plans. 

With that in mind, I went ahead and glued up the other side's scarf joint. Tomorrow when its dry, I'll dry-fit that side and start the process of getting them attached.

I'm guessing there is still a chance that Lou is going to tell me I have this wrong, but I don't see how. The way I have it fit, there is very little (almost none, actually) excess extending off the top, meaning I am using about as much of the boards as I can. I'm feeling like I've got this.

Gluing up the side scarfs

The scarfs I cut yesterday are looking good. I took my little "mouse" sander and cleaned off the epoxy a bit...knocking down the high spots and dusting a couple of bugs that landed there last night.

Tonight's task was to get them glued up.

I found myself wondering if I have them cut properly. The problem is right here:

I decided not to out-think myself, so I went with the version on top, per the "Plan B" sheet. I am going to have to call Lou in the morning and make sure I did that right.

In the mean time, I decided to cut my risk in half and only glue up one side. Beside that, I am still pretty new at this, and I would have to stack one panel on top of the other to do both, and I'd rather take an extra day to do them carefully, one at a time.

So I mixed up some epoxy, added some wood flour to thicken it up to somewhere between catsup and peanut butter (in case I have any spots of poor contact inside the scarf), and glued them up:

It looks like they went together very cleanly. I was certainly neater with the epoxy this time around than I was the first time. 

Hopefully Lou tells me tomorrow that I am doing this right. Otherwise I'll have to cut this one apart and re-do it. Fingers crossed....