7/2 Not a whole lot of activity on the boat for the last year. The upper half of the rub
rail is completed but I've yet to attach it to the boat.
7/1 The prep work is done of the Lower Stern Panels, the seam should not be visible when the hull is glassed and painted.
The next challenge is fitting the upper half of the rub rail on to the boat.
6/17 The lower Stern Panels are all attached! It actually looks like it might float.
6/20 Spending a lot of time sanding to make sure that seams in the Lower Stern Panels are not visible.
5/15 The weather has warmed up so I'm back to work on the Boat. The Sides have been
fully glued back from the 9' mark. I've cut out the Lower Stern Skin Panel per plan and it fits great!
When I was a kid I lived
here. My house is circled in red. When you grow
up with the WTC in your backyard the loss of them is almost unbelievable. As a woodworker I did what
woodworkers do best I built
something. The Towers are 6 feet tall
and are part of an impromptu memorial setup on the Marathon County Library grounds.
8/22 The new deck pieces seem to fit better. They are 'glassed and ready to install.
But I need to 'glass up the stem first. I should have done that before it was installed on the boat. I don't
think the instructions were real clear on that one.
8/30 The deck is installed.
July 2001:
7/5 The deck must be installed before I can install the Rub Rail. I've glued the shelf
and deck stringers on the hull. My shelves and deck pieces don't fit quite right. I'm going
to remeasure and cut out new ones.
June 2001:
My house is re-roofed so I'm working on the boat again. I've glued up the two halves
of the Rub Rail. Now the challenge is to fit them to the boat. This is an important step
as it defines how the stern will look.
April 2001:
4/5 The weather's warm and I'm working on cars. I seem to always put off maintenance until the last minute.
I'm currently replacing the timing belt on my Toyota. And I still have to fix a problem with my truck's exhaust manifold.
Speaking of putting things off I still have to re-roof my house this spring. I'll try to fit in boatbuilding
where I can.
March 2001:
And now a word from our sponsors:
The rub rail is mostly cut out. I'll have to wait for a warm weekend to laminate the parts.
I'm also working on the stern jig.
When I installed the sides on the boat we had a lot of excess
epoxy drip out. This will need to be addressed before I can fiberglass over the joints.
Cleaning it up is excellent winter work. I imagine that I'll start that next.
I am working on the rub rail. Much easier than the chine logs now that I have a Router with a laminating bit.
I did manage to finish a second
Boat Cradle for my brother's new baby. Now I
can get back to work on the boat!
9/25 The sides are on the boat! My Dad came over this weekend and he helped me put them
on. He claims that it looks like a wooden shoe. I took a bunch of photos and will
post them as soon as they are developed.
9/11 The hull and sides are ready for attachment. Should have a boat by the end
of the month. I've been busy on another project for my soon to be born daughter. I'm building a
Boat Cradle
which has taken up some of my time.
9/13 We installed the Stem last night. Pretty soon it's going to start looking like a boat!
August 2000:
8/7 I've started glassing the sides! I'm filleting the chinelogs in preparation of the glassing
of the deck. Hopefully this month I will be able to put the sides on the boat.
8/8 The trick working with epoxy is to avoid sanding. Several of
the fillets came out poorly - I didn't have enough wood flour in my fillet mix so it ran.
Last night I used my Heat gun to remove several of the ones that I had put in.
I think I finally have the technique worked out for filleting. I modified a Squeegee by
rounding a corner on it. Using the corner of the Squeegee to apply the
fillet leaves a nice finished edge which doesn't need much sanding. By removing
the fillets and reapplying them I actually saved time. Sanding epoxy is very time
consuming.
8/15 I'm about done with the preparation of the sides and deck. It is easiest to
do this work while things are still apart. It looks like I'm going to have the sides
on by the end of the month!
July 2000:
7/10 I recruited da wife this weekend and we finished marking the sides. They are awaiting the final
cut out of the slot for the aft rub rail. I can't fiberglass the sides
until I purchase a new mustard pump for the tub of epoxy. I'll do that today. Also I'm going
to talk to the designer, I'm not sure how the stem should be attached to the hull. I suspect
that I just need to epoxy it. It's an important part of the boat so it's best to double check.
I also purchased more wood. This time I bought 1/2 underlayment. I'm not real happy
with it but it will work for the rub rail.
7/17 Arrrrgh!! I can't seem to get ahead. I went out into the shop on Saturday
to find that I only have 110 volts not 220. It was fine the night before. I've been in an on going battle
with the electrical service to the shop. The Aluminum Wire keeps oxidizing. I've
fixed it 3 times in the last year. It's time to replace the aluminum wire with copper.
