Seat sides, outwhales, outer stem - a lot of work!

In the past couple of weeks I've cut the seat sides to shape, joined them with butt joints, and epoxied and fiberglassed them into place. The last step, epoxying and fiberglassing, was the most time consuming. All the joints require thickened expoy - you can see there are many joints - to the transom, the bottom, the side bulkhead, the stringer between the side bulkhead and seat side, and the forward bulkhead. I failed to get a picture of the framing for the seat sides. It was not difficult to cut and fit all these pieces, but work on the rest of the pieces for the seats could not proceed until these were glued and cured.

This photo shows the outwhale and outstem dry fit. These pieces are yellow pine. I cut the gunnels out of two pieces and then scarfed them to get the full length.











The rest of the photos show the finished work. I took about 3 hours to do each seat side - just the epoxy and fiberglass work. I did one side one day and the other the next day. I am please with the results. My fiberglass and epoxy work is not flawless, but it is pretty neat.






















The outwhales and outer stem took about one hour to glue up. It was in the 90s yesterday when I did these pieces. I sweated a lot, but because the humidity was only around 55 %, it was not too bad. Which leads me to the following conclusion: I don't care what they say in Phoenix, dry heat is nowhere near as bad as humid heat! It actually felt very nice with a breeze yesterday.




It surprised me how long these steps took.

Misc.

This is the piece of wood I am planning to use for the outer stem (the very front of the boat - the part that will like hit docks and various other obstructions). It is old growth yellow pine (I hope it's longleaf, but I can't tell). It is completely saturated with sap and very dense. I have to do some research to determine if I need to treat its surface before I glue it on. I've read that with some "oily" woods like teak and white oak, you're supposed to wipe them down with some chemical before applying the epoxy in order to get a proper bond. I don't know yet about pine sap.

It's not easy to see in this photo, but the bottom of the side stringer (the lower horizontal piece) was originally flush with the bottom of the piece running horizontal across the transom. This was incorrect and so I had to partially remove it and re-glue where it lies now. Fortunately, this was not too difficult. I just chiseled it loose from the side. I did manage to rip one layer of the plywood from the port side. I think the only reason this did not happen on the starboard side is because I did not have a very good glue up there. I was glad to be able to fix this without too much trouble. Had I left it the way it was, the seat would have been too high at the stern.
This picture shows the side frames partially glued in place and how the boat looks without the temporary center frame. The plans have these as solid pieces of plywood. I cut the centers out so that I can utilize the entire length of the storage areas which run almost the length of the boat on either side. I want to be able to fit fishing rods in there.







This photo just show the pine boards I found in my shop. They are both 16' long, yellow pine. The one on the bottom is knot free and very nice. The one on the top is nice but for a few knots. Because the bottom piece is 16' by about 6", I can get all but two feet of both gunnels out of it. I will then scarf the remainder from the top piece, cutting so as to avoid the knots.

Keep it movin'

I got what felt like a lot of work done on the boat the past couple of weeks. It does not look dramatically different, but all the work was necessary.

On the left is just a picture of what I used to mix the epoxy and thickener when doing my fillets and fiberglass work. I was able to do all the joints on the boat (I will have more to do later when I add more pieces to the boat) in about 2 hours.

I used epoxy with slow hardener and fiberglass tape I ordered from B&B Yacht Designs - the folks that designed the boat. In the picture you'll see a paint mixer, a plastic Folgers container and a plastic measuring cup. I measured out the epoxy and then mixed it using the paint mixer installed in my cordless drill. The way I would have done it before would be to stir it by hand using a mixing stick of some sort. This can get tedious. So after the epoxy was mixed in the measuring cup, I poured it into the Folgers container and added the cab-o-sil and mixed it again with the cordless drill. Then, I made all my fillets.

After I had the fillets done, I took the glass tape, which I had already cut to fit at every joint, and wet it out in my "glass wet out box." This is just a piece of plywood with scrap wood around the perimeter to form a lip. I put a sheet of plastic in it so I'll have a clean surface. Then I lay the glass tape down, mix the epoxy, pour it on the tape and squeegee it around until the tape is saturated, and then apply the tape over the fillet.


