Filleting and Fiberglassing

To make the unsinkable ship, I will coat my boat with epoxy and seal the joints and cracks as well as the bottom with fiberglass.  I ordered my epoxy and fiberglass supplies from Raka.com.  I spoke to Larry, the owner of Raka, on the phone and told him what I was building.  He knew exactly what I would need and how much.  You can see what I ordered below.

Fiberglass cloth, epoxy resin, epoxy hardner, wood flour (fine saw dust), two mixing cups, and a squeegee

I also bought the materials to cement my seats and make them sturdy through a process called filleting.  I put on some latex gloves and I mixed the epoxy resin and hardner together with some wood flour to create this brown paste, which I used to fill in the cracks/joints of the seats.
  

I used a tongue depressor to fill the cracks in with the epoxy-wood flour  mixture

Next, I cut strips of fiberglass cloth before I mixed a batch of just resin and hardner.  I read in one of my books to mix epoxy in small doses because it will harden quickly.  Luckily, I took that advice, but I when I worked too slow, the epoxy in my mixing cup began steaming and turned into a solid block of glue.  And that was the end of that batch!

Strips of fiberglass cloth (approximately 3" wide)

I laid the fiberglass strips over top of where I began filleting with the brown paste and painted the epoxy over top of it with disposable paint brushes.  This turned the fiberglass nearly crystal clear.  I walked around my boat and added another layer of strips, overlapping two inches of the original layer.

The wet spots is where I covered the fiberglass with epoxy.  The toilet paper looking pieces is excess fiberglass I didn't paint over.  You can see the difference between cloth that's been epoxied and the cloth that hasn't.

This was my first fiberglass/epoxy experience.  Really messy...just as I had read and anticipated.  I'm glad I got my first practice on the hard-to-see spots.  I'm having nightmares about screwing up in critical places.  I've got plenty of materials to work with if I mess up...I hope.  Larry,  did you calculate in a little extra for me??

Flipped my boat over after the epoxy was dry.  What do you think?

Step #10 – Installing Seats

Though this is a semi-short post, installing the seats proved to be the most frustrating step so far.  (Everything before has been a breeze.  I consider myself fairly luck).  It was 1. Not as easy I thought it would be to get our seats to fit; 2. It took a long time getting our seats in place while we clamped them in; 3. we had to make sure everything was level; and 4. The glue did not dry as quick and as well as I had anticipated.

First, we realized it wasn’t going to be that easy to glue our knees onto our hog (the knee is the piece that our seat sits on), since the plywood is too thin.  We cut some small pieces of clear lumber for supports and attached them to the knees.  Then we used clamps to squeeze our knees to the hog and sides of the boat.

Clamping our knees in.  In the foreground, you can see the clamp is squeezing our sideboard and support together.

Keeping the knees in place while the glue dried

When the knees were secured in place, we glued our seats to the knees (while the boat was still upside down).  This too, of course, took many a clamp.

Clamping our bow knee to the hog while the glue dried

The middle seat

A couple posts ago I tried to illustrate what the seats would look like by holding them while my sister snapped a few shots http://werebuildingaboat.blogspot.com/2011/04/quick-summary.html.  I think they look much better and secure now.

Moses, Noah, and the Hog – Step #9

When my sister and I were kids, we stayed up late every Easter Sunday to watch the 1956 version of “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston. I don’t know why ABC airs this film every Easter weekend (I was informed they now play it on Saturday); because I’m not sure what relevance it actually has to resurrection of Christ.  Perhaps someone can enlighten me.  I suppose when you’re young you don’t question these things… Though, I did wonder why the Egyptians in the film were lighter than my classmate who was half Egyptian/half Caucasian…and I thought the rocks on Mount Sinai looked like foam.

Regardless, I’ve come to the conclusion that this holy weekend makes everyone think Biblically.  At least for me, 9 out of 10 people who saw me working on the boat had to refer to Noah’s arch--asking whether a flood was coming or if I was collecting two of every species.  I had a lot of commentators and a number of drivers slow their cars down as they drove by...including the mailman.  It’s not too common to see someone building a boat in their Northern Virginian driveway.  Trust me, I know from personal experience.

The mailman adding his commentary

Despite the distractions, I was able to get some critical stuff done.  I’ll break up what I did in a couple of blog posts.

To attach the hog, my dad used his router to create notches in our bow stem and transom.  The hog is like a spine that runs from the front of the boat to the back (I later attached the seats to this.  I will post this soon).  We cut a long narrow piece of clear lumber for our hog and placed it in the bow stem notch and ran it to the notch in the transom. .  Below are some pictures to illustrate:

My dad routing a notch in the bow stem



I took this picture after I did some epoxying, but this is how the hog sits in the bow stem notch



Our hog.  We will cut the excess off later.

