Boat Builder Central - Builder Forums

Posted: **Sun Nov 25, 2007 9:12 pm**

I guess it's time to start a thread on this build. I'm building this V10 from 1994 vintage plans that Jacques' daughter sold on ebay last year. No sheets of build notes were included, but hopefully it will be a simple enough build that they won't be all that necessary.

This will be a rowing & sailing version with capability of adding an outboard. Since this is my first attempt at a sailboat, I'm going to tackle the mast, sprit and sail before building the hull. For various reasons, I've decided to use a Bolger 40 sq. ft. leg o' mutton sail plan. The original plan is for a 32 sq. ft. sprit sail and the newer versions list a 35 sq. ft. sail. Following the path of other V10 builders, I wanted to increase sail area, but still want to keep the capability of downsizing to the original plan if I decide I need to store the mast and sprit inside the boat when I win the big lottery and need a dinghy for the yacht.

With the sail plan I'm going to use, the CE will be within an inch or so of the original, giving me more area without having to worry about relocating the mast step and partner.

Here's a simplified sail plan. Obviously, the hull isn't drawn right, but the basic dimensions are to scale.

The mast will be a little tall initially to allow some adjustments if necessary. Mast is 13'5", sprit boom is going to be just short of 9' long.

Here's the basic dimensions of the sail.

I'll make the first one from polytarp or tyvek and then make a dacron version based on how the starter sail works.

Now for the fun stuff. My mast is made from laminated fir. Finding long enough planks that were suitable was too much of a challenge, so I scarfed together what I could find.

I used 10:1 scarf joints staggered about 2 feet apart.

The scarf joint closest to the mast foot is located in the middle of the laminate. This is it after turning the mast round and 2 coats of epoxy.

Making the square blank into a round mast was fun. I can't think of anything I've ever made that created so much saw/sanding dust. I ripped the square into an octagon on the table saw and then hand planed it to 16 sides. When I made up the 3 layers of the mast, I cut the middle one a few inches shorter to form a clevis when it was all glued up. A hole through the clevis and an eyebolt chucked in my drill gave me a sort of universal joint drive to rotate the mast so I could cut the taper and finish rounding it off. Each end of the mast sat on rubber wheels for support.

Most of the taper was cut with a 40 grit disc on my grinder, then finished off with the belt sander. Here is the last step of sanding while turning the mast. I used a sanding belt turned inside out. The green box on the left is a variac that I used to control the speed of the drill. Around 25 - 30 volts gave me about 50 rpm and that's about as fast as it needed to turn.

The end result is a not quite perfectly round, not quite perfectly straight, 2 3/16" X 13'5" mast that weighs 13 lbs. I'm quite happy with it.

Posted: **Sun Nov 25, 2007 10:16 pm**

Clever............nicely done, I will watch this quite carefully, I am getting a hankering to build a sailing dinghy.............. if I ever finish the FS17
good luck,
Steve

Posted: **Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:54 am**

Excellent tutorial on your mast, GK. Great ingenuity, too! I am now hooked on your thread and I'm not even much of a sailor!

Huck

Posted: **Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:42 am**

Thanks guys. I taught myself the basics of sailing in a BW Squall dinghy on Lake Huron about 30 years ago. That was tons of fun, but I've not been in a sailing dinghy since.
The next step is the sprit boom. I can't decide between a CF wishbone sprit or a straight one out of laminated fir. I guess I'll have to flip a coin to decide that soon.

Posted: **Mon Nov 26, 2007 3:38 pm**

This will be fun to watch.. After watching your D15 we are expecting quite a bit here... along with good tips...

I can already tell I am going to need a glossary of terms to keep up..

Posted: **Mon Nov 26, 2007 6:32 pm**

mecreature wrote:I can already tell I am going to need a glossary of terms to keep up..

A rope is a rope, unless it's connected to something, then it's a line. Unless that line is a sheet or halyard or something.

I probably won't depart much from the plans on the hull. It's a small boat and I don't want to complicate it too much. With the wood mast, I'm committed to some bright finished woodwork, so I'll probably go for more of that.

Posted: **Mon Nov 26, 2007 10:11 pm**

Awright,I realy like that drill with the eyebolt in it for a home made uni joint got a couple of old makita 1/2 drive drills sitting under the shelf in my garage; actuallity I am sorta scared to use them,they are quite powerfull and dont stop as fast as my old 3/8 drill ...sure know what to do with one of them 1/2rs now! wonderfull idea Thanks for the trick Mike R

Posted: **Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:17 am**

I know what you mean about stopping that drill. It can be a wrist breaker when a large diameter bit hangs in the material you are drilling. I guess I'd better include this warning: Anyone that wants to try this should firmly anchor the drill and run it slow!!! The little speed control knob on the trigger should be set to dead slow at the start and speed increased gradually. I am lucky to have a variac to do things like this. It gave me good speed control that was easy to adjust. Even then, I had this vision of the mast getting loose and flailing around beating me up. Fortunately, that never happened.

