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.