Day 27: Fairing in Passenger Areas, Spare Oar Slot

Today was a big sanding day.  All the fairing compound from the passengers areas were done with the orbital sander.  The vacum attachment is priceless.  I wear a dust mask but its just out of habit.  There is hardly any dust in the air at all.

I left the tops of all the seats bare.  (no fairing) I figure I'm gonna put down non-skid compound on there so why double up.

In this photo you can see the wood grain.  I never noticed until now how much the epoxy picks up the grain.

To break up the sanding job, I cut out the spare oar slot.  (I had forgotten all about it)  I had the front seatback already filleted...bummer.  Took a while to chisel out the fillet.  Definitely a backwards move.  Especially since I was worried about the seat back not fitting perfectly.  Now I realize it was never a problem as I had to cut out a big portion of it.  A learning moment for next time around!

The spare oars(s) slot was cut from the passenger seatback and the thwart which separates the side and front cross hatch.

Port side.

I also cut the deck piece for the oar slot.  Took lots of fine tuning to get it fit to the curve of the hull.  I then realized I probably should have used 1/4" instead of 3/8".  The slot takes on a bit of an arc which is tough to bend the 3/8" along.  I may just cut a 1/4" piece tomorrow.

The epoxy dispenser failed today so I didn't glass the deck piece.  All the more reason to switch to 1/4".

Not sure what is going on with the epoxy dispenser.  I took it almost completely apart and still no luck.  Might have to call in the experts...

The other thing that went wrong today was this... They were scissors.  I put them in the bucket of acetone to clean the epoxy off of them.  When I went to fish them out all I could find was black ooze.  The plastic handle apparently dissolved and now inhabits the bottom of the acetone bucket making it hard to use.  The scissors are also useless.

Seems like a backwards day....

Until!!

My landlord and friend Doug showed up to help me refill the propane tank and set me up with 2 giant dungeness crabs and the most beautiful smelling japanese camelias!

Definitely made my day.

Kleo the cat was pretty stoked on the crab as well!

Day 26: Fairing in Passenger Areas

Today was an big day with the respirator.  The first coat of fairing compound went onto the passenger areas as well as the boatman's footwell.

This is a shot with the stern in the foreground and the bow in the background.  The purple is the fairing compound.

This shot is Bow to Stern.

I'm using Raka's phenolic microballoons for the fairing compound.  It sands very easily. (once its fully cured)  Its really tough to mix correctly though.  Too little and it runs all over the place, too dry and it doesn't spread and that sweet spot in between is really hard to hit.  Its a very narrow window.  When I do the second round on the hull I will try to come up with a formula to make the mixing step a little more consistant and better quality.

I also laid down a little fairing compound in the corners of the hatches and along the areas where gravity will collect debris.  Hoping this will make it easier to sponge out the dirt.

In the background you can see some wood paste dots on the hull.  These are from the screw holes from our scarf joint.  The wood really soaked up our wood flour paste that we put down before the glass and now there are still some depressions.  No air pockets though...whew!!

This is a shot of the inside transom.  We put an extra 12"x12" piece of 6oz and a 6"x4"biax cloth on the zone where the stern U-Bolt will be drilled.

We did this on the inside of the bow post as well.

Day 25: Rear Passenger Seats

Another half day as the cold temps have been leading to slower cure rates on the epoxy.  Kind of nice though.

These are the last leaves left on the Japanese maple.

Some of those hours of waiting for the epoxy to cure have been spent digging out the ski gear.

Got the sanding stone out and took the rust and burrs off the edges.

Also found the wax and pulled a few hot scrapes of prep wax.  Next trip to town I'll get some harder wax for the final coat.  Can't wait to get these planks moving downhill...after the up hill.

Here is a blurry shot of the rear passenger seats all filleted and sanded.  Fells great to have them done! I spend way too long on these.  The angles we tried to accomplish were very ambitious...I'm pretty psyched now though.

So I spent time today sanding all the edges of the taped fillets for the seats and boatman's foot well.  Also, going back and inspecting all the previous fillets and cleaning them up. -resanding and removing air pockets or unsaturated glass.

The boat is looking good.

Day 24: Rear Passenger Seats

Today the tops of the rear passenger seats were glued in place.

The fillet caps on the bow and stern are looking pretty smooth after a few rounds.

The front seat is now filleted with an extra layer of glass on the front edge of the seat for durability.