Posted: **Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:45 am**

OK, my sail is done. It's 100% tyvek cut in one piece from an 8'X10' plain white sheet. I used 2Â¼" tyvek tape and some outdoor grade polyester thread from WallyWorld on a home sewing machine.
Laying it out. I allowed 1Â½" to fold over on the edges.

Cut along the line. Â¼" nylon boltrope for the luff and double sided tape to hold it and tape the fold down on the edges.

The finished sail.

The head.

The tack.

Posted: **Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:46 am**

sounds like fun...

nice stitching..

Posted: **Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:48 am**

Some more info on the jig for the scarf joints in the mast.
While building my D15, I learned the hard way that I needed to improve my method of joining planks.

A scarfing jig for my router seemed like the best solution. Two parts were needed, a base to clamp to and a sled for the router to ride on.

I used a taper jig for my table saw to cut side rails for the base. It's sized to fit up to a 1Ã—6. I removed the plastic base plate of the router and replaced it with the sled which is simply leftover Â¼" meranti with some stiffening cleats around the perimeter.

The end cleats are on the bottom to limit travel of the sled so that the Â¾" router bit won't cut into the sides of the base. A few test cuts showed that some shims between the router and sled were needed to get things as square as possible. A couple thicknesses of paper card under one side did the trick.

The end of the base has been relieved to keep the sled supported on the thin end of the cut. The metal spacer keeps the edge of the stock parallel to the tapered base sides. You could use a longer sacrificial wood strip instead of metal. Ordinarily, this would not be used for plywood, but for purposes of illustration this scrap of 9mm is used. In use, I just worked with the planks on sawhorses and clamped the base on each plank with 2 clamps.

Before cutting I set the bit depth to the level of the relieved portion of the base and zero it. Set the stock just to the edge of the relieved area to get a sharp point on the taper. Back the bit depth off and cut no more than an eighth inch depth at a pass and make successive passes until you get back to zero. If you hog the cut, the stock will vibrate too much and start to chip.

That last picture is good enough to show some details in hi-res:
http://gallery.bateau2.com/albums/userp ... rfjig5.jpg

The results after laminating into a mast.

Posted: **Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:34 pm**

Nice jig, GK and great explanation. I appreciate you posting that. I'll have to build one of those. I really need to start using my routers more. I have 3, a PC with 2 bases, fixed and plunge, an old Craftsman looks like yours that I keep mounted on a table, and a small trim router. For some reason it is always the last tool I turn to, when a lot of times it should be the first. I need to work on that.

That sail looks great. I've never tried making a sail, always relied on Hood and North for that.

A rope is a rope, unless it's connected to something, then it's a line. Unless that line is a sheet or halyard or something.

Not being picky but technically there are only 2 ropes on a sailboat. The rope sewn in the luff of a sail is called a luff rope. The pull cord on a ship's bell is called a bell rope. Anything else in loose lengths are called lines. When they are doing something then they become sheets, halyards, guys, rode or whatever specific to the task. Laying loose in the locker it is always a line.

Posted: **Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:00 pm**

Also wanted to say that's a beautiful scarf joint above

Posted: **Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:09 pm**

I've been working on appendages for the last few weeks. For right now, I've put the kick-up rudder plans on the shelf and made a rudder as drawn on the plans. I reasoned that if my rudder is dragging in a 10' dinghy, I'd just get out and walk. Daggerboard per plans as well. Both are made from a 1Ã—12 radiata pine plank.

The tiller was a great exercise. It's 2 pieces of 9mm and 2 pieces of fir laminated. Both the plywood and the fir are tapered on the sides. The ply was tapered down to about 4mm with a belt sander, then the sanded faces were glued together so that the center plies successively taper to a point. Then I drilled dowel holes and glued 1Ã—3 fir on each side. I roughed the shape on my bandsaw and finished with a lot of belt sanding. It should look interesting after it's bright finished.

I guess it's about time to get some plywood and build a boat for all of this.

Posted: **Sat Jan 26, 2008 10:40 am**

GK I showed your thread to a co-worker who is thinking about building. He liked your thread maybe he will get the build virus. Great job on your build

....Richard

Posted: **Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:41 am**

Thanks Richard. I almost messed up my daggerboard. My dad came down from Indiana to see his new great-granddaughter last week. I put some parts in my van to show him what I've been doing and left the daggerboard in there all week. That 1Ã—12 didn't like the humidity and it developed a nice warp. It's all dried out and straightened up now, though. The first suitable day that comes along, I'm going to get those parts sealed up. Maybe today.

