Fiberglass Frustration and Other General Construction

I've decided to do away with even trying to count days/weeks at this point because, to be honest, I'm not very punctual about updating so it kind of loses its point.

So after finishing up all the exterior seams, it was time to set sail on my first "adventure" with fiberglass.  If I had stuck to the directions on this, it would've been a fairly painless procedure, but because both Gorman and I are perfectionists, I ended up with a mess.  According to the manual, only the bottom panel of the boat needs to be fiberglassed on the exterior, but as Gorman pointed out, because there is some overhang of the two bottom strakes over the bottom panel, it seemed that it would be a good idea to fiberglass the two bottom strakes as well... or would it??

 

The fiberglassed bottom panel.  Pretty good so far...

 

To answer the question, yes, it was a good idea, but my execution of the idea could've been better.  Fiberglass is not very flexible (at least compared to other woven fabrics), and because of this it does not handle sharp edges very well (like seams between strakes for example...).  Unfortunately, I thought that once the cloth was saturated with epoxy, it would mold up and around the seams between the bottom panel and the two bottom strakes.  Well, it didn't, and I ended up with larger gaps of air in between the fiberglass and the wood along the seams, which is not okay at all.

 

After the strakes were fiberglassed as well.  You can see the line of air bubbles along the seams. GRRR

 

For those who want to know, what should have been done was to fiberglass the bottom panel, cut off the excess fiberglass, and then fiberglass the two strakes with separate pieces of fiberglass once the bottom panel dried.  Oops.

Luckily, anything in boatbuilding is more or less repairable... it just requires a little extra elbow grease.  After examining the situation, Gorman and I have come to the conclusion that it would be best for me to sand off the areas where the fiberglass has separated from the wood, and then smooth everything out with a couple coats of epoxy.  Because I was a bit put off with the fiberglass (and because I ran out of sandpaper), that has yet to be done, but it's the next thing on my list.

Instead of handling the issue at hand, I opted to divert my attention to a more enjoyable endeavor: building the center set assembly and a pair of 8' oars.  The center seat of the boat has a double purpose; it is both a seat and the daggerboard trunk.  The daggerboard/keel is the part of a sailboat that sticks deep into the water and looks like a large ventral fin.  All sailboats require one is some form or another because they balance out the leward force of the wind.  Without one, a sailboat would only be able to move in the same direction as the wind, irrespective of the direction the boat is pointed.  In smaller boats like mine (up to about 20') it is common for the keel to be a simple daggerboard that can be pulled in and out of a hole cut into the center of the boat.  That being said, it is very important that the trunk is perfectly aligned with the centerline of the boat.  If it isn't, the boat's performance will suffer, and it will not sail straight.

The center seat is made up of 3 components: the daggerboard trunk, the center bulkhead, and the center seat proper.  All three pieces should come together at 90 degree angles and be plumb with one another.  It took a little trimming and sanding, but eventually everything fit together quite well, and I glued it together with epoxy fillets.

 

The finished center seat.  Eventually, there will be a hole made in the center of the seat for the daggerboard.

Also, in the last week or so, Gorman found some free plans online for making a pair of oars.  Every sailboat needs to have a paddle in the unfortunate case the the wind dies altogether, and you have to row yourself home.  Because my boat is supposed to be a pretty good rowboat as well, I decided I wanted to get a pair of 8' oars to go with the oarlocks that came with the boat kit.  Although after looking around, a decent pair of oars cost about $200.  Ouch!  Luckily, Gorman's inventive mind rescued me from the money pit again, and with a couple dowel rods from Home Depot, some scrap pieces of wood, and a little epoxy, I was on my way to making a pair of oars that would more than serve my purpose for under $40.   

One of the oars in its present state.

So far, the oar blades have been cut and blued to the dowel rods.  All that is left from here is to grind down the blades of the oar to a flat surface and cover them in a couple coats of epoxy.

That's all for now.  And for your personal enjoyment, I have a picture of the day.  I like to call it...

"The Thinker or Stinker Pose?" 

Week 2: It's ALIVE!!!!

Okay, so after finally getting out of the 100-grit desert, things have finally gotten interesting!  Once all the strakes and transoms were coated and sanded, it was finally time to start piecing things together.

