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Thanks for the Heads up on the 3m Alan,

Bill, I feel so braindead now. I am not coming home today without some disposable gloves.


Between the sander, the sealant, the glass and cloth, I am starting to think this might actually turn out to be a serviceable punt. I chose the brick because it seemed to me like my first project would be a "write off". My wife is an NCIS worshipper/fan and she has called it the "Gibbs Boat" since she saw the roof rack on my Sonata and asked it's reason for being. Perhaps it will be her pleasure to beg forgiveness........


Headed out to get some closet dowels, was going to buy oars but saw a neat idea somewhere. Can't find the link ATM but it's simple enough to do from memory. Hopefully some pics this p.m.

ZippideeW00T!

Finally worked up the nerve to try and glass something. Saw this idea that I liked for home made oars ( If I had a bandsaw I would do it the way Dynamite demonstrates in "Instant Boat Building..") here; http://www.boat-links.com/CheapOars/index.html by a fellow named Bill Wallace. Anybody with the same name as superfoot can't be wrong.



I cut my blades from a tracing of my kayak paddle as I really like the way it pulls. I know it won't work the same way in a flat piece of wood, but it looks cool to me. put glass and resin on one side, we will know how it turned out tomorrow. Looks good so far, but I really wouldn't know if it weren't.

The Runaway transom chine has been remanded to custody ( actually re-cut it), screwed, glued, and severely clamped.




Both Port and Starboard watch now have their very own gunwales



Will continue with the random orbit sander and break out the dremel on the manifold and wicked proud screws. Then it's time for the 3M 5200 ( wearing gloves and being careful not to wear the 5200) then it's glass, sand, paint, and find some fool for the sea trials.....


Still not really sold on putting a sail on this one. Find plenty on the tortoise, and the 8x4 brick, but not too much on which sails work well with the 8'x3'2" brick. Found out the max hull speed should be below my four knot threshold for exitement on small waters, also want something a bit smaller than the standard 45 square feet. Was thinking about the sprit sail for the Optimist at 38 square feet, but it specifies boom on the foot. This one is 33 square feet and loose footed, might be worth a try... http://www.boat-links.com/Sails/D4.html

Still not sure about how to handle seating. More research is needed. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Even those in total jest, as I could use the levity ATM.

Hi Doug,

The build is looking really great! Seriously, you're doing a great job. Ditto on the glassing.

A thought on the round end of the oar blades... I read a book by Gil Gilpatrick on strip building a canoe (I actually got one of his half built before I had to move)... Anywho... Gilpatrick recommended using epoxy/glass to secure a radius of appropriately-sized nylon rope onto the curved end of the blade... he said it protected it from splintering. Sounds like he might be on to a good idea...

Keep up the excellent work...

Alan

Doug, you did an outstanding job on the oar blades!

The Brick is looking very good. I think you are wise using Epoxy and fiberglas on the joints of the hull.

Keep up the great work!!

Hey Alan,

I think the concept has merit. Paddles and oars will almost never falter used as directed IME, BUT!!!! ( REALLY BIG BUT) it seems like the oar or paddle is always in hand right when you need to push off of something, or need a 'quick anchor' ( my clear blue Hawaii kayak paddles double as power poles to hold her still for casting). I just went out to the porch and looked at the blade tip on my synthetic kayak paddle, that nylon rope idea definitely merits consideration. The synthetic is a little abraided after just two ( admittedly hard use) seasons.

Still stuck on the seating. I saw this brick.... http://www.kolbsadventures.com/tortoise.htm and like the seating. I won't be using a rear deck, will go with gussets as I want to be able to mount an oarlock on the transom and scull. There are plenty of little places I like to go where you just cant row.



I am going to have to figure out how to install those 1 by supports. Maybe I will email the cat and ask him if you would do that before or after you glass the interior. Thinking after.... But how do you secure them without making a place for a leak to happen? hmmmm.....

Jon, the builder of the big tortoise with the cool seating arrangement ( in my estimation anywho) sent the following reply to my email:

Hi Doug,

My Grunt is actually a "Big Tortoise," not a Brick. It's 10" narrower than a Brick and has much less freeboard so it can be rowed. Many people confuse the two since Payson calls it by both names.

In any case, that's not important. What's important is that you don't glass the inside surfaces of your boat. This is known to cause rot, because if water ever finds a way into the plywood somewhere, it will become trapped inside, with no way to evaporate out because of the impermeable surfaces on either side. There have been several examples of this problem described on the Bolger Yahoo group - an excellent source of information for new builders and old.

Some people also claim that simply epoxy coating an interior surface will cause the same problem, but nobody has shown any evidence of this, and I do it on the inside of dry volumes before painting to keep condensation from soaking into the wood. I've also done it to the whole interiors of a couple boats. I've had no troubles so far, but I also live in a pretty dry climate.

