Seats are IN!

I was really dreading installing the seats because of what I thought were some wide gaps between the seats (especially the aft seat) and the hull sides.   I spent a lot of time trimming the seat supports and seat slots to try to minimize the gaps.

However, after weeks of agonizing over the issue, I found that mixing the fillet epoxy so it was really really thick was the answer.  This helped to hold it in place in the wider gaps until it hardened.  I got this trick off one of the online boat building forums, which are proving to be invaluable for the project.  In this case, many cooks enhance the broth.

 Next the boat was flipped over to make the fillets on the underside of the seats.  With almost all the basic components in place the boat is now approaching its full weight and feels very stiff.  Even though I didn't get as far in this project as I had hoped this year the impression of substance gives me a great feeling of satisfaction.

Shop lights keep things warm while the epoxy fillets cure.  It's getting down to the freezing mark at night now.  After about 24 hours of curing with the lights  we had an 18 hour power outage due to the  upper midwest "landicane".   I think (hope) that the curing had progressed enough that the cool off didn't cause any major problems.

It's not even making it to 50 degrees F. during the day.  My boat building season is drawing to a close.

So this is where things will end for the year, unless I order the sail kit and assemble some of it in the warmth of our Minneapolis townhome.  Next up for the hull in the spring will be sanding the exterior.

The Daggerboard Trunk

Finally!  With the help of friend and neighbor Dave the daggerboard trunk was installed.

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Fitting some parts require more than one set of hands and the trunk is one of them.

After the center seat was glued and filleted into place, I cut the hole for access to the trunk.  This was a second good excuse for buying my router.  The saw rasp trimmed the slot up along with my Dremmel.

A slot also needed to be cut in the bottom of the hull for the daggerboard using the same equipment.  

 You get one shot only so this was a little bit of a gut check to cut a hole in the hull I labored on for so long.

But all went well.  Skeg and daggerboard slot line up just like they're supposed to.

The Daggerboard Trunk

For a pretty straightforward item, assembling and finishing this part seemed to take forever.  The main issue was not realizing that there is supposed to be a very slight curve to the bottom of the trunk to conform to the bottom of the interior hull.  I didn't realize this right away and had to back up a step in the assembly, which took a couple of extra days.  I had epoxyed the wrong side of one of the planks and had to coat the other side before gluing it together.

Night time temperatures are now down in the 40's and 30's again which really slows up the cure times.  Epoxy that would cure and be ready for sanding overnight a couple of weeks ago now has to sit for 48 hours due to the low temps, even with the help of my incandescent shop light.

Anyway its now done and ready for sanding and installing under the center seat.  All three seats are also sanded and ready for installation.

Lots of Sanding and a Little Wildlife Diversion

The dog days of summer have given way to the dog days of epoxy sanding.  In order for the varnish or paint to properly stick to epoxy and look smooth the entire interior and exterior of the hull, frames and seats must be sanded to a dull gray finish.  Before the seats go in is the best time to do this to the interior and that's what I spent the better part of the week doing and it's not finished yet.  Starting with 80 grit then 120 then 220 the object is to flatten the surface, eliminating all small circular shiny spots that indicate small depressions.  

This is all easier said than done.  As you sand a film of white epoxy dust builds up and it's tough to see how much progress is being made.  You have to remove the dust with a shop vac after each effort.

It also involves lots of bending at the waist to reach the bottom of the boat.  Every once in a while you accidentally go through the epoxy to the wood.  That area then has to be recoated, cured and re-sanded.

The random orbital sander works great for the open areas but I had trouble getting into the interior stems, the upright frames and where the planks come together.  For a while I thought I was condemned to hand sanding for these areas.

                            

Thankfully I discovered the Black and Decker Mouse which weighs a fraction of the ROS and has a narrow enough sanding pad to get into most of the tight spaces.

                              

I'll probably have to go over everything with 220 grit the next session, but I feel pretty close to being done with the interior.

