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.