Second Sea Trial

After yesterday's trip to the lake, I was not convinced that the rowing seat was in the best location.  The boat seemed easily led off course.  Also seemed less stable than I liked.  Of course, I was comparing it to my own, much wider and heavier boat.

This morning, I made an easy way to move the boat from the trailer to the canoe cart.  Tried it out in my backyard and was delighted!

Drove to the lake, shifted the boat to the cart and rolled it to the water. While the boat was empty, I hung a plumb bob over a mark on the floor of the boat to find a way of measuring when the boat sat level.

I put the oars in their locks and set a new, temporary bench in the boat too. Instead of a wobbly bucket that was over 9" tall, todays bench is sturdy and only 7" tall.  I sat in the boat and moved the bench around until the bob was again hanging over its initial spot.  I marked the location of the bench on the floor of the boat.

I knew the boat was sitting level and I was satisfied.  I rowed into the lake a hundred yards and was impressed at how much more directionally stable it was.  The boat seemed more solid and less tippy too.  All good news.

Brought the boat home and was very surprised to see today's placement of the seat is about an inch different from yesterday's!

Why was the boat so much improved?  The new seat was much lower, making it less tippy.  The oars had been readjusted for this narrow boat.  Made it easier to keep going in a straight line.

I am now building the bench, then the adjustable foot braces.  The To-Do list is getting very short!

To The Lake!!!

I am behind in my writing here.  I have accomplished a few things that need reporting.

Once the slotted inner rail was in place, I rolled the boat over and went to work on the outside of the hull.  I did some sanding then applied a thin coat of thickened epoxy to the areas I'd applied before. With a light sanding, that was smooth enough to paint.

I made a nice set of moveable oarlocks.  Figured out a way to adjust them in increments of 2.5 inches, rather than the spacing of the slots, 5".

I wanted to use my utility trailer to haul these light boats, but the draw bar was way too short.  After some research and discussion with my fabricator son, I changed the old bar for one that gives me an extra 4' of distance from the trailer to the hitch.

Nothing left to do but go to the lake and see how the boat floats!  The boat sits level, with only part of its skeg under water

I sat in the boat, on a bucket, various distances from the bow.  My friend, Manfred stood on the shore and advised me whether the bow or stern were too low, or whether it sat on the water much like it did when empty.  My sitting in the boat lowered the boat an inch or so, and the boat sits flat.  The skeg was still not immersed.

 I attached my oars to the locks and of course, they are meant for a boat much wider than this one. Rowing was awkward and clumsy. I tried to make some determination about how well it tracked, but with such clumsy rowing, it was very difficult.  Save that for when the seat and foot rest are installed.

As Promised . . .

This morning, once the shop warmed with the sunshine, I removed yesterday's clamps.  Used the cabinet scraper to cut back the epoxy over-runs and gave the area a light sanding too.

After lunch, I applied the first coat of varnish to the decks and rails.

Slotted Inwale Installed

Another big step today!  This morning, I glued and nailed the spacers to the top of the sides of the boat.  They went in nicely and with the air-nailer, very quickly too.

I had varnished the edges of the little spacers, but I had not varnished either the hull, nor the back side of the rail.  Took awhile to do those, but the varnish dried very quickly so I went on to gluing the rail in place.

After lunch today, I 'buttered' each of the spacers with thickened epoxy then used clamps to hold the inner rail exactly where I wanted.  That part of the process worked very nicely this morning, without slippery glue.  With the epoxy making the joins much more difficult to locate, I had to use more clamps, little sticks to coax the rail to stay in place and a bridge of a 2x4 across the hull to anchor a couple more clamps.

So, these pictures are a work in progress.  Tomorrow I shall sand, varnish and post again.

Inwale Spacers

Yesterday, I started working on the spacers for the inwale.  I want to use a nice, light and light-coloured wood.  Trouble is that spruce and pine are so soft and fibrous that the drills tear rather than cut cleanly.

With previous boats, I was able to set up a jig on the drill press and slide the wood strips to the proper place under the drill bit.  The bit would carve a nice arc into the end of the wood, and at the same time carve the arc into the leading edge of the next segment.  Worked well with fir.

