A productive week

The picture at left shows my shop set up which consists of our garage, four sawhorses and an old picnic table, which I can convert into a twelve foot long workbench with the addition of two pieces of particle board when needed. Due to my permanent workbench and wall storage in the rear of the garage, my assembled boat hull just fits with a couple of feet of work space at the bow and stern. I'm using almost the entire available floor area for the project. I've read that some people have assembled Skerrys and kayak kits in basements and apartments. I'm sure this can be done, but I'm glad I have this venue and could even use a little more space than I have.

I started out the week with final sanding of the hull. I had previously filled in the all the stitch holes with wood fiber thickened epoxy, which leaves brown marks around each hole. Since I'd already decided to paint the hull I wasn't too concerned with eliminating all remnants of these marks by a thorough sanding. I was also a little gun shy after sanding through the veneer around the puzzle joints in a couple of places. It's not real clear in the instruction book whether brown marks as opposed to blobs of thickened epoxy would disappear after applying the subsequent coats of clear epoxy, so I was curious what would happen. Well, they don't disappear. That's a lesson I'll remember when finishing the interior which I plan to leave "bright" or natural, with just a coat of varnish over the clear epoxy.

After sanding I cleaned the hull by first vacuuming and then wiping down with denatured alcohol. The bottom panel and adjacent garboards were to be covered with fiberglass cloth, a process that I dreaded a little due to an unfortunate past experience. All went well, though, and I was able to smooth and stretch the cloth with clear epoxy applied with a vinyl squeegee and it conformed perfectly to the bottom. This slow curing epoxy is really easy to work with in these situations, giving you plenty of time to fix little imperfections.

Two more coats of clear epoxy over the entire hull, applied with a roller and then tipped out with a foam brush, separated by at least five or six hours of curing time and I was done. It turned out pretty nice.

Next was the installation of the breast hooks. There was some rasping and sanding involved to make sure the pieces conformed to the shape of the sheers, fore and aft. The Shinto saw rasp is really coming in handy for these types of tasks. The hooks were then glued and screwed into place.

Since I would have to return to Minneapolis for a few days I decided to get some of the time consuming gluing out of the way. The first was the rails which are four in number and come in three pieces each, with the scarfs mercifully pre-cut. As these will be under a lot of stress when fastened to the sheer the manual recommends letting the epoxy cure for a minimum of 48 hours. I'm starting to use the mass quantities of spring clamps and C-clamps I've purchased.

I skipped ahead in the manual and found that I needed to glue together two identical skeg (goes on the bottom of the hull) pieces at some point, so I decided to do that now. I could now leave my north woods workshop secure in the knowledge that for a time at least my project was taking care of itself.

When I return I've some planing of the assembled rail pieces to do. Then I'll start to install the gunnel rails (inwales and outwales in boat jargon), another adventure for sure.

Manual labor

This session I was able deal with the gaps between the forward support and the hull and the other somewhat more worrisome gaps in the stern stem. Both of these were solved with wood dust thickened epoxy. First I tacked all the supports to the hull, let the epoxy cure and then was able to remove the copper support stitches. I then filled the gaps and the stitch drill holes.

I laid a 3/4" fillet of thickened epoxy on the inside of both stems, covered the fillet with 3" wide fiber glass cloth and allowed it to cure for 48 hours (because we still don't have 24 hours of continuous 74 degrees even though it's almost July). Waiting for the cure is the most frustrating aspect of this project, so far.

After curing I could remove the last of the copper stitches (a milestone) from the stems and, hallelujah, they didn't spring apart on me! Next I rasped and planed until I had a one inch flat spot the entire length of both stems, about 3 hours worth. This was my introduction to the more physical aspects of boat building.

Cleaning up the hull is next. I found that cabinet scrapers, which I've never used before, are great for removing unwanted epoxy without the noise and vibration of a random orbital sander, but you have to re-install the bur on the edge of the scraper about every 5 minutes. I think this tool will really come in handy for smoothing out the several coats of epoxy on the hull.

