Flickr Photoset
View as Slideshow

Plywood to boat!

Gorgeous fall day and I spent a few more hours sanding and painting/varnishing. I finished painting the decking and anchor well and the leeboard. Everything dried very quickly as it as 27C or 80F to day…calm, just an unbelievably gorgeous day.

I was able to quickly start sanding the gunwales to get them ready for their first coat of varnish. The boat looked fabulous with the first coat of varnish on the gunwales. My neighbour, Al, who owns an autobody shop came down to take a look and really liked it…except for the choice of colour for the seats and other bits. He thinks it looks like primer and has promised to mercilessly bug me until I change it. I have to agree with him. I’m just so tired of painting and want to leave it until next spring. Al promises me he won’t let me do that. I’ll see…maybe I can get the bits repainted in time for a launch day next Tuesday or Wednesday.

The mast looks fabulous. The last coat of Epifanes varnish was the first coat that went on unthinned and I was blown away by how great it looked and how quickly it had dried. The Varathane stuff I have been using on the tiller stays sticky for 2 days per coat. I put another coat on tonight and am thinking that will likely be it for this year. I can’t wait for morning to see how it looks.

The last two days have been busy and productive. The biggest milestone has been epoxying the front decking to the hull. This was a big job requiring lots of clamps and a little resourcefulness. I tried clamping it in place withthe clamps on hand and figured I needed about 4 more of the bar clamps that I like so I went to Canadian Tire and picked 4 up. When clamping the sides at the front the very front part above the anchor well bowed up and away from the first bulkhead. It took a lot of weight applied to it and I didn’t have enough toolboxes, etc to do the job.

So, I looked at how I could pull it down and came up with the idea of using rope to apply pressure to it. I was a bit nervous about the knot slipping or the rope stretching and I checked it a few times to make sure it was holding properly.

After that was done, I primed and painted and sanded. At the end of Sunday night I have one coat of paint in the cockpit, a coat of primer on everything except the front decking and anchor well, a coat of paint on the seats and one seat support and a coat of varnish on the mast.

With any luck I should have it all painted and varnished for next weekend. In the last photo you can see the colour for the seats…and maybe the decking as well. It’s a red called “Maple Leaf Red”. I think it goes very nicely with the “Thousand Islands” beige but am not so sure it will look good next to the varnished hatch covers. Well, if it doesn’t it’s only paint and nothing that hours of sanding and painting can’t fix

Today I went straight to Benjamin Moore after work to pick up some paint as I had run out of the white paint I used for the hull and inside the bulkheads. They didn’t have any more white of the type I had used so I picked some paint of the same type to be coloured for inside the cockpit and the decks. I figured it would be light so it will be fine inside the rear bulkhead as well.

I looked at the bazilion paint chips and noted that they have a lot of colours named after places in Canada. The one that caught my eye was “Thousand Islands”, a creamy tan that I liked and seeing as how I’ve made about half of my 2200+ skydives at Gananoque, ON with the Thousand Islands as a backdrop I figured it was appropriate.

Came home and started painting. Finished painting the rear bulkhead compartment with the new paint and I really like it. Here’s what it looks like:

Next, I spent a bit of time sanding down the thickened epoxy I put over the lead in the rudder, just fairing that out a bit.

Then I turned my attention to where the gunwales meet the stem. The stem was a bit proud and messy with epoxy. I worked at it with the Sand Shark and sanding block until it looked pretty good.

After supper I went out, mixed up 20 oz of System Three Yacht Primer (16 oz of hardener and 4 oz of resin in a 4:1 ratio) and started painting it into the cockpit area. This stuff is an epoxy primer that is water based. It went on very nicely. Very easy to keep a wet edge, flowed out nicely, covered well…completely unlike that Ameron stuff I used on the outside of the hull…the remainder of which I will only use if I run out of this System Three Yacht Primer.

Here is a shot of the boat showing the three areas in different colours:

It’s almost like a calico cat….tan white and black

The 20 oz was just enough to finish inside the cockpit and paint a bit on the mast partner and one side of the 2×4’s that support the seats. Was it EVER nice to clean up using a bucket of water! The brushes cleaned up very easily. What a treat!!!! That stuff cost $130 for a gallon (with the shipping costs) but it was worth every penny is how I feel right now.

Today I got up early and moved things around in the garage to facilitate laying a bunch of pieces on the floor for painting…rudder, seats, etc, etc. I also vacuumed all the dust everywhere so that my second coat of paint on the hull would have a better chance of coming out without many little bumps.

After that was done I lightly sanded off the hull, just enough to knock off the dust bumps. Then I started painting. Two hours later I was done.