The name for this style of boatbuilding (stitch-and-glue) is quite apropos.  In this case, the "stitching" is done using MANY pieces of copper wire to stitch the strakes in place.

The lowest strakes stiched onto the bottom panel

 Stitching the third panels on.

 Tightening a few loose stitches

 

A rather impressive row of stitches if I don't say so myself!

As one can imagine, this takes a fair amount of time because the stitches (about 250 in all) are prone to breaking.  It is vital to make sure that the hull is stitched exactly in its proper shape because one the hull is glued together, there is no going back.  Once the first couple rows of strakes were stitched on, I used the center bulkhead (which I just eyeballed the placement of) to help shape the strakes as I stitched them on.

Once the strakes were stitched on, it was time to to attach the fore and aft transoms.  

 Stitching the stern transom in place.

After being stitched on, the transoms were then permanently glued into place.  To do this, an epoxy fillet (pronounced fill-it) had to be made.  To do this, the epoxy had to be thickened with wood flour to a peanut butter consistency, which was then applied to the seam by squirting the thickened epoxy out of a hole cut into a zip-lock bag.  The line of epoxy was then smoothed out by using a "filleting tool": Basically, it's just a big, homemade Popsicle stick.  And for the record, the peanut butter epoxy was nasty stuff!

 Did I poop in a bag?  Nope, that would simply be an over-thickened hunk of epoxy that nearly burnt my hand!

 The hull with the transoms glued on permanently and the bulkheads stitched in place.

The next big step after the transoms are glued in place is to glue up the seams of the strakes, but first, a couple smaller tasks. 

First, a discussion on how to remove the stitches once the pieces are epoxied in place.  While ideally one can simply snip the stitch and pull it out, it is nearly impossible not to glue some of the stitches in place as well, so how do you get a glued stitch out?  Luckily, the epoxy can soften when its heated, and since the metal stitch conducts heat, you can simply heat up the tip of the stitch and then pull it out.  I was a bit leery at first, but sure enough, seemingly immovable stitches slip right off when a little heat is applied!

Second, before we glue the strakes together forever, we want to make darn sure the hull is in its proper shape.  The way to ensure this is to stitch the bulkheads into place, which is what I did.  Once that's done, it's time to flip her over!

 Belly up!

Once she's on her back, it was finally time to stiffen her up for good by filling all the seams with epoxy.  The trick to getting it right is the consistency of the epoxy.  If the epoxy is too stiff, it will not fill up the seam.  If it is too runny, it will just seep straight through the seams and make a mess on the inside of the boat.  As it was with affixing the transoms, the first gluing was more of a "tack-weld" around the stitches so that the stitches could be removed.

A tack-welded seam.  Notice how there is no epoxy under the stitches.

The tack-welds are more than strong enough to replace the stitches, but on their own they are neither all that aesthetically pleasing or, more importantly, watertight.  Therefore, after the welds dried, I removed the stitches and filled in all the holes in the seams as well as all the drill holes for the stitches, which was a fairly tedious process.

Also, I decided that I would build all the sailing components from scratch instead of buying the kit.  After crunching some numbers with Gorman, we realized I could probably save about $300 if I built the parts myself and made the sails, which doesn't bother me as it would be exciting to learn how to make my own sails!  To do this, I had to buy the full boat plans that include full sized cutouts for every part of the boat, which is kind of neat in case I ever wanted to build another boat or if anyone I know wants to in the future!  

Nautical Phrase of the Day: Boxing the Compass

Although this isn't really a common phrase used today, it's a fun sailing phrase so that's good enough for me.  Basically, it refers to a constantly shifting wind, which can be a bit of a pain to navigate under sail.  I don't know, it tickled my fancy so I thought I'd share. 

Days 4 and 5 and PICTURES!

Hello folks!  Took a brief hiatus from boatbuilding last week and headed down to my family's beach house to catch some fish and crabs!  We also took our pet rabbit Dapper with us.  It was his first trip to the beach house, but after the first day or so, he made himself right at home.  Wouldn't you agree?