My Day of Hooky!

I did it!  And although it was not a unanimous decision (I had one “I’m not sure” vote), I took the advice of the 19 other voters and I played hooky from work!  I am in the small minority of women who HATE to do this, but I celebrated my day off by doing what any other woman would kill to do .... go SHOPPING.  Yes, that is right, yours truly went shopping for leisure!  No, I did not buy clothes or shoes.  I did not buy jewelery or purses.  I did not buy lipstick or eyeliner...or any cutesy wootsey itmes.  I bought boat accessories and paint.  Still counts, right?

West Marine in Canton, Baltimore

Katy already had the day off from work, so I had her come along with me to the West Marine boating shop in Canton, Baltimore.  She tried to convince me to buy a bass covered Hawaiian style shirt, but I knew what I was really there to buy.  I wanted to purchase some cleats to give our baby a “real” boat look.  West Marine provides  so many options, but we went with our gut and what we thought would be best for our boat.  I picked up few more things and we headed to Home Depot for some paint.

The cleat selection at West Marine

I can’t tell you what color(s) we picked for our boat.  I'll have to save that surprise for later.  I can tell you, however, that we got 100% acrylic exterior paint.  I can also tell you that no one was more shocked that we were building a boat than Dwayne, the guy who mixed our cans of paint.  What I thought was going to be a quick trip to Home Depot turned into an hour long wait at the paint counter.

Katy checking out the Behr paints

Me picking up our cans of exterior paint for Dwyane to mix

Dwayne!

I for one have not gotten into this Charlie Sheen craze (not even when it was a hot topic a month ago), but the employees in the Baltimore Home Depot paint department had to get in on the Sheen nonsense...they just had to.  I’m not sure what this sign had to do with hardware or paint, but I guess it kept us amused while we waited around for forever.

A Charlie Sheen Goddess at Home Depot

...they just had to

Steps #7 and #8 – Finally...something that looks like a boat!

As promised, I now have pictures of something that looks like a boat!  Katy told me she could tell I was excited because my face was lit up  …all of which was true.  It felt like it was my birthday.

Step #7

Before we began assembling our boat, I had to make two quick cuts on the ends of our sideboards.  I laid our two sideboards on top of each other so I would only have to make two cuts rather than four.

Sawing angular cuts on our sideboards

Step #8

Once we had our angled sideboards, we attached the two front ends to the bow stem by gluing them and using screws to hold them in place while the glue dried.

After we spread glue on our bow stem, we screwed our sideboard to hold it in place while the glue dried

Katy gluing the other side of the bow stem

Then we attached our transom to the back end of one of the sideboards.  At this point our boat looked like a pizza slice.

Our sideboards attached to the bow stem and one sideboard attached to the transom

…and then we bent our other sideboard in to attach to the other side of the transom (again by gluing and screwing).  We put the center seat knee in place to bend the sideboards out. And finally, we had something that looked like a boat! 

Play Hooky?

This week at work has been nuts.  I just cringed when I looked at my calendar and saw today is only Wednesday.  A few minutes ago I daydreamed about how nice it would be to take some days off from work and dedicate my time to the boat.  (Anyone who knows me knows I can’t sit around and do nothing). 

Technically, it wouldn’t be playing hooky.. I have plenty of vacation hours to use.  In fact, I haven’t taken more than two days off in a row since I started working August 2009.

So before I get back to my work, who thinks I should be a truent and take off from the J-O-B?  Vote in the poll (on the right sidebar)! 

Iconic truent Jeff Spicoli, portrayed by Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High





Quick Summary

My goal is to begin assembling the boat next weekend, then (I can only hope) you will begin to see something that actually looks like a boat.  I thought I’d show you pictures of what we have so far (in an attempt to maintain my readership).  For the purpose of the photos, I'm only holding the pieces in place.  They'll be fastened in straight when I actually glue them down.

1.       We have our sideboards (I didn’t include a picture of these)

2.       We have our stern, or rear end of the boat

a. Transom, b. Transom Seat, c. Transom Knee



3.       Our middle seat (aptly placed in the middle)

a.  Middle Seat, b. Middle Knee

4.       Our bow, or front

a. Bow Stem, b. Bow Seat, c. Bow Knee

How a Boat Floats

Yesterday I was sorting through a pile of old books someone was getting rid of, and I came across a children’s book called The Way Things Work.  I used to read books like this all the time when I was a kid.  (I thought I would grow up to invent something useful.)  Unfortunately, a lot of the basic principles I learned back then have been long forgotten until yesterday.  I flipped through the pages and happened to come across some drawings of boats.  It asked the age old question: How does a boat float?  When I was in third grade, we did a unit called sink or float.  I have a vivid memory of making shapes out of blue playdough and dropping them into a cup of water.. And that's about all I remember.