Posted: **Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:04 pm**

Hope it warms up there soon. Where did you get that variac thing

Richard

Posted: **Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:52 am**

That variac is some of the industrial surplus stuff that we get ahold of sometimes. I got that one and 2 others from vibratory feeders for a machine that inserted glass fuses in the fusebox for some Ford car. That particular variac was a little damaged, so I put it in the green box and added volt and amp meters and use it for bench work. It is handy for things like controlling the temp on my big soldering iron, slowing down the router, etc. Not so good for induction motors like the bandsaw and drill press, as it tends to overheat them.

Posted: **Mon Jan 28, 2008 4:01 pm**

Might have to get me one of them gizmos...

Posted: **Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:23 pm**

I kinda thought the okoume BS1088 would look a little better than this.

Maybe I can nest my way around it.

Posted: **Wed Feb 06, 2008 4:39 pm**

In your gallery one of the close ups almost had a look like some checking was going on.

Is this your first time working with Okoume? How do you like it so far..

Posted: **Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:25 pm**

gk108 wrote:I kinda thought the okoume BS1088 would look a little better than this.

Maybe I can nest my way around it.

Where did you get it from? I had 8 sheets of 1/4, & there wasn't a blemish on them.Nice worksmanship on the Rudder BTW

Steve

Posted: **Wed Feb 06, 2008 5:39 pm**

mecreature wrote:In your gallery one of the close ups almost had a look like some checking was going on.

Is this your first time working with Okoume? How do you like it so far..

Caveat emptor.

Posted: **Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:42 am**

steve292 wrote:Where did you get it from? I had 8 sheets of 1/4, & there wasn't a blemish on them.Nice worksmanship on the Rudder BTW
Steve

Thanks, Steve. Plywood is Joubert from eboat. I played with nesting until I got crosseyed and can't come up with anything better than what the plans show. The cosmetics of it are not as serious as the strength and durability factors. V10 has some serious bends at the bow and that's right where one of the bad spots will end up. That gnarly grain turns a lot of open end grain up in the face and I worry about finish and decay resistance there.

I cut the frames and transom today.

Posted: **Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:19 pm**

Got it! I drew out half of the bottom and cut it out, then used it to trace the other side, but didn't cut it. Then I looked at the whole situation for the side panels again and decided I couldn't figure out the original nesting on the plans either. I looked at it a while, got out the full size patterns and put them away again. Then I lined the plywood up end to end and just drew a panel complete. Looked like I had enough room to do it again, so I drew a reference line offset from the long edge and drew another one. It didn't collide with anything I'd already done and the bad spots are now several inches away from anything I'll use. It's still going to be tight and I'm pretty sure the only way this worked is because of the little extra length of the metric plywood.

Posted: **Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:41 pm**

Stitched

This is why I bought the bendy stuff. It resisted my efforts for several hours, but I studied its movements and decided to put the screws to it. They just go into a 3" cleat hanging loose on the other side. I realized that most of the bend up in the bow is really twist. Tightening the screws provides twist in this area where there isn't much leverage. I left a Â¼" gap rather than worry about drawing that little bit in.

Tacked

In some places it's more like filleted with small gaps at stitches.

The plans show a small camber on the bottom of frames 1&2 and I was able to pull most of that in as well.

Posted: **Sun Feb 10, 2008 5:05 pm**

Looking great! Now hold your breath as you snip.

On my CV16 bow transom, there was an area of such twist, that it would not stay without leaving a few pieces of the twisted stove wire embedded. I don't think anyone ever had that as a problem with a V10 or V12, so happy snipping!

Are you going to flip and fillet and glass the inside before shaping the chines and taping the outside? If so, maybe leave the stitches in until after the flip? Just a thought.

Keep those pictures coming!

Posted: **Sun Feb 10, 2008 5:30 pm**

I got faith in the goop.

It took surprisingly little force from those screws to do the job and a whole lot of the stitches are not very tight. I'll put some lights under it for the chilly overnight and about this time tomorrow I'll cut away.

Posted: **Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:02 pm**

Nice job

Keep the pic's coming.

Posted: **Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:46 pm**

Here's another one. This is the bow area from the inside showing the screws and cleats used to draw the panels together.

Posted: **Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:10 am**

Outside seams taped.

I used some small pieces of polyethylene poor mans peel ply on the bow and transom corners to tame some of the overlaps. What looks like a gap at the bow is really a reflection of the flash off the plastic. Temp was around 30Â°F last night, so I put some lights under the hull to keep things warm.

Posted: **Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:18 am**

Just as I figured.. a wonderful job..

let us know how that cheap peel works out for you.

Posted: **Sat Feb 16, 2008 3:07 am**

The polyethylene worked good. Pretty much eliminated the need for fill coats where I used it.
I'm stuck big time now, though. I'm trying to use 2 layers of 3/8" ply for the rubrails, but there's a 1.5" camber in the sheer line and I am having trouble getting the plywood strips to bend in 2 different directions at once.
I gave up for the night and went to see my ex second cousin in law's band. For a 16 year old, she can really tear it up.

