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bagarre

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Everything posted by bagarre

  1. I didn't know how to attach a video clip but I thought this one adequately closes out this build thread. Many thanks for designing a great boat. https://goo.gl/photos/9v4NzBzQtKvhxrX38
  2. FWIW my wife paddled her new Ravenswood and described it as rock solid. Her past experience was plastic rentals a few times. I thought she'd take a while to get used to it but it took her 10 seconds.
  3. The clear urethane and a touch of wood stain turned out beautiful on the deck. The more layers you put on, the darker it gets which makes hitting a color hit or miss. I wonder if an initial coat of heavily stained urethan and subsequent clear coats would work. I'd like to see a few nylon boats to see how much they slack up. Some photos really show wrinkles tho.
  4. Even with random sizes, it's an enormous time saver to buy pre-ripped stringers. I bought the frames kit to save time in cutting. But that's a lot of intricate cutting. I don't know if I could justify $350 a boat for the stringers tho. For me: Cutting the frames for two boats seemed really tedious and a screw up meant throwing away a frame. The stringers were pretty fast work with a table saw. But, I do own a table saw. I think you're target for stringers will be a person without access to a table saw or band saw. There are a lot of those folks out there. Would it be such a bad thing to offer ripped lengths and let the builder scarf them to the right lengths? That's already a time saver. Maybe offer free plans to make a scarf jig for a hand saw.
  5. Everything except building the stringers and painting the dacron was done in my living room so, I was watching TV I had a personal goal to get these done as a fast project so, most everything else in life was set aside. Oh, and we have no kids if it wasnt for my OCD on the coamings and a snafu in shipping the urethane goop, I could have been done in a month.
  6. Yeah, central California has had it rough the last few years.
  7. Almost two months to the day, they are in the water. I forgot my phone at home and we didn't want to pass hers over the water so we only have photos of the one boat. Wonderfully stable boats. Even my wife who has only paddled two or three times was instantly comfortable and confident in it. More shots to come but it's raining today. This one shows the paddle. Very pretty, works well but too much hard wood to a touch heavier than I'd like. Will make a great second paddle.
  8. I didn't think about that with the paracord but, nylon does stretch a lot when wet. I did the hull with spirit lines goo and rare earth pigments as well and will never do that again. WAY too much work for the return. I ended up using all of the pigment for the two boats which might have been a little too much. If I do more boats, I will look into nylon and stain it as we really like the look. I like the reflective yarn idea as well. Thanks for the link!
  9. Nice! I ended up making a scrub plane as well as buying a draw knife. Even being a new blade, I still had a few hours getting the edge right. Between the two, I use the draw knife more. It's just me but I feel like I have more control with it. It might also be that I like to watch the way the blade works the wood.
  10. Beautiful looking boat and it's great that you built it together.
  11. Deck rigging done on boat #2. The leather is 1/4" but I think it's a bit too thin. We'll find out the first time I need to use it Side lines and grab handles are a continuous piece of para-cord stuff. Being that long, it has a fair amount of stretch but not so much to not be usable as a safety line. Loops thru the deck line holes hold the safety line in place. I'm pretty happy with everything - so long as the leather holds up.
  12. On the first boat, I couldnt figure out how to pull the fabric up to make the bow really neat and clean. So, first boat I sewed the curve. On the second boat I figured it out and was able to do the Bow with no seam. BUT when I tried to do it on the stern it didnt work out quite well. So, seam it was. I made up some maple and walnut rub rails for them that I plan to install with a few #6 screws. I still need to work that out.
  13. Here we are, watching paint dry The decks are oil based urethane. First coat was thinned out and a little stain added for color. The hull is skinboat's goop. Need to add the leather straps and toggles tomorrow but I should be on the water this weekend.
  14. I thinned mine with some turpentine to let it soak in and penetrate joints better. With marine plywood and cedar, I dont think rot is really a concern for the average boat. There's probably a valid argument to skip the BLO all together unless it will be left out in the weather.
  15. Thanks. I'm really enjoying the build but the finish introduced a level of frustration I wasn't prepared for. We're contemplating a regular urethane varnish on the decks vs risking it with the goop. The two tone would look nice and the lighter decks would stay cooler in the sun. The paw prints were my wife's idea. I plan to have more fun topside. I'm getting pretty good at drawing these little guys with a sharpie. The fabric bleed actually makes it look a bit more authentic too.
  16. Results are in and lesson learned. This stuff is plain miserable to work with and instructions are pretty useless. Using a foam roller may be easier than the squeegee method but it's a pain to push into the fabric and each subsequent coat has a constellation of air bubbles. The product is thicker than epoxy and doesnt roll well - at all. Pot life is about 15 minutes before it really gets gooey. I ended up cutting it 10% with MEK and using my gun to put another dusting of MEK after application to keep the bubbles down but, they are still there. 3 days and I'm not done with the bottoms. I'm tempted to call it a loss and just paint the decks but the final translucent color is what we were going for.
  17. Thanks for the compliments. Of the two, I like the second one more (the one not mounted in the photo). It has a rhythm about it that I like looking at. They really weren't that difficult to make. Just lost of time and patience. Run a ton of wood thru the table saw to make high quality saw dust (you can't just buy that in a store, you know). Glue a few layers, block plane it fairly level, glue more layers...yada yada yada They are time consuming but not really talent demanding. I found there is a sweet spot around 3/16ths to an 1/8th that is easy to work with. Any thinner and you need clamps every inch on both sides to keep it flat against the other wood. Any thicker and it's a bear to bend. I know some folks go round and round in one shot but I didn't have much luck with that so I did a layer a night on the coaming but could stack 3 or 4 in the cheek blocks. Doing a layer at a time allowed me to scarf the joints and make them near invisible. On the first one, I just did butt joints. I made the lip with a flush router bit and the router mounted under a table. Oh, and you need a ton of clamps. And you will always grab the pipe clamp that slips when you need a good clamp the most. The worst part was the way I made the jig. The slots weren't parallel to the coaming which made clamps slip off at a frustrating rate.
  18. Here's an oiled photo just before I stitched it on boat #2. Both boats are ready to go. Just waiting for the special urethane paint that was supposed to be delivered a week and a half ago :/
  19. Coaming #2 almost done. Need to drill holes and tung oil. I took a different approach to the cheeks and, if I say so myself, they came out pretty good.
  20. I must have missed it in the book but will go back and check.
  21. The look was the one thing I wanted. My wife saw a photo of a red stained nylon boat and fell in love with it. At first, I was going to buy the color and just tint a clear urethane but I worried about UV protection and cracking and decided to go with a proven system. If you're not into the look of a stained boat, I agree that oil based paints are plenty durable.
  22. I'll be sure to post my findings.
  23. I talked to the guy over at skinboats about their goop and decided to go that route. They worked out a new application technique with foam rollers vs the squeegee which greatly simplifies the process. He said his first time students are applying it with a foam roller better than he can with a squeegee. - We'll see. With the dye mixed in, it provides the translucent look.
  24. That's really turning out to be a pretty boat. I might have to try that next as my wife was talking about how nice it might be to have a canoe as well. The frames would make a really fun lamination project too.
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