More gaps between BHs and bottom

Today I planed down the chinelogs to flat, in order to fit the bottom at some point in the near future. Unfortunately for me, something somewhere didnt add up.

When I cut the notches in my BHs, I was very careful to use an actual slice from my chinelog to trace a pattern for the notch. Somehow, my notches were too deep laterally, I have gaps there that need filling. Today I now realize that they are also too shallow vertically... after planing the chinelogs flat, I have a gap between the bottom of the BHs and the chinelog. Take note from BH3:


When I fit the bottom onto the boat, the gap is clear (boat is upside down):


This is especially frustrating because:

1: I measured the notches using an actual piece from the chinelog
2: I was very careful to do my best eye-balling job that the bottom of the ply appeared to meet the bottom of the BHs

In retrospect I should have:

1: After the dry-fit turn the hull upside down to get a good look at what was going on
2: Do a test plane portion to see where a flat chinelog ends up in relation to the BHs

So now I can do one of three things:

1: Fill the gap with loads and loads of epoxy when I put on the bottom
- Risky because I could deform the bottom if I screw too hard placing it into position
2: Fill the gap with a strip of wood that is painstakingly cut and glued into place
-Annoying work, AND it wont match the BH bottom frame
3: Continue to plane down the chinelogs until they match the BHs.
-I lose freeboard AND it could make the boat too wide at the bottom and the pre-cut ply for the bottom wont be able to accomodate the new width.

For all its worth, heres the boat with the bottom kinda on:


Ive just decided that solution #3 is not a good one.

I have now just decided to go with option #2.

Interestingly enough, BH1 came out perfect!... WTF, Over?

Gluing down the bottom

After gluing together the hull, I came to several decisions, one of them being that gluing is a pain in the ass.

Yesterday I glued down the bottom, and yes, gluing is still a pain in the ass. So much so, that I swore off building another glue-only boat next time, that Ill take fasteners thank you very much, this sucks!

This morning, when I peeked into the garage at my nemesis glue-job-boat, my heart softened a bit, and I feel a little better. But I came close-- In my mind I saw a big bonfire at one point.

Yesterday I smoothed out the seam between the two bottom pieces, scoured the chinelogs and BHs with a rasp to provide a rough gluing surface, planed the transom flat, and screwed the bottom down in place. This took a while, and I was so concerned getting it on straight that it went on straight, but offset by about 2mm or so. I realized this after I screwed it on. This is not a big problem, theres supposed to be a gap of 90mm between the buttstraps for the daggerboard trunk, and I left 95mm for just this scenario. Storer recommends placing the bottom on with the centerline marks on the inside, to line up with the centerline marks on the BHs. A good idea, but then I would lose out on the markings up top that showed where the edges of the boat were (bottom is overcut by 2omm) and they provided a good guide as to screw placement. A better idea would be to have a centerline on both sides. Needless to say, lots of crawling under the boat and back, and shifting the ply ever so slightly.

Screws were placed every 300mm (lines from lofting) and along the BHs (3 for 1+2, 5 for 3, 4, transom). This was insufficient as you shall see later on.


After the bottom was screwed on I made special note of where I had some larger than normal gaps between the bottom and the sides. In these areas I would apply extra glue. Everything appeared tight and for the most part, everything fit together really well. I was impressed.

Next up, I unscrewed the bow of the boat, lifting it with 2x4s. After pre-coating the chinelogs and bottom with unmixed epoxy (more crawling around under the boat), I applied what I thought was copious amounts of glue, using the ziploc-bag method which I still dont like, but it seemed to make the most amount of sense. Mixing the glue with the silica is still a bear, I still dont know how to judge how much silica to add so I eyeball it until I get the appropriate consistency. This takes time. Then, the application. 3 pumps of resin with 1.5 pumps of hardener covered approximately- maybe- 4 feet. Hardly anything. This was going to take a lot of glue.

I moved down the line, sending the 2x4s down to the stern and gluing and screwing in their wake.