Posted: **Sat Feb 16, 2008 7:50 pm**

Brute force prevailed and I have 1 layer of rubrail on. The front half was the hardest part to form and the run from admidships back was pretty easy. Round 2 tomorrow.

Posted: **Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:38 pm**

2 layers of rubrail on and a coat of epoxy overall.

From the other end.

Shows why it is a VeeTen. In fact, I think I have a name for this one.
Vanguard

Posted: **Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:21 am**

Very nice.
That boat has real nice looking lines to it.

Posted: **Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:37 am**

Thanks. It's coming together fast now.
Yesterday I flipped it.

This shows the stand I'm building on. I set the top of the stand at baseline and elevated and spaced the frames referenced to that. After this picture was taken I stripped the stand and replaced the frames with a cradle to hold the hull level.

Then I filleted and taped the seams on the inside.

Today I'll finish cutting the frames and possibly tack them in place.

Posted: **Thu Feb 21, 2008 8:20 pm**

Well, I got the middle frame and rear frame tacked in place today and started on the two halves of the daggerboard box. Then the wacky weather got in the way. The ground has been staying pretty wet here with the seasonal rain. Today it has rained hard and steady since 10AM. Basically, I'm now on an island. My V10 is on a neighboring island about 50 ft away. If this keeps up, I'll have to go out and drop the anchor on the D15 so it doesn't float away.

Posted: **Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:17 pm**

Well GK, at least we're not worried about drinking water like we were a couple of months ago

The boat looks great

Posted: **Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:14 am**

Yeah, it's sort of a relief. For me, it's the floating balls of fire ants that are the worst inconvenience right now. I live on one of those celebrated Georgia dirt roads. The county has neglected maintenance on it and one of the neighbors called the road commission and complained. They hauled in 50 truckloads of the finest Georgia red clay they had yesterday. The mush is so deep now that it almost swallowed a car in the middle of the road a while ago. I heard the tow truck and stepped out to see what the commotion was about and that's when I was reminded about the fire ants.

Rain gauge says a little under 4" for the day. The Ochlocknee river is over flood stage right now and won't peak until tomorrow night. I'd work from home tomorrow, but it's payday and I like to be present when the eagle flies. All I need is a good running start to make it to solid roadway, right?

Posted: **Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:15 am**

the boat is looking great..

good to hear about the rain.. at least I got gravel on my road.. I know how a fresh load and then a good steady rain can make for a nice mess..

BTW.. I was wondering if you are going to do any fancy bright work on that thing..

Posted: **Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:56 pm**

Oh yeah, I know that Georgia red clay

Hope you have 4WD.

I live on a dirt road also, but I own it and have to maintain it myself. About a mile of it. Lots of fun in this weather, but I can't bitch at the county for not doing it right. Mine is a mess and it's all my fault, according to my wife, who does not like her car to even get dirty.

Posted: **Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:05 am**

Things are getting back to normal now. The road is still a mess, but most of the water has run off.
I worked on small stuff most of the weekend, including some of the components that will be bright finished. I roughed in the mast step which will have a solid mahogany cap on it.

The mast partner and transom knees will also be solid mahogany, bright finished.

Here's the beginnings of the backing block for the bow eye.

This shows the 2 pilot holes and a dowel to aid in alignment. When it's time to put it in place, I'll use a method described by Evan using epoxy putty and a couple of spots of hot glue. When it's all set up I should be able to just run my drill through the holes in the block and they should guide the bit straight out the front. At least that's how it worked on my D15.

Also cut the transom doubler.

Most of this is being done while the daggerboard box is getting prepared to install. This week I'll finish taping the frames and install the DB box before anything else gets glued in so it will still be relatively light for the next flip.

Posted: **Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:38 am**

gk108... I hadn't thought of doing the transom doubler that way. Good idea. You boat is looking good!

-Dave

Posted: **Wed Feb 27, 2008 10:50 am**

Thanks Dave. One more coat of graphite on the inside of the daggerboard box and I'll stick it together.
While I've been coating the DB box, I've also been putting graphite on a couple of other places like the mast step.

I gave the top of it a coat of neat resin, then masked the whole thing after that cured. I don't want messy black stuff complicating the bright finish. I took an x-acto knife and trimmed the masking tape around the hole, then routed a roundover on the edge of the hole. That also trimmed the masking tape so the graphite covers the radius in a neat fashion. At least that's what I hope will happen.

Posted: **Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:53 pm**

More fun with graphite.

The pivot holes for the tiller were drilled oversize, masked and filled with fiberglass, graphite and epoxy. I did this by priming the hole with neat epoxy, then wrapping a strip of glass mat around a dowel and dipping it in graphite epoxy and stuffing it in the hole. The dowel slid back out, leaving the glass in the hole and I topped it off with graphite epoxy. After it cured, I filed most of it down flush, removed the masking along with the rest of the excess and this is the result. Now all I have to do is ring the center of the previous hole with my drill.