Spent all day Sunday digging. There is some good news I'm going to upgrade the service to 100 amps with
20 circuits, it had been 60 amps with 6 circuits. More Power!
7/25 Back on the Boat! Last Sunday I was back to working on the boat. The electrical service
to the shop was a lot of work. 85' of trench through clay soil. This kind of work was much easier when
I was in college. Anyway I've installed two 1 1/4" conduits only one of them is currently being used
so hopefully I won't need to dig in the future.
I've installed the gusset for the Stem. And
am preparing the side panels for fiber glassing. I talked to Berk (the designer) about the
stem installation. He said that if I wanted to I could fasten the stem up from the bottom
with drywall screws. But that it's not necessary. What is important is that the stem
is plumb with the rest of the hull.
June 2000:
I can go back to work on my boat! I finished all of my other
projects. Just so you don't think that I'm sitting around
looking at the heavy, expensive, flat piece of plywood I lovingly, call a boat.
Here's what I've done this month:
- Installed Gas Dryer
- Installed Low Voltage Lights
- Installed Clothes Line
- Built a patio - Daddio
- Fixed U-Joint on Truck
- Fixed Flag Pole
- Filled Sand Boxes
- Fixed Patio Screen door - My Dog, the wookie, broke it once again one week later.
April-May 2000:
Still not working on my boat My son's bookcase is done, but other projects
compete for my time. Now that spring is here I'm working on a ton of other stuff around my house.
March 2000:
Still not working on my boat :( I really need to start making more time
for it. I've been working on other things instead. Like building a bookcase
for my son.
February 2000:
I've had to take some time off to build a place for the additional
plywood I need to purchase. I also built some framework that will allow
me to safely place 4X8 sheets of ply-wood in the back of my Mazda Truck.
As for the Boat - Working on the sides. Soon I will have them 'glassed. Once the weather
warms up I'll be able to start installing them. It'll finally start to
look like a boat!
January 2000:
I have built the stem and installed the U-Bolt. I didn't have much
luck locating a big stainless U-Bolt so I had my Father-in-law make
one for me. It turned out great. The temporary supports for the side
of the boat have been cut out as well.
1/31 I am building the gussets for the stem installation.
My router and a laminating bit make this a snap to do! I wish
I had the router when I built the chine logs.
December 1999:
The last two months have been spent working on Christmas gifts for
my parents. I built a toy
Airplane from plans I found in a book called
52 Plans for the Weekend Woodworker. The inference is that
most projects will take only a weekend. Yah, Right! I probably have 50
hours in it.
Santa was good to me this year. He brought me a
Porter Cable 693PK
Router set. I used it to put the 3/8 radius on the chine logs and
bulkhead bases. It worked great. Only one problem - when I nailed
the chine logs onto the hull a couple of nails strayed into the
path of the router. So I had to make sure to avoid those spots when
I routed the chinelogs.
Novemeber 1999:
I have filled the holes created when I screwed the keels in place.
The space between the chine logs were too wide to fit the the prow
properly so I have added some wooden shims to make up for the
ill-fitting chine logs. The bulkhead base has been trimmed to size.
I still have to spend some time shaping the chine logs. Now that I can
look down on them I can see some imperfections.
October 1999:
10/23 I attempted to sand the mold off. I ended up scrubbing it with bleach. It cleaned up
pretty well but you can still see the stains. Since epoxy will stick to anything my primary
concern was to kill the bacteria. I sure wish I had epoxyed the deck of the boat before
we turned it upside down.
10/15 We turned the boat back over. The deck of the boat was covered with mold. The part of
the hull that had been covered with epoxy didn't have the mold on it. If I had it to do
again I would cover the deck of the boat with one coat of epoxy before I turned the boat
over. The boat was placed back on the concrete blocks. I cut several small pieces of carpet to place
between the boat and the concrete block. This will keep the block from scratching the now
finished hull.
September 1999:
It's time to paint the boat. This is the bottom of the boat so it's a good time to experiment
I decided to use External Glidden Lucite (Acrylic Latex) paint. Since this boat will be
spending most of it's time on a trailer in my shed, it seemed the me that marine paint
is unnecessary. I sprayed the paint with my cheepe $20.00 Coleman Paint Spray Gun.
As far as the experiment is concerned I am quite pleased with the results. The finish is
better than I could have done with a paint brush. And it sticks really well to the epoxy.
It took quite a bit of sanding to get it off of my test area.
August 1999:
More and more epoxying. I've started to build the sides of the boat. This is something that one
can work on while waiting for the epoxy to cure. The sides are Luan. I am holding them
together by gluing a "tab" between both pieces. The glue is epoxy thickened with wood flour. It's
quite strong. I've had to move the completed sides around and have been able to do it without damaging
them.