For rounding chines and general smoothing, though, the sander is indispensable. I also used my rabbet plane for cleaning up the laps between the planks.

Another issue that has been bugging me was the fact that two of the planks arrived from the factory with broken half puzzle joints. I was assured by the CLC help line that since I planned on painting the hull I could, again, solve this issue with thickened epoxy. And they were right, I did. Cured epoxy can be formed to a shape and then rasped or planed just like wood.

After the equivalent of 14 hours over three days, covered from head to foot in sawdust and with more than a few muscles sore, I'm generally satisfied that the hull is ready for fiber glassing, which will happen in the next session.

Gluing, stitching and more gluing

Because you can't ship 15 foot long pieces of lumber very economically the bottom and side planks, among other components, are composed of two pieces that have to be glued together.

Above can be seen the "puzzle joints of the nos. 1, 2 and 3 side planks after gluing. The shape of the joint makes it a lot easier to join the pieces with the proper alignment.

The stitching process involves drilling a 1/16th in. hole every 4 inches or so along both edges of the bottom and planks and the 3 supports. A 3.5 to 5 inch copper wire is pushed through the holes and hand tightened. Later all the wires are completely tightened with a pliers so all the pieces fit together as tightly as possible. As will be seen that doesn't always work out perfectly, so other methods are used.

Here I've stitched together the bottom and nos. 1 and 2 side planks and have added the upright supports.

All three side panels plus the bottom and supports are now stitched together and tightened as closely as I could. I had to move the stern support forward a small amount for a much better 3-dimensional fit. Some gaps can be seen between the front support and the port side and at the bow stem, but I'm told I can fix this with thickened epoxy later.

Here I'm tacking the bottom panel to the no. 1 plank and using a different mixture in a syringe to tack together between the side planks, avoiding getting epoxy on the wires. The big issue about working with epoxy is the cure time. This particular type needs 24 hours to cure at 75 degrees. For every 10 degrees less you need another 24 hours and you can't work under 55 degrees. In northern Wisconsin 75 degrees is hard to come by most of the year, so you have to compensate by providing a heat source or just waiting longer between steps.

All the tacking is now complete, the epoxy has properly cured and I can begin removing most of the copper wires.

Now I fill in the gaps between the epoxy tacks on the bottom and side tacks and let it cure again.

The boat I'm building is the Chesapeake Light Craft Skerry, the design of which is derivative of the small working sailboats of the British Isles. You'll have to go to the CLC website if you want to see what a finished Skerry looks like because their images are copyrighted. I liked the elegant look of it and appreciated the fact that it could be rowed as well. Having owned a 15 foot sloop rigged sailboat in the past I really liked the the Skerry's one-sail sprit rig for easy single handed use. So in early April I pulled the trigger and the kit was shipped to our lake house in NW Wisconsin, where I could make use of the garage as a workspace. The kit includes a 4x8' box with all the pre-cut wood components and a 2.2' box with the epoxy kit, fiberglass cloth, copper wire for stitches and other miscellaneous hardware. It's a kit so it's got to be easy, right? Will this be a "Scary Story" or a "Skerry Story"? Stay tuned.

Before I could begin I needed to buy and more importantly learn how to use some wordworking tools. I spent a couple of hours one Saturday morning in the Minneapolis branch of Rockler Woodworking learning the difference between a plywood block plane and planes for general use (the plywood one has a shallower angle of cut). The bottom plane in the photo is a rabbet plane for cutting a narrow groove in wood. I need to cut eight gains in various planks. A gain is a "descending rabbet" or one that goes from no depth on one end to full depth on the other. Both of these planes would have to be "tuned" (smoothing out the bottom surfaces with sandpaper) and the blades would have to properly sharpened before use, all of which took time. Who knew?

This is a wheel marking gauge for scribing a line parallel to an edge, a big help in positioning the seemingly hundreds of holes I had to drill for the wire stitches that held the pieces together until they are glued.

The bottom photo is of the two-part epoxy that can be used to attach fiber glass cloth, as a glue, as a wood filler or as a wood coating, depending on what and how much wood powder or silica is added.