And the real reason for playing with graphite this early in the build.

The insides of the daggerboard box are fully coated with graphite and the two halves are ready to glue together. I still have to wrap my head around the idea of cutting a big hole in the bottom of my boat, but I'm about to be ready for that.
Also shown are a couple of rings for the access hatches planned for the bulkhead.

Posted: **Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:54 am**

I put in a full day of it Saturday. I got the daggerboard box glued together and used it to mark the location of the hole in the hull. Then I drilled guide holes in the corners to transfer the lines to the other side of the hull.

Then I flipped the hull and connected the dots.

And cut a big hole in a perfectly good hull.

Then I cleaned up the hole with a rasp to make sure the box fit.

Then flipped the hull upright again and levelled it and aligned the box and glued and tabbed it in place.

This much of the box hangs out of the bottom and must be trimmed flush with the hull.

And naturally, the best looking seam in the whole boat is the one I cut out.

I have a few more things to do while it's upright, but the next major step is flipping the hull again, trimming the excess box and fairing and painting the bottom.

Posted: **Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:58 pm**

Looking into the future here.
I hope to have a bright finished foredeck made from Chinese okoume. Right now, it looks like it could turn out about like I want.

It's only 5mm thick, so I'll have to laminate it to something. I'll top it with some of the surfboard fiberglass. If my seam in the middle looks too bad I can always glue a strip of mahogany on top.

Posted: **Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:35 am**

Looking good.

Steve

Posted: **Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:25 am**

Cool stuff.

Posted: **Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:41 am**

Neat GK nice to follow the progression.

Tom

Posted: **Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:09 am**

Between the spells of bad weather I got a little accomplished. I worked on the skeg and got it on and taped in place. The last long cuts I made with my bandsaw indicated that the blade guides needed some work, so I got that out of the way on a rainy night. Nothing really exciting about it, so no pics of it right now.
I knew I would have some leftover goop from gluing the skeg to the hull, so I decided to use it for a little pad on the outside of the bow eye. I needed some kind of mold to make the putty hold the desired shape while it cured. The angle where the side panels meet at the bow is close to 90Â° so I used some 45Â° cuts on styrofoam to make the mold. They were hot-glued in place and a strip of tape stuck across the bottom to hold the putty. Here it is with the putty in place.

After that all cured, I broke the foam away and cleaned it up so it looked like this.

A little time with a rasp and sandpaper to get to the final shape and drill the holes the rest of the way through and this is the result.

As you can see, I also put a layer of blended filler down to fill the weave of the biax tape before I glass the bottom. Also barely visible in that last picture is the fillet on the underside of the rubrail.
So far, I've done nothing to the transom since it was taped on. I guess I'll spend some time on that this week.

Posted: **Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:05 am**

After a couple of rounds of blended filler to fill the tape weave, I cut some 4 oz. woven fiberglass to cover the bottom and 5" up from the chines.

Then I used a foam roller to apply the resin. It worked great and according to my calculations, the glass to resin ratio is real close to 50/50.

This gives you an idea of how much work it was to fill the 6 oz. biax tape. You can also tell that I was playing with the white pigment last night.

Posted: **Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:02 pm**

Fairing is done and a coat of slightly pigmented resin has been applied overall.

Time to order some primer and Orcas White topcoat.

Posted: **Sun Mar 16, 2008 8:34 pm**

Gk you do nice work

Every time i look at youre hull it makes me
wish i was still sailing. When i was six years old i started sailing
bluejays with my dad, then it was lightnings,then crewing 30'
racing boats. had to give it up when i got married. that was
15 years ago.

Posted: **Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:27 am**

Thanks. It took a little extra effort to fill the 6 oz biax, but feathering the edges was quite painless. Most of the filling was done with BBC blended filler and it is easier to work with than the WEST product. I bought the small size Quick Fair kit and when it came I thought I might have been too optimistic about how much I needed. I used some over the weekend, mostly for the short cycle time, because there's always a few spots that you miss somehow. Right now I've got the same situation as Larry, a guide coat of pine tree pollen on everything. No time to try painting anything.

Posted: **Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:56 pm**

Looking great GK!

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:01 pm**

gk108 wrote:Fairing is done and a coat of slightly pigmented resin has been applied overall.

Time to order some primer and Orcas White topcoat.

Are you using topside over all on this boat?

looking very nice.. and you are going pretty quick too.

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:49 pm**

I love the detail of your report. I'll be watching this thread with interest, and probably re-reading it a few times to get all the details. Keep it coming.

I'm collecting materials and planning a build of the V12 in mid-April when my brother and father are coming down to help. We'll have four full days to make a great start. Then I'll be left alone to finish it.

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:52 pm**

the pigment in the last coat is good idea - it helps give contrast when sanding the primer.

