Day 43: Deck Fairing

Faired the deck today... well, most of it.  Ran out of epoxy with about 25% left to go.

Used the phenolic microballoons again.  They sand down so easily that I really like using them despite the fact that they are a little tricky to work with when wet.

Decided to go with a thick coat of fairing instead of my usual super thin method. Hoping to cut down on the number of coats this way.

I sanded the glass before I did this as it had quite  a bit of blush... maybe from all the cold weather curing.

These are the "lips" for the hatch gutters.  They are curing over the heater for round 2 of an epoxy coat.

They are 1/4" ply and will turn the U shaped gutters into nearly a full rectangle.  The lip on the hatch lid will squeeze between the edge of the deck and this gutter lip... Alumaweld style.

I've gotten some questions about how these gutters will drain.  Here are some pics which I hope will clairify.

This is a view of the starboard side hatch with the boatman's footwell in the foreground.  Looking closely at the top edge of the footwell riser there are cutouts in the wall which are the drain outlets for the gutters.

Here is a close up of the starboard gutter outlet.

I am hoping to get away with this method by adding two drainage factors:
1.  The gutters are pretty big to shed water quickly.  Most gutters are 2" deep and 1" wide. (This one is a little wider)
2.  The entire deck and gutter have a constant slope toward the stern.  This will help shed water more quickly.

My fingers are crossed though.  If I have to add drain tubes later I will but it sure would be nice to go without.

Port side of the Front Cross Hatch.

Plan view of an outlet.

Outlet for the front cross hatch gutter.

I'm questioning this one a bit.  Its in the center of the boatman's foot well and about 2" wide x 3/8ish.  I'm doubting that it will be enough to drain in big water.  This will be the hatch drain to modify potentially.

Well thats the drain slide show.  Happy to take more pics or add detail.  Just let me know.

Let me end with something a little prettier than all this.

Dirtbag & the Orca Bay I.
And thats me in the stern freaking out... before I ever dreamed of rowing rivers.

Day 42: Deck Fillets

After the holidays,  I heated up the shop to do some epoxy work.  This is a pic of the port-side fillet for the deck.  The starboard fillet and spare oar slot were also done.  The stern edge of the deck was glassed as well.

The second coat of fairing was spread on the hatch lids.

This pic is the filleted, glassed and sanded hatch gutter.  They are ready for the next step.

Christmas brought some really fun times and gifts.  Some new hardware is pushing the boat building forward.

yeah!

Day 41: Fiberglassing the Bow Hatch, Fairing

Laid glass on the bow hatch deck today.  It was a little cooler in the shop so the epoxy was thick.  It definitely takes more epoxy on cold days.   I think this would be a lighter boat if we could keep the shop warm.

Also put fairing compound along the edges of the gutter tape as well as some corners that needed it.

This fairing compound is really light weight stuff.  I made a small bear sculpture out of the extra last night and when I picked it up this morning it was as light as air.  Pretty cool.

-I also cut off the excess glass sticking up from the gutters.
-Cut out any air bubbles from the glass tape and filled with fairing compound... not many. -yeah!
-Coated the end grain of the exposed inner gutter wall with epoxy.
-Glued the drain pipe to the boatman's footwell.

When I glassed the gutters yesterday I left the tape heavily wetted-out in hopes that it would produce a smooth surface on the bottom of the gutter.  It worked in all the areas where I had sufficient epoxy in the tape.  There are just a few areas that I may have to fair.  everything looks pretty good.

Christmas begins tomorrow so I buttoned up the shop for a few days.  Unplugged and cleaned up.  Its lookin pretty spiffy.  I'm dying to sand and finnish the gutters but it will be easier with a few days of curing anyway.

Came home to a beautiful night on the bay and a message on the phone that my Dad has found some good ash for the oars and the oar lock blocks are in production.  Things are getting exciting!

Day 40: Fiberglassing the Hatch Gutters

Put in a solid 11 hours at the shop today.

Prepped the gutters for glass and precut all the tape.  Then went for it.  The only hang up was the serrated scissors finally gave out.  It was definitely messier with just the plain scissors.

I used a ziploc bag to apply the fillet into the tight angles.  Worked great.

This pic is the precut glass tape before the epoxy and fillets.

Pic is post fillet and epoxy.

Also sanded the fairing compound on the hatch lids.  Just did a quick pass with the orbital.  Still need to hand sand the edges and true the lips.

Long day with the epoxy.  That stuff is nasty.  Hope the respirator really does what it says it does. I still feel a little loopy.

Day 39: Faring the Hatch Lid and Gutters

Just a half day today. Since the glass was still a bit soft I spread on the first thin coat of fairing compound on the hatch lids.

The tops, rounded edges and the front face got a coat.  The other 3 sides will probably be left alone depending on how they fit.

This is a pic of the towers we used to elevate the hatch lids off the table.

Also put some fairing compound along the hatch gutters where needed.  All the depressions from the dogs were filled, corners smoothed, gaps filled... hopefully in preparation for filleting and glassing the gutters tomorrow.