Meanwhile, back in Nature:  Cheryl took this shot one morning of our local eagle dismembering a fish on our dock.  You'll notice he isn't fazed by the scary plastic owl on the upright.

Starting on the inside

I now had to flip over the boat.  This action is turning out to be somewhat problematic since I can't do it myself.  Because there are seldom any people around who could help me (or any people period) I have to time the "flipping" when my wife is around.  The boat is getting a little heavier with each step, so I hope she can continue to help me with this.

This is the part where the grunt work really begins, I think.  I couldn't reach the middle of the interior of the boat because the saw horses I have are too tall, so I had to cobble together a couple of supports that were no more than 18 inches or so high.  I sanded the entire interior, then vacuumed the dust out.  Fillets were applied to the joint between the bottom and number one panel.  While the fillets were still wet I dropped in four pieces of fiber glass cloth, one in each of the four compartments separated by the seat supports.  Straight epoxy is then applied to the cloth until it's pretty transparent.  After it stiffens somewhat I trimmed off the excess cloth.  This was a much more difficult job than fiber glassing the outside of the hull. In spite of thinking that I ensured the cloth was perfectly flat I had some bubbles under the cloth the next morning.  I was able to push these flat because, luckily, the epoxy was still wet. I don't think they'll be too noticeable when everything is done.  I filled in any remaining stitch holes that were open, then another layer of epoxy to the entire interior, wait, sand, vacuum, epoxy.  I'll have to sand everything one more time in preparation for the varnishing before installation of the seats, but won't get it done this trip.

Another view after the third coat.

I test fit the seats and they went in place reasonably well, except for the stern seat.  I'll have to deal with that next trip.  I beveled the edges of the seats after the test fit and sanded everything smooth, especially the edges that will be visible.

Two coats of epoxy need to be applied to both sides of all seats.

The Skeg

The skeg is the "fin" in the bottom of the stern that helps the boat track properly.  Installing it is a fairly straightforward procedure:

I've marked the skeg position and also where the four screws go.  They are drilled from the top, then I went underneath to drill counter sunk holes.

After making sure the skeg is plumb to the bottom, the surface of the contact points of the skeg and bottom are coated with epoxy thickened with silica, the skeg is applied in the measured position and then the wood screws are sunk from the inside of the boat into the skeg.

The "tail" was a little warped so I forced it into a centered position with duct tape.

A fillet of wood powder thickened epoxy is applied to the angle formed by the skeg and bottom.

There was quite a bit of rasping and sanding to get the "tail" to blend into the stern stem, but it turned out pretty well.  Another strip of wood is tacked and epoxied to the bottom edge of the skeg (called a wormscrew) which will absorb most of the abuse and can be replaced if too worn, leaving the skeg unharmed.  After some more sanding, etc. three coats of epoxy are applied. 

Finishing the rails

When I resumed work the first task was to finish the rails.  Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures of this process.  After practicing on scrap with my new router and 3/8" roundover bit, I more or less successfully added a rounded edge to the top of the rails.  I used my sander to remove a few gouges, etc. Next (as seen in the photo) I planed the excess off the bottom of the outside rail to match where the inner rail was trimmed before installation.   I wanted to stain the rails a dark walnut shade, so I proceeded to do that, applied a first coat of epoxy after letting the stain dry overnight, and then let the epoxy dry.  You're supposed to sand in between the two to three epoxy coats.  When I did that the stain started to come off in patches and looked terrible.  I might have used the wrong type of stain.  Anyway that meant re-sanding the entire rails AND the breasthooks which created another problem:  the breasthook wood is not solid but laminated with different types of wood.  After sanding the hooks for the second time I broke through the first lamination and I decided to sand the entire surface of the hooks to the same depth.  This doesn't look as nice as I had hoped, but it's not terrible.Then two coats of epoxy was re-applied to the rails and hooks . . . a very frustrating experience, but I'm moving on.