Posted: **Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:35 am**

Thanks.
Joel, that's sort of what I was hoping for. It should work well with the gray primer. The other benefit is that I could monitor coverage of that coat a lot better. Didn't miss any spots and had no runs.

Shaun, take your time stitching the bow and remember that it is as much of a twist in that part of the bottom panels as it is a bend.

mecreature, it will be S3 white on the outside, rear seat and mid seat. Hull inside will be light gray. I'm sure things will slow down when I flip it back over. Gotta be extra careful with all this brightwork I've gotten myself into.

I spent last night covering the daggerboard and rudder with some 3Â¼ oz woven cloth. Since both of those parts were made from a single plank of pine, I thought it would be a good idea to help control splitting and warping. If they keep looking good they will be mostly bright finished with graphite on the leading edges.

Posted: **Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:01 am**

1 coat of primer applied with roller and sanded.

No drastic flaws or anything. It sanded really easily after 24 hrs. Before that, the paper loaded up and clogged. One thing I learned is that the blue paper shop towels are not the thing to use when wiping the hull down with alcohol before painting. They leave a lot of paper lint on the surface. I had to wipe it down a second time using an old T shirt.

Second coat of primer applied with roller.

It was a little warmer when this coat was applied so I thinned the primer about 10%. I'm happy with the results.

Posted: **Tue Mar 25, 2008 4:23 pm**

Is that the new S3 primer. the stuff I had looked mighty gray. its ok just alot darker then the older stuff was.

looking nice.

Posted: **Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:44 pm**

That's the new Yacht Primer. It's really light gray. It's nice. I'll probably never use another primer for a boat.
It got too cold to do much last night, but the primer is sanded down the middle so I could layout and mask where the graphite goes.

Posted: **Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:40 pm**

Gk you do some nice work! Can't wait to see it painted. Im planning on building the same boat on my next project. Looking at your tread makes me want to build one. I've never sailed before only powerboats but was always kinda curious to try it out. Figure a boat like this if i can't sail it my little 2hp honda will push it around

. Keep up the good work and nice tread very informative.

Posted: **Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:04 pm**

Thanks Jay. For right now, I'm not planning on a motor. I'll build it to be capable in case a motor happens to jump in front of me, but I want to keep it unregistered at first.
Slow progress this week. I had to finish preparing the daggerboard and rudder so they could get some graphite on their leading edges at the same time I did the strip on the hull. I finally got two coats of graphite on today and will do the last one tomorrow. And touch up a few worn spots on the D15.

Then it's on to the white paint.

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2008 1:53 pm**

How's it coming along, GK? Too busy sailing to report back?

I'm about ready to start mine, well my brothers. He and my father should arive tomorrow. Then we plan on working pretty hard on it through the weekend. Should be pretty quick work, but will take a while to finish as I'll be alone and back to my full time job.

Look for the thread I'll start soon; probabally tomorrow evening.

Posted: **Wed Apr 16, 2008 7:00 pm**

I'm dragging a little. I put 5 coats of white on the bottom with an HVLP sprayer. There's a little wet sanding to do and maybe some S3 clear. Not sure about that yet.

Posted: **Wed May 07, 2008 10:43 pm**

Back at it.

Wet sanded half of it with 320.

I'll follow this with a couple coats of S3 clear.

Posted: **Thu May 08, 2008 9:21 am**

How did the spraying go.

so far I have only roll and tipped.. which make tight spots kind of a pain. Seems spraying would help a ton and probably use less paint.

I cant wait to see how the clear goes.. should look sweet over that Orca white

Posted: **Thu May 08, 2008 10:07 am**

It sprayed pretty easy. The last coat would have been a keeper, except I listened to the weather foreguesser. It rained continuously after I sprayed it on and I got a dull finish that took too long to set, so it sagged in a few places.
I'm going to go for roll and tip with the clear. I think I can do it if I can get my plan of action right and the weather cooperates. I'm more than ready to move on from this painting stuff for a while.

Posted: **Thu May 08, 2008 12:27 pm**

Nice

Posted: **Fri May 09, 2008 12:38 am**

sanding...
sanding...
sanding...

Posted: **Fri May 09, 2008 1:54 pm**

sanding is not too bad if you have several long back to back sessions... LOL

Posted: **Sun May 11, 2008 12:20 am**

iu m tyup[infg wityh myu toers.// casn'
t lifgt a rm,s .../

Posted: **Sun May 11, 2008 10:54 am**

ks8, that's not too far from reality. The small ridge at the edge of the graphite bothered me, so I have spent some time smoothing it down. Hopefully that will make the clear coat flow good along that boundary. Still some more sanding, but today should wrap that up, then the weather has to get right.

Posted: **Mon May 12, 2008 9:35 am**

Rolling...
Tipping...
I love the smell of fresh WR-LPU in the morning.