I finished the second bunk outside…I had to cut off a piece…and didn’t want to get any sawdust in the garage. I also sanded the hatch covers, leeboard, rudder and rudder cheek outside.

I put another coat of varnish on the hatch covers and put the first coat of varnish on the tiller. I never got around to putting anymore epoxy on the rudder and leeboard parts.

I went around the boat when the second coat was pretty much dry to the touch and removed all the masking tape I had placed on the gunwales. Taking that green stuff off sure changes the look of the boat. It is nice to see what it will look like. I like the white and the mahogany gunwales.

The last few days have been spent mostly sanding and sanding and sanding. My only advice to anybody else starting a boat of their own….budget to pay somebody else to sand and paint it for you

But finally, at 2 this afternoon I started the first coat of paint on the hull. I was done at 4:30. Brushed it all on.

I wound up using Benjamin Moore alkyd paint called Metal and Wood Interior/Exterior 133 01 High Gloss enamel. I wound up using white…if I decide to change it I can just paint over it someday. The paint went on very nicely using a 4 inch brush. I just went out and checked and I have no runs … it smoothed out pretty good. You can see brush strokes … but it looks decent overall. There were a couple of places where I sanded through the primer down to the epoxy covered wood and those spots will benefit from having another coat put on tomorrow but otherwise the coverage is great. This paint was a distinct pleasure to use compared to the epoxy primer. It really doesn’t look much different as the primer was white. I took some pictures but they didn’t look very good as I had the doors closed to keep the wind from blowing dust onto the paint.

The last couple of days I have also built bunks to hold the boat for the trailer that is being put together for me next week.

Today I also cut up the 1/4″ x 4″ x 24″ piece of UHMW plastic that I bought to use as a slippery surface between the rudder cheek and rudder. I fitted it to the rudder cheek, trimmed it with the jigsaw and router, drilled holes and countersunk them a bit. I think it looks pretty good…

I wound up the day by epoxy coating the rudder, cheek and leeboard. I may put some fiberglass tape on the leeboard and rudder leading and trailing edges tomorrow….before or after I put the second coat of paint on the hull.

The last three days have been busy as I finished coating the bottom and sides with two coats of epoxy. Hard to spread with a paintbrush, I finally started using a spreader when I was nearly 3/4 done and that was a lot faster.

Once the epoxy firmed up, I scraped the most egregious runs and blobs…doesn’t matter how hard I try to make it smooth it comes up needing a lot of work….and then started sanding with the random orbital sander.

Finally I am pretty much finished sanding the outside of the hull. All I have left right now is the underside of the gunwales and the stem which I am going to do so that I won’t mark the paint by sanding them after I paint the hull.

I also remembered to cut the holes in the anchor well and rear slop well. I used a small drill to locate the holes by drilling from inside. Then, I used a 1″ Forstner bit to cut the holes. The bits that I bought from Lee Valley did a great job. No tear-out at all, just nice sharp edges.

After drilling the holes I taped some wax paper on the inside of the boat (The boat is upside down) and then painted some unthickened epoxy onto the plywood edges of the holes. Then I added wood flour and cabosil to the remaining epoxy and poured that into the holes. The epoxy in the anchor well set up very quickly as it was sitting in the sun and the sun was very warm this afternoon. The other epoxy took quite a bit longer. Before they fully set up I used the 1″ bit to put a small hole in the centre of the hole by placing it on top of the hole and making sure that the edges all lined up with the hole edges.

By evening, they were both ready to be drilled out. I used a 3/4″ Forstner bit to drill out the center of the epoxy plugs, leaving a 1/8′ layer of epoxy attached to the plywood…nice and waterproof. The Forstner bit cut the epoxy very nicely and I have two holes that need no further attention with sandpaper.

On Thursday after work I went to Broadway Millwork to see about getting them to cut the tapers on my mast. The owner, Doug, a super nice guy, was most generous with his time talking about what had to be done and how he could accomplish it with the equipment he has in his shop. It doesn’t look like he will be able to do it But I came away with several ideas about jig building that I may be able to use with my router if need be. He also gave me the name of another fellow to call who may be able to help me out. The beat goes on…..

Tonight I finished the tiller. I clamped it to a sawhorse and used the jigsaw to cut most of the material away where the rudder cheek fits. Then, I used the router freehand and it turned out pretty good. A bit of cleanup with a rasp and it was good enough.

After that, I cleaned off the hull with an alcohol soaked rag and paper towels prior to putting on a final coat of epoxy before I put on the epoxy primer. I thought I might get the whole boat done but I quit after doing half. The epoxy was very viscous due to the cool temperature and it was a ton of work spreading it out with a paintbrush. I even got a blister on the ring finger on my right hand. I’ll put a final coat on the other half early tomorrow morning before I go to work or when I come home after work. It is supposed to be warmer so if I leave it until later it should go pretty easily.