This is pic of where the stern cross hatch gutter exits. The purple putty is the fairing compound.

I chiseled the exposed wood gutter back 1/8" from the surface so that I could apply a sufficiently thick epoxy end cap.  I think it will look nicer and hopefully be more durable.

Day 38: Hatch Gutter Installation, Hatch Lid Fiberglassing, Deck Routing, Drain Cutting

Dad and I got to the shop early today.

The deck looks great.  Its really nice to walk on too!  No more hatch crawling.

Tom braved the fiberglass and used a router to fine tune the gutter/deck interface.  He also put a 1/4 inch bevel on all the edges.

Tom also created a jig for the router so that he could even out the inside edge of the gutters.  Turned out is was a good thing he did it.  One spot was 3/16th too high... we would have been really bummed when our hatch lid didn't lay flat.  That would have been one backward moving day!

Tom cut out the drain holes for the hatch gutters.

This is a pic of the drain hole of the starboard side hatch gutter.

Pic of the drain hole for the front cross hatch gutter.

I decided to go old school on the drainage.  No drain tubes.  I'm thinking that I'll be able to install those later if it turns out I need them.

We also glued on the deck of the bow and stern hatch.

This is a pic of the stern hatch glue up.

Last thing today was to put glass on the tops of the hatch lids.

They have a 1/4" bevel on them...just enough to bend the glass around.  It took some time but it seems to have worked.  The vertical corners are gonna need a little touch up as the glass did not lay very well in those spots.

Day 38: Deck Installation, Drain Installation

Today, Tom came up from town and we glued on the deck.  Its a whitewater boat now!

This is a pic of the stern portion of the deck.

This is a pic of the spare oar slot.

Pic of the starboard deck.

We have yet to install the deck for the bow and stern hatches.  -Just ran out of time for the day.

Before we glued down the deck we installed the drain tube for the boatman's foot well.

This is pic of Tom sawing the excess off.

Day 37: Hatch Gutter Installation, Hatch Lid Fiberglassing

Took the clamps off this morning and the gutters were glued tight.  Everything stayed in place and is looking good.

close up of the gutter system

This a pic of the hatch lids.  I set them in place just to check the fit.  The starboard side lid will need a little adjustment but the rest of them look good.

The inside of the hatch lids got a coat of glass.  They took a bit of time because I was attempting a very small fillet between the lid and the lip.  It took some delicate work to get the glass to accept the severe bend.   Seemed to work out, however, tomorrow will tell...

To ensure the hatch lids stayed flat during the glass process, I used some blocks my dad had cut to pin down the 4 corners of each hatch lid.

The top surfaces of some of the large deck pieces were also glassed today.

Day 36

The hatch gutters cured beautifully overnight.  They feel pretty lightweight, though, they still have the inside layer of glass and fillets yet to add.

Today we glued the hatch gutters into the boat.  They went in nearly perfect.  Just one side hatch was a little tricky, hopefully it won't prove to be too much of a problem when we add the hatch lid.

In this pic you can see the little wooden wedges under the gutter that we used to keep the gutters in place.  We hot glued the wedges onto the thwarts and they just snap right off once we're done with them.  It was a pretty good way to go.  They enabled us to apply the glue to the gutters then just drop them right into place.  We then went back and clamped key points to true everything up.

This is what the boat looks like when we left the shop for the night.  Its pretty tricky, trying to get around in there.  It will really help to get the deck on.

I kept falling over today in the boat.  I wear these old pair of crocs that are about two sizes too big.  I can't get them to clear the thwarts and they kept getting stuck in the hatches

Last thing we did was glass the underside of the deck pieces.

The long piece in this pic will be the starboard deck.
The large square is for the port deck.
The little narrow piece is also for the port deck.

The square is part of the port deck.
The other piece is the deck around the stern hatch.

This is the deck for the bow hatch.
We didn't get it glassed today because we are glueing the two halves together.  Would have been nice to use one big piece of ply but we didn't have a piece big enough.

The two halves were lamelloed, glued and pined with the dogs.

One side note: The resin side of the dispenser stopped working again.  I'm sure because of the cold, though we kept it next to the heater.  The fix was much simpler this time.  If I made boats more often I would invest in some sort of dispenser heater.  Its time consuming to undo the thing.

Day 35: Hatch Gutter Installation

Ahh, back at the shop today as the cold front has finally broken.  Still pretty cold temps today but hopefully improvement by tomorrow.  Tom came up from town and we got right to it.

This is a pic of Tom cutting down the boatman's well thwart for the hatch lid to nestle in.  We cut down all 4 sides of the well and the thwart for both the bow and stern hatch.

I also continued sanding the fairing compound in the corners all over the boat.  After a week of cold temps the stuff was finally cured enough to sand easily.

Tom's looking good in his mad-scientist outfit!

Once we made a nice mess with the saw, we got the place cleaned up and readied for some glassing.

We glassed the underside of all the hatch gutters...would have done more (deck pieces) if we had the space.