Now to get back on subject.  My love affair with boatbuilding has definitely progressed from the honeymoon stage into the "I guess I love you, but this is not going to be as easy as I had hoped" stage.  For some reason, the layers of epoxy simply will not go on as smoothly as they should, which isn't the end of the world, but it does mean a TON of sanding is required.  Although there is an electric sander at my disposal, I find it quicker and safer (don't want to accidentally sand completely through to the wood) to simply sand by hand.  It's a great workout, but it is severely delaying progress.  After messing with various application techniques and tools, it seems to me that it is most likely the combination of this particular epoxy with the warm Texas climate that is my problem.  Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it at this point, so I just have to accept that this boat, like most women, really enjoys a good massage.  Although FYI, I did have better success with using foam brushes than with the suggested foam rollers.  It takes longer, but produces less bubbles and a little more even surface.

That being said, the last couple days have been fairly uneventful.  Seeing as how every piece of the boat must being double coated in epoxy (on both sides), the general routine is roughly 4-6 hours of sanding followed by applying a layer of epoxy which cures overnight.  In most cases, this means 4 rounds of applying epoxy and sanding per board.  At this point, I have coated all the strakes, bulheads, and many of the smaller pieces in 2 coats of epoxy, although the final sanding has yet to be done.  The seats, skeg, and rubrails still need to be coated, but since they will not be required for some time, I figure that I can be coating them on the side while I do more eventful things like actually stitching the hull together (I just want to put something together already!  Is that so much to ask???).

In other news, the long lost camera cable was finally discovered... in my computer bag where it belonged.  That being said, I can finally post pictures.  Below is the progression of things so far.

Epoxy and fillers. YAY!

Checking inventory

Gluing the joints together. The buckets are filled with water to apply the necessary pressure.  

You can see the tip of a puzzle joint in this picture...

Gluing the transom support to the bow transom.

First layer of epoxy.  How PRETTY!...

And then the sanding began and things got ugly. Rinse and repeat 4X.

 Applying the final coat (for now) to the bulkheads.

Days 2 and 3

DAY 2: SANDING
After having glued the joints together, the manual said that the next step would be to coat everything in two layers of epoxy.  As I was to discover, there was an evil Step 1.5 that I was blindsided by...

Having waited 24 hours for the epoxied joints to harden, I arrived at the shop around 6:30am hoping that I hadn't glued a stray strake to the floor by accident.  To my relief, the plastic sheets did their job and all was right with the world... sort of.  Upon inspecting my joints, I realized that there was a lot of ugly excess epoxy that had hardened outside of the joints.  The book mentioned a "slight sanding" to remove the excess glue, so I whipped out my handy sanding block and went to work, but after 10 minutes of struggling with a lump of epoxy on a single board, I found myself getting frustrated, as my sand paper was seemingly grinding down faster than the epoxy (and sand paper isn't exactly cheap!).

About that time, Gorman made his early morning appearance (something that is seemingly becoming a routine), and after a polite "good morning" he silently accessed the situation and came over to watch me pretend to know what I was doing.  After I minute or two, he chuckled under his breath and asked, "Have you ever used an electric sander before?"  I said no, and he went to his magical cabinet and manifested 3 electric hand tools I had never seen before.  After a brief tutorial on each one of them and a warning about not sanding through the veneer of the plywood, he turned to leave me to my work, but as usual, I had several more questions for him, the chief one being if there was a way of avoiding so much sanding in the future.  "No, you did fine," he said, "there's no real way around it... tedious work."  And with that, he vanished like Merlin after a cryptic lesson with Wart, and I was left alone to figure the rest out for myself.

The next 4 hours I spent sanding.  The electric sanders were great for taking off the first big lumps of epoxy, but to get all of it off, I had to use some elbow grease.  As Gorman said, the worst mistake you can make is to sand through the 1st veneer of the plywood; it looks terrible, and you can't fix it.  This is extremely easy to do because the epoxy comes off much slower than any wood that might be nearby, and I'll admit that at least twice I scraped a little too much off, but there's no use crying over spilled milk.

There are two reasons that you need to sand when working with epoxy.  First, in this particular instance leaving the epoxy as is would've created ugly bumps in the the finished hull which is no bueno.  Also (and this goes for every time you use epoxy), when the epoxy cures in creates a very smooth finish that those not adhere well to anything, including additional coats of epoxy.

