Launch Day: Prelude

The day is upon us!  The boat is ready, more or less.  Cosmetically, it's unfinished - weather has prevented me from painting the stripe I want it to have, and the interior could use another coat of the base color.

But all of the major questions are answered.  I'm halfway through lashing her all together and rigging in the back yard to ensure there aren't any unforeseen problems before I transport it to the local state park where we'll launch.  I did have to re-drill a couple of the tuki holes in the ama, as they weren't lining up right.  And the fancy windsurfer mast turns out to be too stiff for the crabclaw :( But I had a backup.

Anyway, I'll post a wrap-up here later in the weekend.  There's work to be done!

Glass Tape Success

The last time I worked with fiberglass tape on my brother's Bolger Teal build, it was a complete debacle.  We ended up with kinked, gappy glass that really wasn't doing the joint any favors; after getting about 20% of the chines done, we abandoned the glass tape all together.  So it was with some trepidation that I began taping the fillets on my Melanesia.

Surprisingly, it turned out really well, and I was able to do all three fillets in a single 90-minute session.  I was using a cheap disposable paint brush (bristles, not foam) and unadulterated epoxy.  Here's the process:

• Cut a piece of fiberglass tape to the proper length for each section.
• Mix a small batch of epoxy, so it doesn't thicken before you get the chance to use it all.  
• Brush epoxy over one section of fillet and the surrounding ply, a little wider than the width of the tape.
• Apply the tape to the fillet.  Get the position right, then press the tape into the epoxy.  
• Smooth it out with gloved fingers, being careful to press it firmly against the fillet and wet it out thoroughly.
• Brush more epoxy over the cloth until it looks uniformly wet and transparent.
• Repeat for the next section of fillet, mixing more epoxy as necessary.

Looking back at our bad experience on the Teal, I think the difference lies in the smooth fillets.  We were trying to glass a sharp corner on a curved line, and the glass just didn't like taking that shape.  It was like folding paper - you can bend paper, and you can crease it, but you can't bend creased paper.  So the glass wrinkled. 

The glass will all but disappear when it gets
a couple more coats of epoxy over it.

The fillets are smooth curves, and the curve of the chines are smooth as well, so the Melanesia doesn't ask the glass tape to do anything it can't do, and the process is much easier.  But I am glad I put in all that work to get the fillets ready.  I suspect it would have gone badly if I'd been trying to glass over the undulations and lips they had before the sanding.

When the epoxy is set but not entirely cured, I'll brush another coat or two over it until the weave of the cloth is completely encased.  And just like that, the interior fillets will be done.

Chine Fillets and Shaping the Ama

Saturday hovered slightly below epoxy-curing temperatures all day, frustratingly.  I'd sworn I would make some progress this weekend. 

You can see how the ama is a little crooked.
I figure the traditional boats made do with what
they had available, and they sailed fine.
Right?  If it doesn't work out, I think I'll probably
just make a foam & fiberglass one for version II.

Well, if you can't work with epoxy, you can at least work on the other parts of the boat, right?  I pulled the ama (outrigger log) out of storage and went after the ends, which I'd done only a little rough shaping on before.  After a bit of work with saw and rasp, I was pretty happy with the shape.

Stern end of the ama is a little fatter than the
bow, because most of the boat's weight will be
carried aft (I think).

 

 

I pulled out my 1950's-vintage Craftsman belt sander and did a bit of general sanding along the length of the  ama so that it will be ready to paint.  I'd call that effort about half-done; I stopped because the old sander was starting to sound like it needed another overhaul.

Today warmed quickly to around 75 degrees, and I had a fairly open schedule, so I lowered the hull and prepped the chine fillets.  This involved sanding the epoxy-coated plywood I'd be laying the fillets on, hammering the copper stitches down so they wouldn't protrude from the fillets, and masking the entire length of the chines so that I can have a nice clean edge when I'm done. 

I also masked the benches, thinking I might as well fillet them into place while I'm at it.  And I prepared the lashing pads for installation - I forgot to put them on the panels before stitching the hull together.

Chine fillets done.  Note how smooth they are,
compared to the bilge fillet.  Also visible are
the lashing pads (clamped in place) and the
bench fillets.

