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 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.

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 7: Hull fiberglassing

Dad and I sport our fabulous glassing outfits.

We all had a long day wearing a respirator but it was worth it. With 3 people the glassing of the hull went smoothly.

First thing this morning we cut the glass this morning and went straight to it.

We wetted out the 17oz biaxial cloth on the bottom.

Next was the 6oz on the sides.

Then 9oz on the bottom.

Then 6oz halfway up the sides.

A final 6oz on the bottom.

Next came the 6oz tape; 6", 3", 2" on the chine, transom and bowpost.

Now the waiting game until a good cure. Next step will be to pop it off the mold. We have our fingers crossed!!

Day 2: Scarf Joints2

Well, all the glass cured perfectly just as Lonnie knew it would.  We trimmed off the edges and then moved on to tackling the glass for the bottom of the boat.

Lonnie used a jigsaw to cut the rough shape of the bottom.  He used a template that he had made from previous boat builds.

Meanwhile, my Dad and I cut the scarfs on the 1/4" ply for the sides of the boat.  This is a pic of me using the power planner to make the initial cuts.  Whew, a little nerve racking!  It was a heavy and powerful tool.  I was terrified I was going to take a huge gouge out of the edge.

Tom fine tunes.

Perfect.

With the bottom cut.  All 3 of us worked on getting it glassed.  We rotated positions as 2 people spread the epoxy with putty knives and 1 would mix the epoxy.  It was a 3 person effort to lay the glass and get it wetted out.  Went smoothly with 6 hands... well more like 7.  Lonnie counts as 3.

We set it on top of the mold to free up the table for the sides.

We glued and set the scarf joint with the same procedure as the bottom scarf.  Each side had two scarfs and we glued them all up at the same time for a total of 4 scarfs.

At this point the shop was maxed out on space. We set the thermostat to 60 and headed to the woods to cut some firewood.

Kleo the cat came to do a final inspection.