Near the end of my sanding escapade, George, another neighbor of mine, came to pay a visit as well.  George is a friendly old yankee who also knows a good deal about sailing.  He also knows a lot about rocks (he is a retired geologist), and when I was young he taught me all kinds of cool things about rocks and fossils, which were, and still kind of are, a fascination of mine.  Anyway, he and Gorman are good friends, and he drops in every so often just to shoot the breeze.  After seeing the "fun" I was having, he said, "Yeah, Gorman hates sanding."  Well, at least we have that in common.

I slept like a baby that night.

Workhorse of the Day
Me


DAY 3: MORE FUN WITH EPOXY

Despite all my doomsday talk about epoxy, actually working with it is a lot of fun (aside from the sanding afterward, which sucks).  Mixing it is fun; the chemistry behind it is fascinating, but most of all, when you spread it over wood, it makes the wood shine. 

Up until now, the wood has looked rather drab.  Although I knew it was some of the best plywood possible for boatbuilding and even in spite of being able to look over at Gorman's beautiful sailboat, which has some of the same plywood on its deck (and looks AMAZING), the surfacy fact that my untreated plywood wasn't very pretty was disheartening.  That is, until I added my first coat of epoxy.

As usual, Gorman appeared shortly after I arrived at the shop with a few words of advice about how to avoid/remove any bubbles that might appear as I was spreading the epoxy.  Also, we had a very interesting conversation about epoxy, as Gorman used to work at a company where he actually designed and made epoxies, and his understanding of chemistry is awesome.  Then, as usual, he left as suddenly as he had came, and I got to work.

Applying the first stroke of epoxy on that bare wood was an ecstatic experience.  As the roller moved over the wood, the greyish, dusty color of the wood exploded into vibrant shades of amber and brown, and I was filled with hope that this thing I was working so hard could actually manifest into the dream I had in my mind.  Applying the epoxy didn't take long, 2 hours tops, and afterward I sat there planning the next steps.  Quickly I came to the unfortunate realization that I was going to need to sand down this beautiful coat of epoxy before I could apply the second coat, which would temporarily return the wood to a greyish color again (although still a bit nicer than before).  How like life.  At certain points in our journey we catch glimpses of the ultimately wonderful result of our hard work, which is just enough fuel to get us through the impending difficulties that inevitably manifest themselves along the way, but as long as we can hold on to that hope and fight the good fight, He takes care of us in the end.


Nautical Phase of the Day(s): Bamboozle 

The word Bamboozle is actually a throwback to the 17th century during the numerous naval conflicts between the English, Dutch and Spanish (okay, and French...I guess).  In several naval conflicts, the Spanish would get a little dirty and hoist up false flags to confuse their enemies.  This tactic came to be known as "bamboozling". 

Day 1: Checking Inventory and Gluing the Strakes (Aka. EPOXY)

After a couple weeks of acting like a kid waiting for Christmas to arrive, the boat kit arrive last Wednesday, but due to prior plans construction did not officially commence until today!  At some point, I hope to post pictures, but seeing as how I lost my camera cable, the pictures will have to wait for another day (sorry!).

So the first step is simply to open everything up and make sure all the components are there.  Gunwales? Check! Strakes, transoms, seats, mast supports? Check!  Epoxy, thickeners, etc?  Yup, it was all there.  So, after setting it all out and marveling that somehow all of it would assemble into a beautiful sailboat (hopefully!), it was time to get down and dirty.

Actually, not so fast.  The FIRST order of business was to read the manual.  I know; I'm disobeying a cardinal rule of manhood by saying that, but the simple fact is that boatbuilding is not something can eyeball as you go... not at all.  As I was to find out, something as seemingly simple as gluing two boards together would become its own lesson in chemistry.

