Al Stead

Hello All, I'm in the middle of glassing the hull on my weekender. During the layup I must have mixed a batch of epoxy incorrectly because it only partially cured. I tore off the glass that didn't give me any fight, and washed down the area with vinegar and then acetone. It turned out to be most of one side of the hull. At this point I don't feel any stickiness in the area that I worked over, but I am suspicious of trying to re-glass. I also noticed that the epoxy was quite a bit more flexible once it set up on my squeege when cleaning it up today. I typically don't clean up until the epoxy has cured because it is easier to crack it off the plastic once it has hardened. What's going on? Most of the glass is fairly good, but it doesn't make dust like when I used it for glue. I made up a bit of goop with fairing dust to smooth out some of the areas where the glass ended and the wood begins where I had to tear it off, as a test to see if the epoxy has gone bad or something. I should say that I am using Marinepoxy. I have used about a quart for laminating with no problems. I am using the same bottle for glassing. Any thoughts will be gratefully accepted. Al

I am getting some things actually done on my weekender, and am thinking ahead just a bit. I have a couple questions for those who have gone before and bulled their way through these problems. First, did anyone wait until the hull was glassed before mounting the lower rub rail? I would like to mount the rail after the glass is on in order to have a nice flat surface to lay the glass on. If not, did you simply glass over the rail, or cut the glass at the bottom of the rail and do the rail later? Or, did the glass adhere to the bump of the rail without too much trouble like sharp edges at the bottom and top of the rail? If I leave off the rail until the hull is done, how would I mount it when I have to get at the side behind the seat backs? I know that I can wait to mount the seat backs untill the rail is on, but I am also thinking ahead in case I need to replace the rail. I am planning to use the seat backs as the splash commings in order to have a bit more back support for my tired old bod, so it will be a bit more substantial than normal. Al

I'm building as fast as I can. It's going to be close. Al

I lamenated up the mast for my weekender this afternoon. I made it as a four sided box. I oriented the glue lines so that they fell on the sides like you. I also glued in some blocks to fill the inside space at critical places on the mast such as where the gooseneck is mounted. The main reason I oriented the lines on the side is I didn't want to drill holes through the glue line to shove bolts through. I don't know if it matters that much, but it seemed the thing to do. Al

I've done a bit of bending wood when building my dog sleds. The easiest way I found to soften up wood is to just go ahead and boil it up in a long gutter trough like spaghetti. The pieces you have shouldn't take too much time to get soft, but even if they do, I'm going with what Paul says about the particular species. If you want to try anyway, support the outside of the bend with a steel strap. I made mine out of plumbers strap with angle iron bolted on at just the length of the piece that you are bending. I never had a piece break when I did that, but I did have them collapse on the inside of the bend. Most of my bending experience is with white ash. For a hard wood, it took some pretty extreme bends if I supported it right. Al

I live on the shores of Gitchee Gumee, so salt isn't a big factor. My main idea was that boy you can sure stick things together fast with these air powered guns so that you could get quite a bit done before the goo starts to kick off. I have found that if you set the pressure a bit too high, the staple will bury itself into the plywood so that you could cover it with epoxy and protect it as well as possible. Also, if the staple is in addition to a full epoxy lamination, even if it rots away, the goo will still be as good as a stitch and glue joint. I did use a few regular construction screws in my weekender, but they are all in areas that won't come in contact with water unless the weather turns foul and they are all covered over with epoxy. If they start to cause trouble, I can get at them easily enough that I am not concerned. Some of what I am doing with my first build is pushing the envelop just to see how bad different things really are. I'm not afraid to put her in dry dock and go to town on her if I have to, but I really like learning from my intentional mistakes. Al

Thanks for the input guys. Today she is a boat. I'm pretty sure I could plunk her into the water and she would float and not leak. I went ahead and used the screws to mount the sides, and it went pretty well. I did need an extra pair of hands to hold the panels in place, but I had them hanging around so why not use them. I am using stainless screws with a finish head. They go into the plywood pretty easy because they are self tapping and set well in so I can cover them up. They don't pull the joint as tight as a regular construction screw would, but I don't imagine that I would want to squeeze out all the goo. I still think the one inch staples would work, but that is for the next boat. Here's a question. Do any of you guys find yourself at the end of a building day just sitting back and staring at your boat? I am enjoying building mine more than I have enjoyed anything in quite a while. A big part of that is sitting back and staring at her, imagining the fun we are going to have, and planning my next move. I have built quite a few interesting things in my day, but this project inspires me more than I thought it would. kind of odd Al Stead

The screws are in addition to the epoxy glue and are not temporary. I think it is a bit of overkill, but what do I know about the pounding that a sailboat might take. I guess it will be screws and glue as per the plans. I'd sure hate to be out in the middle of nowhere and have the sides start to pull away from the bottom. Al

Thanks Ken, I wasn't intending to remove the staples. They are 1" long with a 1/4 inch top. They hold pretty good so I was intending to leave them in in place of the screws that are called for in the plan. Al