(notice me mixing always mixing more mixing in background with knee pads that didnt come off between 10am and 11pm)

I think I made 3 moves aft, covering large sections at a time. The port bow had a little bit of a gap between the bottom and the side, and needed even more glue. This was going to take a lot of glue, as I mentioned before. This is when I started getting frustrated. When I put too much glue during the BH construction phase, it poured out all over the place and was a giant mess. Now, I was putting large amounts of glue onto the chinelogs and when the bottom came down, nothing. No excess squeezage, nothing. Let me just say this: Gluing the bottom takes a lot more glue than you think it will.

About halfway down, I realized I forgot to line the sides with packing tape to ease clean-up. SOB. So I had glue dripping down around the bow, which means Ill be sanding forever. Out came the packaging tape around the aft sections and the transom. By this time my wonderful wife took pity on me and she applied the glue while I mixed it. This doubled the speed of the operation, since mixing takes a long time-- at 3 pumps of resin per bag, there was a lot of mixing to do. She has a knack for how much glue to apply and when we screwed down her end, a perfect amount squeezed out. Damn.

With all the screws down (she held up the stern bottom and gently lowered it as I screwed it down moving aft), we inspected for a gaps. There were a couple small ones along the chine, and a few gaps that needed more screwed to hold the ply down. I would recommend a screw every 200mm at least, as opposed to every 300mm.

Then we flipped her over:






Hot damn, I have a completed hull (above pics are after the "clean-up" (used loosely)).

Clean-up was a super pain in the ass, by this time a lot of my squeegees were gluey and tacky and my rags were used up and I was running out of mixing cups and no matter how many new gloves I put on, I was sticking to everything. Some glue was firming up nice, which meant a struggle to clean it up as is smeared everywhere. Be ready to spend some serious time bent inside the boat cleaning it up. My glue station aftermath:

This took me a few hours of prep, followed by about 7 hours of gluing/cleaning up. Solo, it was slow going, no doubt.

The bottom is still not done, I have to trim the excess off, which will be another pain because its covered in rock-hard epoxy, but as far as Im concerned, the big jobs in this are completed. From now on things can be accomplished in short spurts as opposed to 12hr marathon sessions. Thank goodness. Im tired.

Did I mention this takes a lot more glue than you may think?

Wet on wet epoxy coating

Today I coated one side of my BHs with two coats of epoxy to seal and waterproof the wood. I used the wet-on-wet method that Storer recommends. The first coat when on quite well, I used a small cheap squeegee thing to spread it around, and a small roller held stationary to smooth it down. I kept one BH on just using the spreader, to little difference. Once the first layer got tacky I added the second layer of epoxy, again with the squeegee and then rolled smooth. The second coat went on waaaaaay smooth and took less epoxy as well. I was actually surprised at how little epoxy this whole operation took. A little goes a long way.

At this point my wife called me to join her downtown for dinner, which I happily did. I thought I would have had enough time to get back to apply coat three, but I was wrong. I came back and the epoxy had all hardened up. Some bulkheads will have to be "de-waxed" and sanded for the final coat, because I need these to be waterproofed up. Others are good to go right now with two coats because in some places it went on a little thick. So Im good in some area, not so good in others, all in all, Im not worried. I made a little more work for myself, but oh well.


Damn. Those look good.

The gluing of the buttstraps and the chinelogs yesterday still goes. The temperature is maybe around 50 deg. in the garage, so today I built a heat box with a space heater and a sheet:


Not the most efficient design, but better than nothing under the circumstances. The glue has set up, but if I press firmly I can still get a fingernail in, which is a Storer-failure. So Im not touching anything and well wait until tomorrow before I move anything.

The dreaded stem still continues to stump me, but I shall solve it by jove!

SUCCESSFUL DRY FIT!!!

SHE STANDS ON HER OWN!!! OH HAPPY DAY!




Shell slice you in two! AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!

Flash made BH1 and 2 darker than they are.