July 1999:
More and more epoxying. My two year old loves to help me wash the boat between coats.
April/May/June 1999:
I've installed my first coat of fiberglass. It took quite a bit of time to complete.
You can see the 2 seams in the fiberglass. The biggest problem was
sanding the seams. My random orbital sander just wasn't up to that kind of job. Fortunately the
Father-in-Law found an old Craftsman Belt sander in the garbage. He fixed it up and it works great!
The belt sander really cuts through the epoxy. You have to be really careful not to cut too much.
I'm using sealed 80 grit sandpaper and a chunk of rubber to keep the belt clean.
March 1999:
I have glued the keels on the boat. I've been very careful to make sure the boat was truly flat when
they were glued on. It has paid off! We are on our way.
October 1998 - February 1999:
Winter has set in. I contacted SystemThree to ask about freezing temperatures
and they said that epoxy will not cure under 32F.
I have purchased the Douglas fir to make the keels. I used my radial arm saw to
cut the keels out. The keels were then shaped with a Sureform, and then sanded
smooth. I will have to wait until spring to attach them.
September 1998:
The chine logs are attached and the aft 2x2 has been installed. At my Dad's
suggestion I didn't trim the ends of the center bulkhead support. He said that I
could use then ends when it was time to flip the hull over. I followed that
suggestion. I left about 5" on both sides of the boat. I installed an eye bolt in
the end of the center bulkhead support. It was a simple matter for me to attach
one end of my winch to the roof of the shed and the other to the eyebolt. I had
two helpers stabilize the hull as I lifted it up. I lifted the hull until it was
perpendicular with the floor. Then the hull was lowered with the bottom side up.
The eyebolt worked great!
August 1998:
I purchased 15 gallons of epoxy this month. Since
I live in Northcentral Wisconsin, I am concerned about it curing in a
reasonable time during
the winter months. The epoxy is mixed in a 2:1 (Part A to Hardener) ratio.
I bought the SystemThree Epoxy 3X5
pack, two five
gallon jugs of Part A and two 2.5 gallon jugs of Hardener. With
SystemThree you select the
correct hardener for the temperature range. I bought 2.5 gallons of medium
hardener and 2.5
gallons of fast hardener.
I am going to use the medium hardener this fall (temps from 70F - 45F) and
switch to the fast
hardener this winter (temps from 45F - 0F degrees). In the winter I keep
my shed at 45F while
I'm working in it, however, most of the time the temperature is just a few
degrees warmer than
the outside temp. I don't think I'll apply epoxy in January when outside
temps fall below OF.
Recently, I epoxied the two interior shelves. The 'mustard pumps' I
purchased from SystemThree have worked quite well. My random orbital sander, with 80 grit, cleaned up
the imperfections in my novice epoxy work.
I have been experimenting with adding thickeners into the epoxy to create
putty.
I found out that woodflour isn't as easy to work with as microballons. The
woodflour does not sand out as easily as the microballoon mix. The
woodflour plugs up the sandpaper.
This isn't a problem if you use 80 grit
sand paper.
I purchased 12 12" foundation blocks. I plan on standing these block on
end
as a support for the tug.
After setting the four deck boards on the foundation blocks. I noticed that
One of the boards wasn't quite square so I cut a new one. Once I put it on
the blocks it started to look like a boat!
I've glued the plywood to the center bulkhead support. Pictures to follow.
July 1998:
After much thought, I decided
not to build with Marine Plywood. This boat is not a traditional wooden boat, as all of it
will be covered in fiberglass. The designer specified ACX plywood. However, many other
builders have upgraded to Marine Plywood. Marine plywood is quite expensive and difficult to come by
in the middle of Wisconsin. The plywood I purchased from a local building supply company is
relatively free of voids and has a very nice hardwood face.
My wife and I cut out the four sheets that make up the bottom of the boat.
In the process of
working with it we discovered that some of the sheets were not square. Hey,
what do I know? I
always assumed that plywood is square. We were able to find four sheets
that were square.
Next I cut out the Chine Logs and the two interior cabin shelves.
March/April/May/June 1998:
I learned about the CANDU-EZ in Sport Aviation. I immediately decided that I had to build one. I spoke
with my father about it, he said it was the silliest thing he had ever heard of and to count him
in. My Dad lives about 60 miles away from me, so we felt that he could help with the
construction. I purchased plans, went to the library and set about learning how to build a boat. I
spent a lot of time surfing the internet for boat building information, and reading
"Boat Building with Plywood". I also
joined the the American
Mini-Tug Builders Association.