If you want some some more practice with glass and epoxy, fillet and tape the interior seams. That skill will come in handy on any future "tack and tape" or "stitch and glue" boats you build and guarantees a strong boat that will never get any water into the plywood at the interior joint of side to bottom.

As for the seat supports, I first beveled the underside to match the rocker of the bottom using a bevel guage. Then, with the boat blocked up to prevent rocking like a cradle, there are several ways to glue them in place. One is to set a block of scrap 2x4 "downhill" from the piece to hold it from slipping. Next, smear a little epoxy slightly thickened with colloidal silica (Cabosil), wood flour, or sawdust along the full length of the underside of the seat support and simply set it at it's correct location on the inside bottom of the boat. The block of 2x4 will keep it from slipping out of position. Don't use very much epoxy here - you only want to seal the underside of the support and get it stuck in place at this point. After the supports are tacked in, run a nice fillet of thickened epoxy all around the perimeter of each piece using a tongue depressor. It's this fillet that gives the joint most of its strength.

BTW, medical supply outfits are a good source of bulk tongue depressors. Good luck,

Jon Kolb
Adventures in Astrophotography
http://www.kolbsadventures.com
jon@kolbsadventures.com

Thanks Bill!, I traced my kayak blade then cut those out of two pieces of scrap from the hull and cleaned it up with the random orbit sander ( I think I can kill that black and decker on this boat and thusly justify the porter cable....) .

Good day at the office, sort of. Learning to use the random orbit and palm sander. The bottom was of course not perfect and the boat like her master is a bit warped. So I took the random orbit sander around the bottom and over the transoms to try and get everything "leveled" or eliminate little ledges that weren't supposed to be there. Nothing drastic, and nothing off by more than an eighth, but it looked like enough to keep the glass and resin from making a good water tight seal.

Here are some of the most boring pics I have ever taken:

The bottom/bow transom



Port side bottom to hull




Had to remove a screw at the stern transom bottom junction on the port side and apply glue and clamps,
I had hoped to finish sanding and grind down the proud screws today, didn't go down that way. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Also glassed the other side of those oar blades.

Another great day here in the Estados Unitas Delawhere? thereof.

Went out to tackle those proud screws with a dremel tool. Estimated time to complete said task based on one screw - 344 days, 7 hours, eight minutes, thirty three seconds. Thought about what Wild BIll did with DeeBee and decided to give it a shot. Did not have enough bamboo skewers to do all the screws on the bottom, so I broke the skewers up and sharpened them with a pencil sharpener.

Other choices were driving to Wally World, a sure way to raise blood pressure and sugar/or ask wife to make detour to Wally World on way home ( faster to flush twenty dollar bill down toilet, and cheaper).

Aqui est la pruebo:



Here is shot of the corner with clamps still on from yesterdays adjustment concerning gap at bottom/hull aft port junction. The rubber glove was a successful attempt to keep gorilla goop from permanently bonding clamp to chine log.



This method was unbelievably fast, took less time to do the whole bottom than it did to try and grind one screw down with the dremel. Have cut those off and sanded them, currently there are bamboo dowels and gorrilla goop in the port side, will get starboard tomorrow then we can start shoving 3M 5200 into seams......

Hi Doug,

For me, you're entering the most enjoyable part of the build - getting it together, filling it with goo where you have to, and sanding it such that it actually looks like a boat that isn't going to sink. (Be aware that 5200 doesn't like to be sanded... Its as uncooperative to sand as a bunch of rubber bands in a paste of almost-set epoxy.)

About cutting off those screw heads... First I hand filed, then used one of those little grinding wheels you stick in a drill, then a hack saw blade with a rag as a handle... And then along came a birthday. The wife noticed that I kind of liked the Milwaukee reciprocating saw, and bought the monster model... You know, the one that makes all the lights in NYC dim when you pull the variable-speed trigger. Wee haw! Leave all the screws proud... With a stroll around the hull, they're all gone. Nicks and gouges? Sure. Answer - thickened epoxy. (What a loving wife! Why you'd almost think that she had a vested interest in the tool purchase... Wait a minute... She builds with me... D'oh!)

Alan

Hey Alan,

That's also a cool idea. Come to think of it, my little 6.5 amp craftsman or even my 18 volt cordless "value priced" ryobi would have done that. Had I left them up enough... But!!! it's a good trick to have in the toolbox. Thanks much for sharing it.

Oddly enough, the reciprocating saw is one that i seem to be at peace with and can make more delicate operations than looking at my other assaults on stock would tend to indicate.

Gentlemen:
Just to settle my own curiosity, why are you removing the screws that hold the bottom to the chines and replacing them with wood dowels or skewers? I'm not criticizing, just curious as to why you want to remove the screws?

