Day 18: Fiberglassing the Thwarts

Just a half day today. The hours with the epoxy fumes were adding up. A few hours were spent glassing the other side of the cutouts. Also, I was glad to see the shop held out the wind storm just fine. No water leaks and the room temp was perfect. The storm sent a trampoline 1/4 mile down the beach and swamped a few boats. The rain is finally back here in seattle!

Day 17: Fiberglassing the Thwarts

Spent my first day alone with the boat. The epoxy takes twice as long to do by one's self. Still managed to get a bunch of glasswork done. It would be interesting to add up all the surface area on a boat like this. I have new appreciation for this factor after working with all the cutouts allday.

Spent the first half of the day cutting the glass for both sides of all the cut-outs:

The aft thwart for the rear cross

Rear passenger seat

Forward passenger seat & back rest

Boatman's raised floor and partitions for the side hatches

Shelves for the side hatches

Did some experimenting with the side hatch partition and the epoxy. I mixed in a small amount of microballoons into the epoxy. I'm wondering how it will effect the finished feel. Maybe a little more fair than usual? I girl can dream.

Day 16: Thwart Height Additions

Today Dad headed into the city after the work day. We readied some projects for me to get done before he gets back next week.

The shop continues to be great. We cranked the heat up to medium-low to cure some epoxy glue and the space heated up great.

Pic of the height additions to the front cross aft bulkhead and the front passenger seat. (Lonnie, I know you're shaking your head right now!)

Prepped the shop and the cut outs from the other day to get glassed up tomorrow.

Day 15: Cutting Out the Thwarts

Finished cutting out the thwarts, seats and partitions today. Tomorrow we measure out a grid for the hatches. We have some pretty far-out ideas for hatches and flooring... You shall see in the upcoming days.

This is a pic of the aft-ward thwart of the front cross hatch. We had to add some height to execute our deck plan.

It gets lamello-ed and glued tomorrow. Fiber-glassed day after that.

Pic of the aft-most thwart of the stern cross. We had to get creative with the angles and height on this one too. We have it resting against some blocks here.

Pic of the passenger seatback in the front of the boat. This was changed from the original design too. I wanted to get a little more storage space in the front cross (so I could fit the white buckets up there) which meant raising the passenger seat by about 1 3/4". A little worried it gets the passengers weight a little high in the boat and the seat back may now be uncomfortably short.... we'll find out shortly. -Well, in a week or so.

Pic of our scribing tool. Very handy for getting all the seats and decking to marry into the hull nicely.

Dad cutting out a piece for the boatman's footwell. (I think)

Dad plaining the rear passenger seat pieces to fit just right.

Our new fangled hatch seal design.

The big picture which is actually small.

Day 14: Sanding Fillets

This morning we did a quick sanding of the fillets, screw hole putty and filed down the fillet cap on the bow post and transom.

After the sanding we spent a lot of time with the tape measure. We needed to create the aft thwart for the rear cross hatch and the forward thwart for the front cross hatch. It took some head scratching and a bit of time but we got a pretty sweet fit at the end of it all. So we got those cut out of the 3/4 ply and also cut out the front seat and it fits nicely.

We also, measured out all the pieces for the boatman's foot well and the side hatches so hopefully tomorrow morning we'll get those cut.

Day 13: The New Shop

Today we moved into our shop space for the deck build. We signed the lease, got the run-down on the space, moved the boat in and set up for work tomorrow. The shop seems great and I can't wait to start turning this dory into a whitewater dory.

Day 12: Trailering the Hull back to Seattle

The boat is home safe on Whidbey Island. We loaded it on the trailer this morning for the 6 hour drive from Idaho. The fillets and glass were well cured and hopefully kept out the water from the rainy drive.

View from bow to stern of the gunwale after the clamps came off.

Here are some pics of the epoxy/wood powder caps on the transom and bow post.

Transom closeup

Bowpost cap

Closeup

The boat emerging from the shop.

Also a couple pics of out morning routine at Gail & Lonnie's; morning tea, great breakfast and the Lewiston paper.

Leaving the shop.

Leaving Lonnie & Gail's and pointing it to Seattle.

Day 11: Glueing the Gunwale (Outwale)

Today was the final long day in Deary. We got the outside gunwale on and cleaned up our mess in Lonnie & Gail's shop. It was a treat to get to work in their shop, use the big saws and have their support! We also had some fine dinning and excellent wines thanks to Dee. We had a great time building the hull, having delicious dinners, playing with the dogs Copper and Tundra, eating fresh veggies right out of Gail's garden, watching old-school dory videos and getting really dusty in the shop. My only regret was that I didn't bring enough chocolate. I've put it on the materials list for the next boat. Tomorrow we will load the hull on the trailer and take off for seattle and whidbey island and say farewell to Gail, Lonnie and the dogs. It was a fun trip!

Day 10: Fillets2

Photos are about the same as yesterday. Here is a little pic of the Sundog Expedition's oar rack.

We finished the last fillets in the hull today...whew! A long job but they look great. The fillets we glassed yesterday look, strong  and even.  It will be great to have the boat somewhat protected from water for the drive back to Seattle.

Day 9: Hull/Mold Separation and Fillets

Today was a good day. We popped the hull off the mold. It came off immediately -no problem....well, after I found that last screw holding it in place.

Then we cut the excess wood from the sides with a jigsaw and then fine tunned with a plane.

After sanding we began the process of filleting the inside of the hull.

Pic of Lonnie showing us how its done.  He had some perfectly cut fillet spreaders for the job.  We copied him and went right to it.  Definitely a tiring job, especially in the bow and stern.

We laid in a special fillet blend then immediately glassed with 6", 4" and 2" tape along the bottom and just one layer of appropriate tape for the verticals.  (Bow and Transom got all the layers)

With my Dad wetting out the tape and myself pulling the fillets it still took all day.

Tom cleans up the wounds in the glass from where the screws held the scarf joint together.

Day 8: Hull Fairing

Today we sanded the fiberglass and put the first coat of fairing compound. We tested out the Raka phenolic microspheres on the bottom and hit the sides with West System microlight.

The glass looked pretty good after last night. Just a couple bubbles and some curtains where we went a little heavy on the epoxy.

Our routine for the fairing was for Tom and Lonnie to spread on the fairing while I served as the mixologist.  With 3 people it went pretty quickly.

Pic of the red microballoons on the bottom and the white microlight on the sides.

Now all we have to do it wait.

The wood pile is slowly increasing.  Hopefully by the time we are done with the hull, Lonnie and Gail will have enough wood for the winter.

Halloween is coming so we carved pumpkins tonight.  I was pretty excited when Gail arrived home from work with these big orange surprises.

Guess who doesn't have an MFA.