Hello everyone, I've been fiddling around with all the little projects I can waiting for warmer weather to start gluing up my hull. I am about to fit and glue up the sides on my weekender and I have a construction question for you. I have a pnuematic stapler that I use on quite a few things that I build. If I use galvanized staples, would it work to staple and epoxy the sides into place? I test fitted a piece in place before I got my hip replaced. Now that I am mostly healed I took it off in favor of different material. I was a bugger to pry it off without damaging the plywood that I had on there temporarily. If I can use the gun, it sure will make gluing it up faster. Al

The system that I mentioned before is called QCR or quick change runner system. It consists of an extruded aluminum dovetail rail that is punched and countersunk to accept # 6 stainless screws every 5 inches. They come in 8 ft lengths with a pair being sold per set. The plastic is milled to pass over this rail and is held in place by a 1/4 pan head screw. It isn't really quick to change this system as the name implies, but once the plastic is in place, it isn't going anywhere in a hurry. The beauty of this system for our purposes, is that the plastic can expand or contract all it wants along the aluminum rail. I haven't checked yet, but a pair of shoes which would do a weekender cut wide enough to cover the keel might be a custom job. With my plywood keel, and the Canadian shield passing under it, there is no way I am going to go without HDPE shoes on rails. I have beaten the heck out of more of these things than I am comfortable remembering. Even under the extreme torque of cornering a sled behind 20 lunatic huskies can't undo these things. If anyone is interested in learning more about them, try looking through the equipment ads on sleddogcentral.com. Al Stead Old musher, new sailor

I have worked with various polyethylenes over the years and plan to use it for the shoe on my plywood Weekender keel. I would caution that if you live in a colder climate that you allow for expansion and contraction when attaching the poly to the keel. I have found that this stuff contracts enough to bend screws or pull the substrate out of shape in winter. Us mushers have found a way around this when using poly for shoes on our sled runners. We attach an aluminum dove tail rail to the bottom of the runner and slide the shoe on with that. It can be difficult to machine the poly to the tolerances needed to hold it firmly in place, but you can order it ready made from a number of mushing supply sources. The plastic comes in 8 ft lengths and isn't prohibitively expensive because we go through shoes pretty fast sometimes. Al Stead

Last spring I got some ipe given to me by a friend who was making a deck out of it. I tried to make wooden blocks out of it, but when I drove the spindles in, they all cracked. Boy was I disappointed. I know from the experience of walking on the two mile lake walk made out of that stuff that it will take any weather as well as parades of traffic for years without any degradation. As far as working it goes, the closest thing that I could compare it to is trying to carve a walnut shell. It sure is purty though. Al

I'm in the squeeks and leaks part of rebuilding my motorhome. I have used my wife to hose down the rig while I look for other drips than myself inside. It doesn't alway work. I have found leaks after a rain storm that didn't show up in the hose down, but most of them do show up with the hose. Al

Thanks for the advice guys. My plan is to glue up the panels before lofting and cutting out the bottom, so there shouldn't be any drips or excess at the edge joints. Maybe I could seal the edges near the single butt joint with shellac before gluing up and then take it off later, or mask it off. This stuff is real nice. The plys are uniform and it is quite firm for its thickness. I have used it in part of my motorhome restoration where I needed to save weight and still have some structural strength. My biggest concern with birch is that it doesn't resist rot all that well. I will have to be diligent about sealing it up. I do intend to keep it on the trailer and not at an anchorage, so it will get a chance to dry out. I used a scrap of redwood decking in the last canoe paddle that I made special for my wife. It turned out to be much more attractive than I could have imagined, and with the epoxy and glass over it, it has withstood a fair amount of abuse. However, I am not wedded to redwood. I like it because it would be easy for me to resaw, and it is fairly cheap. If there is a more traditional wood to use for this application, I would be interested in suggestions. Al

Well, I just went to our local big box lumber store and I have another scheme to throw out for comment. My local Menards stocks a baltic birch underlayment that is 1/4 inch 5 ply ext glue, good both sides, no voids for $25.00. I am thinking about gluing two thicknesses of it together to make up the bottom of my Weekender so that I have no joiner piece in the cabin. I would of course stagger the joints between the two layers. I am thinking that I should be able to cut out the bottom in one piece at one time. I am considering using titebond III for this purpose because it is so strong and the plys are very nice so the joint would be tight. The other thing I am considering is making the deck out of this 1/4 inch stuff and laminating 1/8 inch redwood planks onto it before cutting it out. I figure this would simplify fitting the planks as well as giving me the required 3/8 thickness for the decks. I could make the planks out of redwood decking by resawing the 5/4 decking on the table saw. This idea appeals to me because it is a wooden boat after all and bright decks would sure reinforce that notion. I would of course glass the deck and apply some kind of non slip, so the softness of the redwood would not be an issue in the end. Anyone see any big problems with these ideas? Al