I tried a number of drills and hole cutters, but each of them left a torn surface instead of nice and smooth.  I finally gave up and came in to supper.  This morning, I tried using a hole saw and that was better, but still required sanding or filing.

Online, I found nice router bits with round cutting heads, like a mushroom.  In order to try out the possibility, I experimented with one of my regular router bits.
I set up my router table and ran the end grain through the bit.  Came out smooth, rather than  ragged and torn.

The next picture shows my router table set up with the new router bit.  The piece of wood that I want to cut is clamped to a sliding guide which moves along the top of a board.  That board is clamped next to the cutting head.

The new operation has only a few steps.  Cut the piece to length on the chop saw.  Run the end of the piece (with the help of a fence, guide and a clamp) over the top of the bit.  Flip the piece of wood around and repeat on the opposite end!  Very nicely done.

 Sorry it is so blurry, but I hope you get the idea.

In this last shot, I have nearly 70 of these insert pieces all coved and clamped together so I can varnish the edges.  Once that is done, I shall glue them to the inside rim of the boat, in preparation for the inner rail.

Alan, attached are a few pictures I just took.  They are as-is, and will look better once I sand and varnish.

The first one is of the proposed slotted rail.  The thickness of the apacer and long rail is the same as on my canoe and that looks nice.  I would like to use this light coloured wood for the spacers to accent the decking on the seats.  Make the rails look more delicate too.

What do you think?

Living Colour!

Today is very exciting!   I am satisfied with the epoxy work inside the boat and I have covered it with paint!

The seams and joins have at least three coats of epoxy and subsequent sandings.

The paint is an exterior paint from Benjamin Moore.

The top of the sides has been masked to allow for the inwale to be attached.

The floatation tanks have yet to be painted.  Access hatches have to be cut into the tops and some seat supports need to be glued in first.  I chose a pine plywood for the tops.  I like its colour and it's light.  Turns out to need some stiffeners on the underside.

On with the show!

Floatation Tanks

Since my last entry, the weather has turned more spring like, allowing the epoxy to cure over most nights.

After the rubrails were installed, the hull felt a lot stiffer.  Time to install the floatation tanks.  I went back to my earlier calculations and decided to allow the tank in the bow to follow the chine between bilge and top panel.  At the rear, it was decided to make the tank with two levels.  The forward level would, like the bow, follow the chine.  The aft section of the tank would go to the top of the hull.

It was easy to take the measurements from the hull, and I used left over marine plywood.

However, I did not have sufficient left-over plywood to make the tops of the tanks, so I had to buy another sheet.  As the tops will be sealed on both sides and not required to make any bends, I used a sheet of pine, with nice grain.  Much cheaper and lighter than the imported marine grade.

Today, I cut out the tops and set them aside.

I cut out the keel and screwed and glued that into place today.

I made and installed internal braces to support the tops of the tanks as they will be used as seats for the passengers.

This part of the build is great entertainment.

I love the look of the tanks with their lids in place.

Rub Rails

Another stunning day in Campbell River!  Yesterday, I took the First Mate to the lake and rowed for about an hour.  That was my reward for getting rub rails ready for today's epoxy.  I started with a 20' plank and planed it down to the desired thickness.  Table saw cut the plank into two beautiful strips.

The rails are 1 1/2" by 3/4" red cedar.  Beautiful old growth, fine grained and light wood.  Perfect for a light rowing boat; one that does not want to do a lot of banging into docks and rocks.

This morning, while it was still too cold in my shop for epoxy to cure, I cut the rails to length and cut a taper into each of their ends.  See if you can see them in the attached pictures.

The rails were given a couple of coats of thickened epoxy on their mating surfaces then clamped into place.  A few sticks of stainless steel brads will keep everything in place until the epoxy is cured.

I hope the epoxy sets up before the temperature drops.  If not, I shall again make a tent over the boat and put in a heater.

Upright Again

Monday, February 16, I had a few hours of sanding to cut the epoxy back and feather the edges.  Last attempt at grinding epoxy was using my big Makita variable speed grinder/sander.  This time, I wanted to use the lighter and less aggressive orbital sander.