The manual's first several pages are pretty much a forewarning about epoxy.  To sum it up, it said, "Don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up".  But its glue!  How bad can that be?  Well, think of super glue, multiply it's bonding strength by infinity and set it on fire (and that's really quite an accurate description).  There are several ways to mess up, ranging from setting the shop on fire to permanently fixing the hull of your boat to the floor.  Basically, ll epoxies have two components: a resin (a polyepoxide) and a hardener (a polyamine).  Epoxies can vary greatly in strength, and to going further in depth that that would require a little organic chemistry, so we'll leave it at that.  As ling as the resin and hardener remain separated, they exist as nonvolatile, happy liquids, but when you mix them together, they undergo a fairly violent reaction and result in an EXTREMELY hard solid.  As the reaction occurs, it gives off a good deal of heat, and that is why it is vitally important to NEVER mix a large batch of epoxy (larger than maybe 10oz) because it will literally set on fire.  Secondly, because it is an exothermic reaction, the heat generated (and lovely Texas heat) only serve to progressively speed up the reaction, and although the epoxy won't completely set for several days, it will be unusable about 15 minutes after it is mixed, so you have to work fast and plan ahead.  Lastly, one drop of the stuff on an unintended piece of wood can be a fiasco.  Because it makes a bond that is much stronger than the strength of the wood, if you accidentally glue two mistaken pieces of wood together, you might as well throw them away.  Luckily, there is a solution.  Epoxy does not stick to plastic, so as long as you put a layer of plastic (a plastic paint tarp works great, but packing tape and plastic wrap are handy for smaller objects too) between the epoxy and something you don't want to become a permanent fixture on your boat, you'll be okay!

Okay, so NOW we can actually start building.  Let's start with a question.  If wood planks and sheets of plywood only come in 8 foot lengths and your boat is 12 feet long, how do you make one continuous strake/plank/etc?  The answer is to use a joint.  There are many kinds of wood joints, but for my little Passagemaker dinghy, the only two I had to deal with were scarf joints and puzzle joints.  A scarf joint is made by basically whittling down the ends of each plank to overlapping points, and using epoxy to join the two planks.  A puzzle joint is pretty much what it sounds like.  You basically make the ends of each sheet of plywood corresponding puzzle pieces and join them with epoxy.  In theory, this sounds quite easy, and once you get the hang of it, it is, but manhandling puzzle pieces that weigh 20lbs a piece while juggling hot epoxy and making sure nothing unintentionally gets glued together is a bit of a feat.  First off, you have to make sure you have a way of applying pressure to the joints once they are glued together.  In my case, I used either used spare wood scraps (INVALUABLE by the way) pressed down on the joint by a bucket of water or used a piece of scrap wood as a brace and applied pressure with c-clamps (also invaluable... and so are spring clamps!).  All of which had to be wrapped in some sort of plastic by the way.

And just doing this took a good 4 hours to complete.  Actually, while seeing it written down doesn't sound like much, I felt pretty impressed with myself by the time I was done, although I'll save the majority of my self-praise for tomorrow when I check to make sure that it all bonded like it was supposed to...

The next step will be to coat most everything in a couple layers of epoxy, which will take about 4 days.  Oh yes, I forgot to mention that because epoxy is SO hard, it not only acts as the bonding agent/water sealant, it is also the primary casing of the finished hull.  While fiberglass will be added to support some of the areas that will receive the most abuse, the boat will primarily be sheathed in only epoxy because it is THAT strong.  In all actuality, the wood is there primarily to shape the boat rather than being the actual support (and it's quite pretty).

Pictures to come!


Workhorses of the day:
Disposable WOODEN "chip" paint brushes-- the epoxy destroys these little guys in no time, but to those who have and are about to die, I salute you.

Epoxy mixing containers-- Those little plastic disposable clear cups work great.  The red party cups are too big.  Again, I'll probably blaze through 100 of them by the end of the project.

Spring clamps- I am SOO glad I grabbed a couple of these.  While c-clamps are great for applying long term pressure, the spring clamps hold stuff together long enough for you to leisurely screw the c-clamps on.

Nautical Term of the Day: By and Large
Today, "by and large" means "generally speaking" or "all in all", and this term is a throwback to the days of the first triangular sails!

"Large" meant having wind approach from behind the boat.  In the days of square-rigged sails, ships could only travel by sail with the wind, so having a large wind was a favorable thing.  However, "by" was slang for a ship pointing into the wind, which at the time was not of much use. 

Over time sailing ships began incorporating jibs, stays, and other fore-and-aft sails, which enabled ships to travel into the wind, and these new ships were said to be able to travel "by and large", or in other words "in all conditions".  From there it is easy to see how "by and large" became the generalizing term it is today!