HI,

BMP, as always, you've hit the nail om the head... pun intended. (Here's where I expose my heresy...) I've never quite felt comfortable with adhesive joints only. There, I've said it. Yes, yes, yes... I understand that for today's modern adhesives (especially when combined with epoxy/tape), the parts probably will not part. And I do build stitch and glue. And I have built using the "Payson Glass Butt Joint". Still fasteners are comforting.

A buddy of mine (Don) is a contributer on this forum and he just built the Teal. The question of aluminum nails came up... I referred to Dynamite for fear of exposing my prejudice. And as I understand Don's conversation with Dynamite, Mr. Payson basically said that it was OK to go ahead with the aluminum nails as they basically just held everything together so that the glue could dry properly and take on the job of structural load bearing. (Don, if I've got the jist of Dynamite's sentiments wrong, please speak up.)

Truth be told, when I built the Teal, I didn't use copper nails, but instead bronze when attaching the butt strap, as that operation requires clinching. Obviously, every nail broke and the majority of the strength of the joint fell upon the glue and the surrounding gunwale. After 30 years, there is nary a crack. Still it ain't ideal.

So it goes... I can't count the times I've heard, "The fasteners are just holding the pieces together until the glue dries. You don't really need the fasteners." When I built the wife's kayak, I had to put on a curved deck - a really curved deck. I was using ropes, and I even broke a ratchet strap trying to get the okoume to curve on such a tight radius. And all that was going to hold that deck in place was some epoxy and dinky 3/4" nails??? I contacted the company that made that kayak kit and they told me that I just had to get the deck in place with lots of rope, let the nails keep it from moving, and the fully-cured, thickened epoxy would take care of the rest. They even said I could remove the nails afterwards if I wanted. I used screws, and they're still there.

(Yeah, I admit that there have been times when I've stripped the head of a screw and sawed it flush with a Sawzall knowing that the glue and the remaining threads will hold. But...)

Anywho, I'm coming out of the closet... I tend to use Dynamites books as a baseline. Build them the way he says and you'll be fine. But I like epoxy (instead of WeldWood, or in the case of sheathing, polyester) because of the gap-filling properties and the brute strength. He says AC ply is OK (and it is), but I like marine. He often uses nails where I prefer the mechanical strength of screws. His boats are probably every bit as strong as mine, but I'm willing to pay for the peace of mind. Some folks use miracle goop and then yank the screws... Ok... That probably will be fine. Better men than I have built better boats than mine using that technique... But speaking strictly for myself I like fasteners, especially when called for by the designer.

There I said it... Now everyone can make fun of me and tell me that I don't understand the miracle that is modern adhesives or the tao of the Instant Boat...

Thanks BMP... I've finally had my long and windy say,

Alan

That is a valid curiosity Paul,

I wanted to do away with the proud screws, because in my head ( where things can get a bit dodgy, when I was a cab driver in Atlantic City the other drivers called me the Madman.....) the proud screw heads will keep the fiberglass cloth and resin from forming a good watertight seal.

I see some pics of puddle duckers doing same, presumably to make the hull smoother and gain speed like a swimmer shaving their head or other regions. Cognitive dissonance occurs for me because like ALan, I would feel more secure with screws and glue in thar, even though I have also heard and read that the fasteners only hold the joint until the glue cures.

The paranoia over the fiberglass/resin/wood thing won out.

In other news: 3M 5200 has faulty directions on the tube. I became aware of this when I followed the label directions and destroyed a tube and an old ratty caulk gun, undeterred - I procured a nice new fancy shmancy caulk gun and krunked another tube.

At some point, self control and reason got the better of me and I called the toll free number on the side of the tube. A person answered, nobody tried to get me to speak in or listen to any language besides English, and after giving up some basic info a technician from the Marine division named Tom told me the directions were faulty, the metal seal at the end of the tube had to be knocked in and pulled out instead of punctured as the directions stated.

By this time I had already gotten some PL and tried to seal my seams, but apparently got the wrong kind as it was only intended for horizontal surfaces. What I have seems to be a bit of a mess that I will do my best to remedy tomorrow. 3M is sending me two more tubes of 5200 now that I know the secret password.

Doug, I'd be interested in learning how person would go about pulling out the pushed in metal tab on a tube of 3M 5200!

Bill

Bill,

The technician told me to hold the tube with the nozzle pointed towards the ground and tap the metal seal on the butt smartly with a small hammer to dislodge the seal, then one is advised to reach in with a pair of pliers and remove the resulting tab. I tried it, it works, the label directions don't. That's the price I paid for waiting for my mid life crisis before learning how to operate a caulk gun......


Doug

OK, let me be sure that I understand how this works...

Is the tube of 3M in the caulk gun...or is it held in your hand?

Is the butt being hit on the oppose end of the nozzle?

If so, do you have to do anything on the nozzle end?

I've use caulk guns for many years and never have I seen something like this! Live and learn I guess.