The last one here is through the transom hole.

A couple of notes:

Everything is almost perfectly level and/or lines up. Seat cleat on transom to BH4 for example, BH1 and BH2, transom and the sides etc.

I used 1 1/4" drywall screws with plywood backing on the heads.

My notches are all mostly too big, epoxy will have to fill them. Also, my bevel on the transom was a little too much, but it will be easy to plane down.

SHE LIVES! SHE LIVES! LONG LIVE MY BEAUTIFUL BOAT! POSEIDON BE PRAISED!

ZINEA FROM CRIMEA

Progress! Yeah! Wet on wet stem quick dry fit!

I was home for a few days, and I buckled down and got right to it.

Day one:

First I enlarged the holes in BH2 and 3. I want more room to store my gear: oars, extra spar, etc. etc. I was able to do this neatly and cleanly with my scrolling blade that I discovered in my blade set! Yo dummy! Im much happier now with the results.

Second: I wet-on-wetted the un-wetted sides of the BHs with epoxy to encapsulate the wood. Three layers, which got it quite thick I may add. Maybe a little too thick. I used squeegees and and a brush and the roller a la Storer. I must say I wasnt impressed with the roller method, I feel like I could get a smoother surface without it-- the roller left funny little bumps. I think the thickness is just sloppiness on my part and maybe too much epoxy. Needless to say, everything will be sanded down for paint/varnish whatever I decide. Id love to do some brightwork, but I dont know if I want to do the work. I see lots of sanding in my future with the splotchy epoxy job.

That being said, epoxy got everywhere, and it was a big mess, including the undersides of my BHs, despite carefully applying tape everywhere to hold the mess. I used painting masking tape, packaging tape that would have hung lower than the BH would have prevented epoxy from curling underneath and dripping onto the BH backsides that were already done.

Day two:

Then I cut the notches for the chinelogs into the BHs. This was more difficult than I thought it was going to be. I used my nifty Japanese pull saw, and it was awesome. I paid very close attention to bevels and carefully marked the boundaries of the notches. A few mistakes were made, but nothing that cant be saved or filled with epoxy. Taking my time instead of rushing this part was worth its while.



Afterwards I FINALLY CONQUERED THE DREADED STEM! (second try)

I unfortunately did not photo-document this. This is how I did the stem:

1. Cut out a rectangular blank of the stem from my stock.

2. Draw the stem out on the blank-- triangle on top, the front edge and then on the backside, the back edges graduating from 36mm at top to 22mm at the bottom.

3. Plane down the starboard and port sides from 36mm at the top to 22mm at the bottom. At this point, looking at it either from the stern or bow, I have a trapezoid that is wider at top than at the bottom. Still rectangular.

4. Now, all that is left is to remove the material from the backside to the bow point. Using the backside 36mm-22mm edge, I planed down the material to the front pointed bow. I left the bow a little wider than a knife edge, about the width of the sharpie pen mark. Its a little tricky to get the second side because there is now no longer a flat surface to work.

5. Patience.





THEN THEN THEN

I kind-of dry fitted the hull together!!! (I was impatient, I had to see the boat for morale)

I screwed on the stem to the bow pieces, with screws through ply backing as described in the Storer plans. This is hazardous, because once the screw gets into the backing it spins around like the devil and Id have to push frantically for bite into the side of the boat or else the screw and backing ply goes zooming off the bow and then Id slam the drillbit into the side of the boat leaving a good dent. A good method is to push the screw through the backing first so a little pokes out that it can be stuck into the side by hand to hold it in position. Watch your fingertips!

So the stem went in and then I spent a while screwing around with BHs and and the transom and placing them more or less where they were supposed to go. I took some tie-down straps and cinched the stern together to get a visual idea of what the boat was looking like.



It looks like a Goat Island Skiff! Amateur Style! But a GIS, nonetheless, the curvy midsection and straight knife-like bow are telling.



HOLY SHA-MOLEY!!!