Here you can see the joints. I then installed the side stringers. The starboard stinger I applied the glue and then shot sheet rock screws through it to clamp it. The wood split in several places from the screws, but only minor ones.

So, when I did the port side stringer, I drilled holes in it for the screws first and this prevented any splitting.

I scarfed the gunnels and have them dry fitted in this photo. I plan to glue them up today.

This is a photo of the rudder blade. It is made of two layers of 3/8 plywood. The plans provide a grid to transfer to the workpiece to help with cutting the shape. I cut the top a little too flat, but I don't believe this will affect much as it will not be in the water. I still have to shape the blade to the correct taper.








Here you can see the joint of the inwales with the stem. On the port side I took my time and shaved a little bit here a little there, until I got it just right. I got hasty on the starboard side and cut it too short. I'll have to fill the gap with thickened epoxy.

Wojtek's maiden voyage

Here are a couple of videos of Wojtek's maiden voyage in his BRS in Poland last week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9s1JlxPIyg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyxNpVpVXHU

I wonder what the water temperature is?

Flipped!

Well I got the second bottom panel glued on yesterday. This afternoon, I was going to wait on some help from some friends to turn it over, but when I picked up one side to test the weight, I just kept lifting and next thing I knew I had the boat resting up on its side. I went ahead and finished turning it. Fortunately, nothing cracked - at least not that I heard.













Then, I noticed a problem. You can see here that the temporary center frame is not quite centered. It looks a bit worse in real life than in the the pictures.










I measured each side from the chine to the keelson. One side measured about 29 7/8 inches and the other side was about 29 5/16 inches. An eighth or less I can live with. But 9/16 is more than 1/2 an inch and this seems like it would result in a severe twist being built into the boat - it may have already happened.

I clamped the bottom of the center frame to line it up with the center of the keelson and this helped. I think that brought it within a 1/4 inch. I don't want to glue the side panels to the bottom until I either fix this or determine it does not matter. I'm gonna need some input from others on this one.

I took the same measurement (chine to keelson) at the bow and stern and detected no noticeable difference - they seem to line up perfectly.

Glued one bottom panel

I shaped the keelson some more to improve the joint between it and the bottom panels. I glued one side using epoxy thickened with cab-0-sil. This was my first experience with cab-0-sil. I have used wood flour (really fine sawdust) and microballoons. The cab-o-sil is supposed to be the strongest and most difficult to sand of the three. It is a very fine powder, very white in color, and very light weight.

I was considering gluing both bottom panels tonight, but after putting the first one on I decided I'll probably wanted to fill some of the gap I left between it and the keelson tomorrow. I thinking I should have put more epoxy in some areas and I will be able to access these while the other bottom panel is off.

Also, I had a comment on my post from yesterday suggesting I put the boat up on saw horses so I could get under it and clean up any epoxy squeeze out. I tried to respond by posting another comment, but I couldn't figure it out. What I was going to say is that if I raised the hull too high, I would have difficulty accessing the bottom of the keelson on the outside of the hull which would make everything much more difficult. On the other hand, raising it enough that I could crawl under and do the clean up should be feasible. I decided to go forward without raising the hull, however.

Second bottom panel rough cut

I cut out and rough fit the second bottom panel. Now I've got to figure out how I'm going to epoxy them to the keelson (the board running inside down the centerline. I was thinking I would just put a bunch of thickened epoxy on the keelson and then set the bottom panels on top of that and put screws in it to hold it while the epoxy hardens. Problem with that is, I can't see where extra epoxy may be needed or where less will be. Plus, I could end up with an epoxy mess on the inside bottom of the boat. Because I won't be able to see it until after the epoxy hardens, this could be a major pain in the ass to clean up.

There must be a better way. I'll have to contact the other BRS builders and see how they proceeded here.

I thought I'd take a better photo of my rowing skiff that keeps getting cut off in the other photos. I need to take that one out for a spin. I still haven't put the finishing touches on my oars.