So how does a log float, but a steel needle sink?  And how does a steel needle sink, and a steel ship float?  Well, let’s start with density.  An object’s density must be less dense than the density of water in order to float.  And how do you figure out the density before you risk sending your ship to the bottom of the sea?  Find the mass of the ship and the total volume, then divide:

Density = Mass/Volume

Ok, so we got that.  We probably remember that from some point in our lives.  Let’s think about the structure of a steel ship.  It is full of air, unlike a steel needle (hence why a ship is less dense than water).  And, it is long and wide (a hot dog laying down) rather than tall and skinny (a hot dog standing up).  That is because the ship relies on water displacement to float.

Good ol' Archimedes was the first to record the definition of floating.  He said, "An object in a fluid experiences an upward force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object."

So if we fill our 60 pound boat to its maximum capacity of 450 pounds, it will sink unless it displaces 510 pounds of water.  Thankfully, we know Uncle John has taken care of our water displacing fears.

Check out the picture below.  In the third picture, the mammouth displaces more water by adding sides to his raft.  You go woolly mammouth.





From David Macaulay's The Way Things Work





My Biggest Fan– The Chinese Food Delivery Guy

Last weekend it was my mom’s birthday.  So while I spent some quality time at my parents’ house, I put in a few hours working on the boat in the garage.  My mom, 52 years young, is over the whole birthday thing and didn’t want to go to a nice restaurant to celebrate.  I suggested we do carry-out (because as old fashion as it is, and although I'm a bit ashamed to say, my mom is the one who ALWAYS prepares dinner in my parents' household...it doesn't seem to matter if it's her birthday).

While I was cleaning up the mess I made in the garage, the Chinese food delivery guy came right over to the garage door with the bag of food in his hand.  He took on peek and he was in awe.  “Ahhh. Wow!”  (That was about the extent of his English.)  He was so excited to see the workshop.  It seriously was like watching a kid in a candy store.  I can’t describe it any better way.  Mind you, he was looking at nothing but power tools and scraps of wood.  “Ahhhh….,” he kept saying (thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up).   He was so sweet. 

He pointed at the bottle of glue and then pointed to the board I had just glued and clamped.  I nodded yes, and the thumbs ups immediately tripled.  My biggest fan ever.  Where had he been my whole life?  I’ve had plenty of moments when I could have used this kind of support. He didn’t even know what I was building (which at this point, didn’t look like much at all).

The Chinese food delivery guy.  My biggest fan ever.

My dad, wandering around in the background, said in a loud voice (because like many Americans, he thinks if you can’t understand English, you’ll understand it better if it’s yelled at you), “SHE’S BUILDING A BOAT.”  My dad held up a picture of a boat, and in that very moment, the delivery guy went from giggles to complete silence. 

He was not expecting that. 

Step #6 – Making the Cut (Round 2)

I'm sure by now everyone is sick of reading about me cutting plywood.  Trust me, I too am anxious to finally begin assembling this boat.  These sets of cuts are essential for our skiff, however.  Without them, we would have no place to sit!  For the most part, these were straight or angled cuts we could quickly do on the table saw.  I’ll use the diagrams below to illustrate what I’m cutting...and then after this, I will not post anything on cutting plywood for a while...I promise.

The bow seat and knee

This is the part that sits at the front (or bow) of the boat.  I don’t think our bow seat will actually act as a seat on our skiff (unless we want to sink our hard work and effort). 

The bow seat is the triangle shaped piece, below it is the bow knee (Photo courtesy of http://unclejohns.com/)

The knee was cut on the table saw, while we had to cut the seat with a jig saw.  In the photos below, you can see that our seat is actually a rounded trapezoid.

Drawing the bow seat

Cutting the bow seat with a jig saw

Our bow seat! Thankfully, my steady hands did not fail me. 

The other seats and knees

Next, we cut four boards for our two seats and two knees.  Uncle John does a great job of showing how these pieces will fit into our boat below:

Photo courtesy of http://unclejohns.com/

Once we had all of our pieces, we glued strips of wood along the edges to sturdy our seats.

Our strips of wood were glued, and then clamped down securely while the glue dried.

Shaping Up the Transom

In my post Step #3 – Sawing Wood, I didn’t go into much detail about cutting the transom.  What I left you with was a trapezoid I cut out of plywood.  A pretty lame attempt by me, I admit it.  This is another short blurb, but hopefully it will give you a little more:

To give our boat some lovely curvature, I drew a bend along the wide end of the trapezoid.

You can see where I already began cutting before I snapped this photo

Then, I used a jig saw to cut along the line.

And we got our transom...