I still haven’t figured out how I am going to cut the tapers on the mast. That is the only major fabrication job that is left. The mast, epoxying the mast step to the floor in the cockpit and pouring lead into the rudder…that’s it! The rest is sanding, fairing and painting before attaching all the rigging pieces.

Since last weekend I have sanded the entire hull so that it looks fairly good to my untrained eye. I am agonizing over how to paint it, what to paint it with, etc, etc. The choices are endless it seems. The different points of view vastly different. It is hard to figure out what to do. I have been reading Sam Devlin’s excellent book, Devlin’s Boat Building, and he follows about a 15 step process on his boats…but his boats are likely to be in the water far longer than my boat ever will, he is a commercial builder and his clients expect a professional finish…and I am an amateur whose boat will not be in the water for more than a few days at a time…if that. I am building this boat for my boys to enjoy and have fun in…and that won’t involve worrying too much about running into rocks. As my friend Terry Dopson said yesterday when I explained my predicament to him….”It’s not a Ferrari.” But, I still would like to do a job that looks at least half decent. So, I vacillate back and forth on what to do. I search on the internet for information….and winter draws ever closer.

Today I did a couple of small things just to get them out of the way while I stew about painting. I mounted the piece to hold the lower gudgeon for the rudder cheek, routed out a hole in the rudder for the lead sinkweight, cut out the rudder cheek where the tiller will rest, rounded off the cheek to follow the radius of the tiller’s movement up and down and mounted a u-bolt in the mast step for the downhaul on the yard. I’ll need to pay Terry a visit to cut down the U-bolt but I think what I have decided to do will work quite well. I’ve been reading David Nichols’ book called “The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails”, trying to educate myself as to how to set up the rigging for the balance lug sail I am using. It’s a good thing I did as setting up the U-bolt the way I did will make it very strong…better than using a cleat screwed into the mast step with a couple of screws.

I really like the rudder work as I set the router to leave about 1/8″ of plywood…the plan being that this way I don’t have to clamp metal on the bottom to keep the lead in when I pour the molten stuff in to make the sinkweight. The screws are there to keep the lead from falling out.

Maybe tomorrow I will have decided how to proceed with my paint job.

In the last four days I have finished glassing the bottom, covered everything with Quik-Fair to fill the weave and smooth things out, attached the keel strip, stem and transom and sanded half the boat to nearly be ready for a coat of primer!!!!!!

Glassing the second side was more work than the first. Because the cloth wasn’t wide enough to cover the bottom from seam to seam I cut it in half and did just one side first to be sure I would be able to keep up mixing epoxy, etc.

I glassed down the largest piece, let it get just tacky and then I covered the remaining gap with two pieces cut roughly to shape.

The next morning, I put a coat of epoxy down the middle where the keel strip is going and then put Quik-Fair on the rest. In retrospect, I think using Quik-fair for this was a mistake and I think that using some thickened epoxy would have done a good job of filling the weave, dried smoother and been MUCH harder. Oh well, too late now.

My next project was to install the keel strip. I decided to install the stem first so that I would be able to trim the ends of the keel strip layers to butt up against the stem before installing them. The stem went on pretty easily using EZ-Fillet after a coat of epoxy.

Then it was time for the keel strip. I used EZ-Fillet to join the two surfaces. I had Patty help me by pushing down on the strip as I drove screws into it from inside the boat. I was only using 3/4″ screws but they were enough to grab it and pull it against the hull.

After letting that set up I got the second layer ready. I laid it on top of the first layer, trimmed the angle against the stem by running a Japanese saw blade down the end as I held it against the stem. Then I predrilled and countersunk several holes. After that, I mixed up some thickened epoxy, put it into a baggie and squeezed it onto the two surfaces. Spread that around with a piece of wood and then put the strip on by myself. Cleaned up the squeezeout and let it harden.

Next up I attached the transom with lots of thickened epoxy. Nothing special to report there…I shoved the bolts through and then wiped their threads clean with an acetone soaked paper towel before attaching the nuts and tightening them. Used 7 clamps and left it overnight.

Yesterday and today I trimmed off the excess stem and keel strip, scraped excess epoxy away and sanded. My neighbour, Dan – who knows an awful lot about refinishing cars…among other things – loaned me a long sanding block used by body shops and showed me how to use it. I have been using that and the random orbital sander to smooth things out. One side of the hull is looking pretty good after several hours of sanding to day. If I can get the other side ready tomorrow I’ll be ready for a coat of primer on Tuesday!