Biting the Bullet

[JetStream]

Just went up to Boulter Plywood in Boston today and brought back a stack of lumber. 5 sheets of Okoume, Mahogany, Ash and a big hunk of Sitka spruce to make a boom and other stuff. So it looks like I'll have to start that Spindrift 11N and try to have it ready for Spring. Boulter is a pretty neat place. I think the whole place is no bigger than my house but has a lot of stuff. The staff is very pleasant and you can be sure you are not paying for some fancy overhead. I just finished a 17' kayak for my son so I guess I'm ready to have at it. Thanks for providing all the nice photos from the boats that you folks have finished.

[Howard]

My Spindrift 10N isn't finished...but it's getting there.

No real advice other than to cut outside the lines when laying out and plane back to the lines to true them up. Any little wobbles in your cuts turn into bumps and an uneven bottom when you pull your stitches together.

Use cheap rebar tie wire for your stitches. It comes in a big roll and is less than $5.

When you do your butterfly joint...make sure the taped joint is cured before you fold the panels together. I'd give it several days...maybe a week. Same goes for the gunnels. Both will be under a lot of stress and if the epoxy is not cured, it can let go.

Others may chime in, but on the gunnels...when you actually glue them up...they tend to slide around. Keeping them lined up is a problem. I'd be tempted to dry fit them, and then drill 3 or 4 small holes per side for a small finish nail to be used to keep them aligned during glueup. Work from the bow to stern...both sides at the same time....and don't over clamp them (use several clamps with light pressure). If you have problems with alignment...get them right on the bottom and allow them to be uneven on the top. You can easily plane them down evenly on top.

And keep us informed!

[Howard]

One other thing.

I've found epoxy easier to work with if you allow gravity to help you. Pre-coating panels before you glue them up...but leaving an uncoated margin on the edge so that your fillets and taped joints are to bare wood and not to cured epoxy. Just run a piece of masking tape along the edge and pull it off when the epoxy coat is down and still soft. I'd use masking tape as wide as my tape joint was going to be. If I was using 3" fiberglass tape...I'd use 1.5" or 2" masking tape along the margin.

And on the center panels and side to bottom panels...once you have "tack welded" the joint so you can remove the wire....run a piece of masking tape on the outside joint so when you fillet the joint from the inside....your epoxy can still be a bit runny. Pour enough along the joint line to completely fill the joint and no more. You will completely coat the plywood edges and get a better joint than if you try to force thickened epoxy into it. I'd do the same stunt for the sides, transom and bulkheads...only doing small sections at a time and tilting the boat so that the joint is the lowest point and the epoxy runs into it. Then do a nice clean fillet and tape job over that while it's still tacky.

At least that's what I'd do on my next boat. If something is wrong with this plan....I'd like to hear about it.

[JetStream]

Thanks Howard. That sounds like good advice. One thing I learned from the kayak project, was to tape off areas when you do the epoxy work. I coated the deck and deck to shear joint on the kayak and let the drips run down the hull. After spending about 4 hours cleaning up that mess, I decided not to make the same mistake again.

I made a simple fixture to allow me to scarf the plywood sheets with my router mounted to the radial arm saw. I'll post whether or not that works out.