Finally, I began mixing and applying fillet epoxy.  I've hit on a pretty dependable recipe - 4 pumps each of hardener and resin, then 3 little cat food cans full of microballoons and 3/4 of a can of silica thickener.  The resulting paste is workable, but doesn't sag or flow much at all, a vast improvement over my earlier efforts.

It took 4 batches - 16 pumps in all - to fillet both chines.  Then I changed over to microfiber & epoxy to glue the lashing pads to the hull.  Unfortunately, I grossly overestimated the amount of epoxy needed to do that job, so I was facing the prospect of about two pumps worth of waste.  I hadn't done the benches yet, so I scrambled to mix in the thickener and glass bubbles that would allow that. 

The somewhat gloopy bench fillets.  Since the mix
was so wet, I won't be able to remove the tape
until tonight at the earliest.

Of course, my trusty recipe was off because I was starting with an unknown amount of resin (after applying some to the pads).  So I ended up with a somewhat drippy mix that produced a nice, curved fillet but dripped down the sides a bit.  Cleaned it up with a paper towel as best I could, but I expect there will be some remedial sanding required to fix the drips when it's all cured.

All in all, a very productive weekend.  Looking ahead, there's a bit more filling and sanding to do on the fillets, then I'll be fairing the outside of each, and then (finally) it will be time to fiberglass them.  But I'm almost out of glass balloons, and getting low on epoxy, too.  So I will probably need to place an order for some supplies first. 

<SARCASM>Oh, How I've Missed This</SARCASM>

It's been a really, really long time since I had anything to report on the boat building front.  I let a week of warm temperatures slip by without resuming the project, because I was finishing up a car project (not a Land Rover, but sort of close: a 1987 4Runner) during that time.  But the 4Runner is finally sorted & registered, and I seem to recall stating a spring 2012 launch goal for this canoe, so when the temperatures rose to epoxy-curing levels again, I knew it was time to put the excuses aside and get to work.

I lowered the hull, swept and vacuumed the dust out of it, and mixed a big batch of thick fillet epoxy to do the semi-vertical stern joint with.  Found that a cat had urinated in the boatbuilding supplies box, right on my dust mask, so I had to mix without a mask.... Had a little trouble getting the mixed epoxy into my ad-hoc applicator system (the Ziploc bag with a corner cut off).... Accidentally spilled epoxy on my table saw table.... And proceeded to make a fair mess of the work, to boot.

When the spills were cleaned up, and all the epoxy had been coaxed into its rightful place (more or less), I straightened up and surveyed the carnage.  To be fair, the stern looks better than the bow, really, and both of these places will be covered by the decks when the boat is done, so I should stop complaining.  Despite the hassle of filleting, it really is good to be back at work on this project.  As long as the weather holds, I'll be working to meet that launch goal, and I'll keep you posted.

Epoxy Fillets 2, Rich 1

I've been avoiding the epoxy work on the boat lately, to be honest.  It's much less glamorous than lofting, cutting or stitching.  Worse still, it's messy and difficult to do well, and the prep involves sanding, which I don't like much.  But my collection of plywood parts won't be a boat until I fillet every seam on the thing.

So I finally got a little time and a little gumption together, and filleted another bead along the center seam.  It went much better today - so much so that I'm willing to claim victory over the dreaded epoxy fillet in this encounter.  I think part of the reason was that I'm working in a more open section of the boat, where it was much easier to apply and work the epoxy.  But it also helped a lot that I mixed a stiff batch of epoxy today, so there was no dripping and relatively little flowing or pooling to mess up my efforts.  I'm starting to get a good feel for what the consistency should be, finally.

The epoxy cures noticeably slower in these cool fall temperatures - today's working temp was around 60 degrees F.  I'll pull the masking tape edging up tomorrow morning or so, and if I get favorable weather I'll continue the center seam to the stern post.

Looking ahead, there's still the tight detail work around the stern post to do, and then I'll need to fillet the side panel seams.  So with today's work, I'm something like a fifth or a sixth of the way through the filleting process.  And after that's done, there's fiberglass tape for the inside and outside of every fillet, and then fairing the hull smooth....  Much to be done, in short, but it feels good to make some progress and get a better result than my last few attempts.