Posted: **Mon May 12, 2008 9:40 am**

You must be working inside? It's so windy here this morning it would blow the paint off the boat

Posted: **Mon May 12, 2008 9:52 am**

Just a light breeze over here. 70Â° It must have kicked up a bit again last night. There was a 1Â½" pecan limb on my van this morning. Yesterday was quite windy. All that warm air from the gulf was feeding those storms.

'Tween coats now. Looking good so far. Round two starts soon.

Posted: **Mon May 12, 2008 5:12 pm**

Bottom finished

The tools used:

The resulting finish:

GÃ¼dnuff

Posted: **Mon May 12, 2008 8:12 pm**

It kinda looks like it's winking at you

Looks real good!

Posted: **Tue May 13, 2008 9:06 am**

Thanks, Larry. The S3 clear is pretty easy to work with. I tried to take all the tips on S3 and work them into my procedure. A while back TomW posted some info on the use of S3 clear that convinced me to try it. Had to go to Crystal River and let cottontop show me what is possible. Joel's advice on building up coats and sanding, then applying the final coat was the key to it all.
I just hope the orca white and graphite black on the hull and appendages doesn't look too much like a fat killer whale. Don't want any great whites getting any ideas.

Posted: **Tue May 13, 2008 4:34 pm**

Looks like a naughty picture to me... must be my artistic side...LOL

How hard is that clear... same as paint.. or harder..

Looks great.

Posted: **Tue May 13, 2008 4:52 pm**

I must have pressed the wrong button yesterday, but that is one cool paint job.

mecreature the Clear is as hard as the colors. I'll be doing the Mirror Dingy after vacation in early June in C. red. See JimW's rowing skull for what you can really do with the S3, no disrespect to GK his is very good also, Jim just took his to another level that we probably would never consider on a boat..

Tom

Posted: **Tue May 13, 2008 6:25 pm**

OK. I'd like to be on the record as shamelessly asking for a ride when you're ready to sail. Never been sailing and would like to give it a go sometime.

You say when and I'll do what I can to show up.

Jbo

(It'll also give me a chance to see your IRS)

Posted: **Wed May 14, 2008 11:54 am**

I think JimW has a history of good finishes.

Over a neutral color, the clear doesn't have the same sense of depth that it does on something like he has. The real reason I bought the clear was for some bright finish adventures.
Jbo, we can make it happen. Sooner or later, I'm going to take the D15 up to Newton and do some exploring. I wouldn't mind getting a look at your Thompson, too.

Posted: **Wed May 14, 2008 9:36 pm**

I could meet in Newton easy. Fishing the Flint from Warwick to Albany in my canoe Saturday, hope to catch my first shoalie(s).

I've got my old 18 on the Thompson right now while I look for a semi-period-correct motor in 35 or 40 horse model. If you see a good looking 35-40 horse "JohnsonRude" in the '65-74 year range for sale, let me know. It'll be a little under powered until, but I'll be patient.

Gotta figure out some way to get a windshield too. Nobody here wants to bother with it. Was gonna make my own, but I read the other thread about doing it on your own and wasn't very encouraged. It'll ride fine without it, but I'd really like to have one.

Sorry about the mini hi-jack.

Jbo

Posted: **Wed May 14, 2008 10:38 pm**

Don't worry about any hijack. We'll hold this course for a while.

I still have the windshield from this:

But I don't think it would be a good match.

For both the windshield and the motor, I would check with Bellamy, too. There's no telling what he might have around there.

Posted: **Thu May 15, 2008 8:51 pm**

GK - Your finish looks great. Mine will definately be a workboat finish in comparison.

Posted: **Thu May 15, 2008 9:39 pm**

Bellamy said nothing doing on the motor unless I want to start a complete rebuild. I'm more along the line of new points, coils, wires, carb rebuild, impeller, crank, go. Think I have a good line on a '63 40 horse in north Georgia, just trying to figure out how to evaluate from here. Got a "guy" who'll do it for me, but if something gets missed, I'd rather it be me that made the bad call than him.

Bellamy said come pick a windshield for free, but be prepared to take the boat under it too. Got to find out what it costs to drop a boat at the dump.

- and the windshield won't be the "right" one. If I decide to repaint, it won't matter. I'll pick one, fill the original holes, and make it fit.

Jbo

PS What is that boat?

Posted: **Thu May 15, 2008 10:52 pm**

That's an '82 Glastron that I hauled off for the trailer. Aside from a few bolts, the windshield and 3 aluminum corner castings are all that I saved. The rest of it was waaaay too far gone to consider a rebuild. I dismantled it and used a sawzall to cut it into parts small enough to fit in a dumpster. Hauled the pieces to the county dumpsters by the river for no charge.

The motor stuff sounds just like Bellamy. "It won't be cheap and you'll have to wait your turn" was the response to my inquiry about the 9.9 on my D15. I told him that's just what I wanted to hear. He went deeper into that motor than most people would and so far the results are great. It only took 5 months for my turn.