Yeah, I'm on a fixed income so I would like to keep the cost down to the minimum. That is why I am going to make as much as I can out of the white ash I've been harboring for 25 years. I've done quite a bit with all kinds of plywood and left it outside to go to heck. I really am impressed with the durability of the MDO I've used even when it is left outside uncoated for several years. As far as the boat goes, I sure don't want her to fall apart right away because of some construction faults, but I'm old enough that she doesn't have to last forever either. I need her to be sturdy and reliable so I can take her into the wilderness and not worry about her falling apart. But if she doesn't outlive me, that's okay. I intend to sail the daylights out of my weekender. She'll sit on the trailer ready to get wet at the drop of a hat. I have a brand new safe harbor and launch facility only a few miles from the house. On the days when we get a nice stiff NW off shore wind, I will probably push her pretty hard once I get some skills with her. There are many summer days on the north shore here when you could sail in a 15 to 20 mph wind on a beam reach until the sun goes down with no chop at all. One day I'm going to find out how far that is. Al

Thanks for the response Paul. I hadn't considered the box idea at all. To expand on that, my thought was to make large circular holes in the center layer like struts on an airplane wing. It shouldn't reduce the overall strength and could reduce the weight to whatever degree I felt comfortable with. When I make my bent shaft canoe paddles, I hollow out the bend before laminating them up to save a few onces and make the bend easier to make. So far no probs. Right now my thought is to at least use the MDO on the bulkheads, rudder box, and bottom if the quality is satisfactory at the time I go to buy it. What I have seen lately is superior to the ACX that I was shown at my local specialty lumber yard. If nothing looks up to snuff late next winter, I will go with marine plywood. I want very much to go sailing next summer, so most likely I will stick to the plans, other than using what I have on hand in my lumber rack vs what is called for. If I get hooked on building these things, I will get more creative the next time around. That little schooner of yours looks good to me for that one. Al Stead

After leafing through the sunday ads, I was taken by the idea that 1x12's vs 3/4 MDO was heavily weighted in favor of the MDO cost wise. I have read that most folks on this forum don't favor plywood keels for some very good reasons, but let me run this by you guys and see what you think. I am going to start assembling my Weekender in the spring when it warms up enough to set glue. If I go with the 3/4 MDO, I will apply a white ash shoe to the bottom of the keel to head off any wear and inflitration problem. I will also apply a most likely, 1 1/2 inch gusset to both sides of the keel joint instead of the bondo. I figure that by gluing both the sides as well as the top of the keel to the bottom of the boat which I intend to make out of 1/2 MDO, I should achieve a bond that screws cannot compare with. Right now I am favoring the MDO for a couple reasons. One, I can get some pretty nice stuff at my local big box lumber retailer. There are virtually no voids that I can detect and the plys are as nice as anything I have used. It is also double sided and when I checked it out, I found that even very old epoxy will bond with it beautifully. Because it is double sided, it should not check inside the cabin and so far I haven't been able to wear the overlay off of anything I have built. So any comments? Any experiences with MDO in boat applications will be greatly appreciated. Al Stead Duluth Mn

Hey guys, I have only sailed on one weekender so far but I did it in some pretty substantial winds at the Lake Pepin Messabout. I can't say that I noticed a whole lot of pounding that day. Granted there were three pretty big guys in her, but I thought when we left I would be watching out for my fillings coming loose. I have a question regarding why this might have been. When sailing with the boat heeled over somewhat, doesn't that change the underwater shape of the hull such that it is no longer a flat bottomed boat? It seems to me that by sailing on the chines the flat bottom becomes more rounded thus cutting the flat surface resisting the impact. I also noticed that the boat rose and fell on the waves without very much splash at all. I figured we were riding dry because we weren't smacking those waves like a hammer. Al

A neighbor of mine used some kind or polyurethane caulk over the end grain on his dog hauler doors. It looked like a perfectly smooth glass finish, and by the end of the winter it was still like new. I can't vouch for its longevity, but it sure got me to thinking about it in a lot of my outdoor applications where I need to keep water out of end grain. Al

Dave, I didn't realize that we went to the same school. Al

Yup, I agree with both Steve and Charlie. Heck, when I was a kid, I built my first dog hauler with just a saber saw and a screw driver. The saber saw was the only power tool I had that I could use in the drive way. For building outside of the shop a circular saw is a must. One thing I have learned is to buy the best quality circular saw you can afford. I went through three of the lesser ones building my house and they didn't cut very well either. I like Charlies fondness for hand tools. My favorite show on PBS is the woodwright shop. I think I have learned more from Roy than from Norm. When I build bent shaft canoe paddles, it is almost all hand work after the glue up. You might also want to look at a yankee driver along with the cordless drill. They take a little more finesse to use but they don't run out of juice just when you need them most. Al Stead

I truly think my life would be over if I didn't have my table saw. I haven't drawn a breath since I was 12 without having one at my disposal. However, if you want to spend some cash and get it all, I recommend a shopsmith all in one. I have an antique one that I just overhauled, and though it takes a bit more time in set up, it does everything very well. Al Stead

You could also apply some cold galvanizing spray to the area that was eaten away. It comes in a spray can just like paint. I used it on a snowmobile trailer, and it worked pretty well. Al Stead