That sander was equipped with velcro pad to hold the sandpaper.  years of grit and over heating the sandpaper caused the little hooks to plug up and perhaps melt a bit with the heat.  To remedy that, I had glued on a circle of light plywood covered with some counter-top arborite.  When I tried that, the sandpaper flew off with the vibration and speed of the disc.

One of the sites I visited with this problem, suggested heating the arborite face with the heat gun before sticking on the paper.  That is a miracle!  Paper sticks like crazy!

As I mentioned, it took a couple of hours to grind back all the seams and the bottom panel of the boat too.

Yesterday morning, I washed the dust off the boat and took a few pictures.  Nothing like a wet surface to show off every run and depression.  No time to fix them now.  I am anxious to get on to working the interior!

Using slings, I rolled the very light boat back onto its base.

I levelled it, both fore and aft as well as abeam.  I am adding seats and they should be level when the boat is on the water.

I replaced the temporary bulkheads with cross braces.  They help to firm up the boat, but it needs some stiffening along the top edges, so I think the rub rails ought to go on soon.

From there, I will use one grinder or another to minimize the little epoxy fillets I put into the seams.  That will allow me to make nice smooth fillets and cover them with fiberglass strips.

Fibreglass and Epoxy Work

Last Friday, I started early and worked until dinner time.  I knew it would be a long day of applying fibreglass cloth to the base of the boat then sealing it with epoxy.

The plans call for a layer of cloth on the whole bottom panel and two strips of cloth on the seams.  I epoxied the cloth on the bottom panel, allowing the cloth to drape over the edge onto the bilge panel.  I then laid a strip of cloth over the wet epoxy/cloth on the seam.  Two layers of cloth were applied to the seam between the bilge panel and the side or top panel.  Two layers of cloth were epoxied on to the join between panels and transom as well as the long seam reaching forward to the stem of the boat

The work took a long time as the epoxy was cooling as the day went on, plus the boat was cold, making the epoxy stiff and hard to work into the cloth and the wood.  As well as more time, I am sure the work took a lot more epoxy than if I'd done the work in a nicely heated shop.

I have quite a bit of fibreglass cloth left over from other projects and wanted to use that instead of buying new.  However, as soon as that cloth was cut, it started to unravel.  Perhaps because I have folded and refolded that cloth so often, it had loosened and it came apart willingly.  As my gloves got sticky and the epoxy spread around, the cloth seemed to catch and fray at an accelerating rate.  By the time I got everything in place, I had great bird's nests of cloth stuck to my boots and gloves as well as sprouting like fibrous anemones from the bottom of the boat.

I have attached one picture of the cloth draped over the bottom panel, ready for epoxy.  Pictures below show the boat after an hour with the grinder.  Final pictures were taken just now, after I applied more epoxy and filler to smooth the edges of the cloth.

Back To Work

It has been a month since my last entry.  Shortly after I wrote that message, I began a long bout with the flu which turned into bronchial pneumonia.

 I took a couple of weeks off the job at Walmart, but continued to go in very early to do the work on the Bread Wall.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally gave up and went to the doctor.  After listening to my chest, she declared I sounded like an aging asthmatic.  She prescribed $150 of medications and sent me back to bed.  I asked whether it started as the flu, but she couldn't tell without doing some tests.  I wasn't coughing up anything gross enough to use as a lab sample, so I am only presuming how it started.

Lately, I have been strong enough to go back to work in Produce.  I have been laid off from the Bread Wall due to the company's restructuring, so I am only doing Produce.

In the boat shop, I have made some progress.

In the previous episode, I had stitched up the seams, filled the gaps between stitches with epoxy and rigged a tent to help the epoxy cure.  That worked marvellously!

Days later,

I removed the wire stitches and filled the gaps in the epoxy with more of the mixture.  Once everything was cured, I used a cabinet scraper to remove most of the stuff then followed with a big sander to remove the rest.

Further applications of epoxy and subsequent sandings have made the boat nearly ready for applying strips of fibreglass cloth on all the joins, plus a full layer of cloth and epoxy on the bottom panel.  A sanding this morning followed by laying out the cloth.  It will be a long day of applying epoxy, so I am waiting until I have a long uninterrupted day.  Also coincidental that tomorrow will be warm enough in the unheated shop.

All very exciting.