After a few rounds of taping I've found a system that works well for me. #1 is the serrated scissors. They keep the glass cloth from unraveling. #2 I've begun cutting the end corners off. This allows the tape to lay into the corners beautifully with significantly less sanding.

Day 23: Rear and Forward Seats, Boatman's Well

Today was a satisfying day. All the seats got glued...hurray!

The fillets on the boatman's well look good. Only one corner shifted a bit -1/8". I think it will be no big deal.

All the seats were glued at long last. It took half a day to get the last rear seat and front seatback in position. The gluing went fast after that.

On this seatback, I bridged a 1/4 inch gap with glue...My fingers are crossed that with the fillets in place it will be strong. Its also gonna get a substantial piece of solid wood along its length when the gutters and deck go in. Plus some support from below.

This is the rear seat with cutouts into the aft thwart. Tomorrow they will get fillets along with the front seat.

Day 22: Rear Passenger Seats, Boatman's Well

Hurray for right angles! I had so much fun today. The boatman's footwell made major progress as it is the only place in the boat, so far, with 90 degree corners. Everything went smooth and fast. A nice break from the crazy angles of my rear passenger seats.

All I needed was a measuring tape and a right angle for this section.

My Dad's cabinetry tools have been invaluable. I've been wanting to use these sweet little clamps for a while. Finally got to put them to good use here in the boatman's footwell.

This is the boatman's elevated floor. The random junk in the photo are weights for the gluing process.

Reluctantly I keep plugging away at the rear seats. It does appear that things are fitting together nearly perfect now. So today, I cut out the opening in the aft thwart that will connect to the rear seat. I used the jig saw for the first time. A noisy spoweful tool. Beginners luck. It went well at the first go. I cut the rest out with a japanese saw and chisel.

While most things went smoothly today, there was one frustrating moment. This is a pic of the problem. When we originally cut the seat back for the front passenger seat we had it at a certain angle. Since then, we have corrected the angle to a more comfortable slope...though now, our seat back is 3/4" too short (doesn't get to the sidewall of the hull).

A problem to tackle tomorrow...

Day 21: Rear and Forward Passenger Seats, Boatman's Well

Spent a full day at the shop today.

The rear seats proved to be a puzzle again. Hopefully the glass on the pieces will be cured by tomorrow and I can fit them together.

The front seat got tacked into place today. The seatback will take a little puzzle work tomorrow. I made a support piece for the center of the seat and back. It will be glassed and glued into place in a couple days.

Weights on the glue joint of the front seat.

The boatman's floor is tacked in place.

The fillers used today. Wood powder, microballons and milled fibers.

Other projects started today:

Glassed the support pieces for front seat & back seats

Day 20: Rear Passenger Seats

Things at the shop took a little longer than expected. The rear passenger seat didn't quite fit into place. Lots of unique angles to work with. (We were getting cocky) I think the cardboard model we used was bending to accomodate these angles. So, when we transfered the lines to rigid plywood it just didn't work out.

The solution for today was to add height to the aft corner of the seat. I cut out 4 wedges of plywood, all with a max height of 1". Those edges were lamello-ed and glued then glassed onto the original cutouts. Hopefully tomorrow things will fit together well. I also cut 3/8" off one of the sides as we'd forgotten to account for the plywood thickness when we transfered the cardboard line to the wood. This is the first slow down/redo that we've had so far...not bad I'd say.

Other tasks which were accomplished today:

Glued and filleted the floor riser/hatch partition in the boatman's foot well. -Tomorrow the boatman's floor goes in.

Got the aft thwart fully glued and filleted. -Looks true and a nice angle.

Filled the transom's top edge and bow post with fairing compound. (round 2)

Filled screw holes with putty.

Roughed up the surfaces which will be filletted in the future

Filled voids in the plywood of the thwarts.

Tasks I'm dreaming up:

Shelf for my ukulele.

Drain-through tile for the passenger seats.

Aluminum gutters for the hatches.

Old-school notch in the transom "Powell style".

Day 19: Showing Off the Boat

Practicing my wave punching form.

I got to show my boat off today. My Mom snapped this pic as she was checking out the boat. Can't wait to take her for a ride. My Uncle Johnny and cousin Rayme also got to check out the boat today. They were surprised by how big it was.

After Johnny and Rayme headed back to town I figured I might as well stay and get a few things done; trimmed the fiberglass cutouts, tacked the aft thwart in place and glassed the height additions to the front passenger seat and front cross.