The Floating Bunny Project is Officially Underway!

Hello to all my (extremely) faithful fans!

After a chaotic academic year, I finally got my undergraduate degree and an MCAT score I can be proud of!  Also in the last year, like an unfinished hull left to the elements, the Makeshift Armada Project fell into disrepair before she even had a chance to set sail on her maiden voyage.  Honestly, even I thought this dream might become dead in the water, but out of despair came a new hope!

Upon returning home for the summer, Gorman invited me to go sailing with him on his beautiful, strip-planked sailboat.  Gorman is my neighbor and an expert when it comes to sailing/boatbuilding/all-things-mechanical.  He also strikes an amazing resemblance to Gandalf in both his looks, voice, and demeanor!  Anyway, we went sailing and just talking with him got my nautical imagination kicked into full gear.

To add fuel to the fire, I also realized that this summer would probably be the last chance I would have in the near future (or maybe ever) to get this dream into action under the tutelage of someone as skilled as Gorman.  The reason(s) being that my mother will be moving in the next year as well as the fact that after this coming year, I will be up to my ears in medical school coursework.  I realized that if I didn't get this ball rolling now, I probably never would.

After some technical advice from Gorman, I set out to look for a boatbuilding kit online.  Although I originally planned on only buying the plans and cutting wood myself, I no longer have access to the required tools (namely a large band saw).  Instead, we decided to go with a boatbuilding kit in which the wood is already cut.  But no worries, I can assure you that cutting the wood is only the tip of the iceberg!

After surfing the web, I was happened upon the Chesapeake Light Craft website: www.clcboats.com.  It's the best source of boatbuilding kits I've found, and they have a great assortment of kits ranging from kayaks to sailboats.  My criteria for the boat was the following:

1.  Price: The entire project including trailer, etc must fall under $4,000 (Graduation gifts)
2.  Versatility:  Although the boat should primarily be a sailboat, I wanted something that could easily be converted into a motorboat/rowboat as well (for fishing in narrow channels)
3.  Payload: The boat has to be able to hold 2-3 people comfortably
4.  Rigging:  The boat has to have a jib (makes sailing a lot more fun in my opinion).

As if made to fit my specifications, I discovered the Passagemaker Dinghy.  It's 11'7" long, has a beam of 4'8", and has a payload of 650 lbs!  It is a gunter sloop rig.  A gunter rig has a mainsail that is quadrilateral in shape and is attached to the boom on the bottom and a spar called a gaff on the top that sticks up almost as a parallel extension of the mainmast.  A sloop rig implies that the boat is rigged fore-and-aft (has a jib) and also that the position of the mainmast is located further towards the bow of the boat in comparison to a cutter rig, which has a more centrally located mast and often has a bowsprit (a spar that juts out from the bow of the boat).  Therefore a gunter sloop rig is a combination of these two rigging types.

Because the boat  is versatile and can hold a decent amount of cargo, the drawback is a minor speed decrease.  To me, this is a fair trade-off because I've never been much for racing anyway.  The Passagemaker is wider and shorter than most racing boats of its size and the max speed of a sailboat hull is directly proportional to the waterline length (LWL) of the boat.  This shortcoming is somewhat made up for, however, by the large squarut e-footage of the sails (78 sq. ft.).

Anyway, now for the big news.  Today, I actually bought the hull kit, so this project is officially and definitely going to happen!  I'll be posting pictures as soon as the shipment arrives (within a week hopefully!)

Blue skies and fair winds to all! (Ok, a little rain might not hurt)
Nick


Nautical Phrase of the Day: Posh
Just thinking this word conjures up images of annoying valley girls in my mind, and in all actuality this isn't too far from the original meaning of the word.  The word posh was originally an acronym (P.O.S.H.) which stood for "portside out, starboard home".  In the times of British colonization in India and "the Orient", many Brits travelled to these destinations for leisure by ship.  The true blue bloods would pay extra for a coveted P.O.S.H. ticket, which meant they would have a room on the portside of the ship leaving England and a starboard room coming home.  The reason for this was that a) the views were better as their room would always be facing  the land and b) their room would never be facing the hot evening sun.  Oh capital!