I attempted to screw in BH1 but it was about as difficult as pulling my own wisdom teeth. Sagely, I walked away when one side of BH1 ripped away from the screws holding it into the port side.

In the following picture you can see the gap between the chinelogs and BH2. Imagine BH1, which is just as bad if not worse. Its going to be a true WRASTLING nightmare to get that together, I think. Im going to re-measure my BHs, make sure they are the right size, and do some brainstorming. BH3 looks gappy, but its not bad, a little squeezing and it fits right in.



Some things I noticed: The chine logs butted up against each other in the bow next to the stem. A little bit of chisel work took care of that, giving them more room.

Also, my stem needs to be cleaned up a bit, especially the bottom portion. Maybe this will aid in screwing in BH1. As I said, I was impatient to actually see something, and Im glad I did this today.

Filling gaps b w BHs and gluing bottom

Today was spent filling in the gaps around the BHs. The first gaps to be filled were the ones in the notches between the chinelog and the BHs... the intrepid reader will remember I cut them too deep laterally. My wonderful wife who proved very adept at filling gaps around the stem went right to work on these notches, filling them with epoxy and shaping them with ply wrapped with packaging tape.


Once that was set, we glued on cedar spacers to fill the gaps between the bottom frame of the BHs and the bottom of the boat, which appeared because my notches in the BHs were too shallow, despite careful measuring. I didnt fool with cutting down the spacers before placing them, I glued them in place and Ill plane them down to match. I wanted to make sure to do the repair correctly rather than eyeball a piece that would look like it fit.



Finally, I glued together the two halves of the bottom. Very self explanatory. Shooting for gluing the bottom on Tuesday.

Gluing boat together 1

Today I decided to glue the boat together instead of pre-coating the sides with epoxy for several reasons:

1: I have the time to watch the boat as it cures of tonight and tomorrow
2: The temperatures were in the 50s... in a few weeks who knows how cold theyll go
3: I had the place set up in the garage
4: My gut told me to go for it.

Gluing is a pain in the ass. There, I said it.

It sucks, its messy, its sticky, and when youre by yourself its a teeth-grinding frustration fest. ARGH!

BUT!!! This is how shell come along.

Today I glued the BHs to the sides, making the dry-fit a goodness-for-real fit. I ran into a few problems, namely some gaps around the stem, and BH1 and BH2 were another wrastling match to get them into place as usual, except this time they were all lubed up with glue and were slipping all over the place. In the end, I got them in, though they might be ever so slight askew, if by just a few mms. Initially when I saw them askew I almost lost it, but I cant lose sight of the fact that Im building a boat, its my first boat, and dammit, if the thing floats that will be a good thing.

I started out from the bow to the stern. From what I understand from the plans, you can remove a BH at a time and move aft. To start with the stem, I decided to remove BH1 and BH2 so that there would be less pressure pulling the bow apart when I tacked the stem back together. This, in hindsight was a mistake. The stem fit in nice and neat, but when I went to put in BH1, it pulls the sides apart. By the time I was done with BH2 (goes in a little easier than 1) I had pulled the sides back out to where they are supposed to be, and gaps between the stem and the sides appeared.


I want those gaps filled, Im pondering a few different ideas.

BH3 went in smooth, but there are gaps between the sides and side arms:


Those too, will have to be filled.

BH4 needed some wrestling, and the transom would have been downright impossible for one person if not for my wonderful wife who showed up from work at exactly the right moment!!! So yay wife, and the boat was finished. A quick sightline down the centerline showed BH2 out of kilter. The port side needed to go down a bit, so I unscrewed the port side, and pushed down. Its still not perfect, and Im not sure why (except the fact that its almost impossible to do this single-handed) but I have to accept that and walk away. All in all, a long, tiring, sometime frustrating day, but when it comes down to it, the boat is in one, permanent piece.


You can see signs of BH Wrestling in this pic. Notice the temporary gunwales using old cedar strips that were laying about.