While I'm waiting for the paint to cure, I've been laminating a blank for my foredeck insert.

2 layers of 5mm Chinese Okoume topped with 4 oz woven cloth.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2008 9:38 am**

WOW!! Nice bottom paint. I just hope that it doesn't make the fish think that there is a large creature with one huge eye checking them out for dinner

.Nice contrast and great use of materials for a beach bumper(

) Can't wait to see the totally finished version when the top is finished and that cap is put in place.

Keep on Buildin'

Robbie

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2008 6:08 pm**

Thanks Robbie. Flipped the boat back right side up today. Looks like I have a lot left to do.

Posted: **Fri May 16, 2008 8:05 pm**

Gary that cap is a work of art it will look beautiful on the boat.

Tom

Posted: **Sun May 18, 2008 12:13 am**

I'm being extra careful, Tom. Decorative woodwork and bright finishes are unfamiliar territory for me.
I finally had to use my longboard today to clean up the top of the rubrail. Then I made a bunch of cleats and glued them in along with the rings for the "hatches".

Then I laid out and drilled the holes for the gudgeons in the transom doubler and glued it in place.

Those holes will act as guide holes to drill on through the transom. I'm going to try some more bright finish back here, so a little masking tape to keep the glue off the edges and out of the holes for now.

Then I spent the rest of the evening working on the final fit of the foredeck. It's not quite there yet, but real close.

Posted: **Sun May 18, 2008 9:53 pm**

Lots of good progress today.
When I got on the job project security was already conducting some kind of covert operation. Not sure what it was all about but apparently it involved rapelling down a rope while looking like a rope.

Next on the agenda is more stuff around the front frame. I wanted a drain in the mast step so I cut a groove in the bottom wide enough for some Â¼" poly tubing.

Next I filled the groove with putty and pressed the tubing into it and taped the end to hold it in place. Then I mixed up a big batch of goop and made the bed for the step. There are 2 smaller pieces not shown that are the bottom layer and a filler below it. I laid the filler piece in and built up level around it with putty, then laid a strip of biax across the top of it running from chine to chine. On top of that went the piece that is the actual bottom of the hole, then the assembly pictured above.

When it is cured I should be able to pull the tubing out and have a nice little drain.

While that was curing, I moved to the mast partner. It is solid mahogany 1"X7Â¾". I cut it roughly to length on the band saw, then rabbetted the front edge with a dado so that it barely overlaps the seam where the foredeck meets the front frame. That meant I had to cut a rabbett on the sides as well. It's curved and on an angle. It was tedious, but now everything will lock together.

This is it from the front. Now I'm forced to figure out a pretty way of dealing with that gap at the edge of the rubrail.

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 8:12 am**

Great work! Glad to see you making progress.

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 10:18 am**

gk108 wrote:Now I'm forced to figure out a pretty way of dealing with that gap at the edge of the rubrail.

just lay plastic wrap over the rubrail, two layers, secure it with masking tape for a tight fit. Then blob on some wood flour blend and press the partner into it, and wipe reasonably clean. When it cures, simply pop it off the plastic wrap and clean it up. If you want it purdier than that, you could add a thin mahog veneer on the forward face of the partner, or some other bright finished wood.

Or, you could figure the angles and do some woodworking. One cost time, the other, materials. I'll be doing this (plastic wrap and blob) on the bottom of some of my removeable floors, to get a perfect fit to the changing shape of the bottom panels inside the cockpit.

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 12:58 pm**

Looking good GK.. those darn gaps... that is probably why I will always paint... LOL

good tip on the plastic wrap though.. .I will have to remember that.

Posted: **Mon May 19, 2008 7:05 pm**

Hmmmm...

Something to ponder while I make some oarlock sockets.

Posted: **Tue May 20, 2008 11:41 am**

Looks really nice, GK. I am glad to see you working. You have great idea's and your execution is inspiring. I think I am ready to start building again!

Huck

Posted: **Wed May 21, 2008 10:41 am**

Thanks Huck. Are you still thinking about the FL26?

I've made a little more progress. I have the oarlock sockets rough cut, Not sure which way to orient the grain.

Then I moved to the transom. With guide holes drilled in the doubler, I still needed to fillet and tape the bottom without filling the holes back in. Before filleting, I rolled up some strips of poly and put them in the holes, then filleted and taped. While the epoxy was still green, I used a utility knife to cut the glass, then after full cure, opened up the holes and pulled out the poly.

After looking at it, I started to worry that I had made the holes too close to the bottom, so a trial fit of the rudder was necessary.

About as close to the bottom as it can get, but right about where I wanted it.

Another look from below.

Since that fit OK, it's time to put some rear seat cleats in. These were cut on an angle to match the transom. That made alignment a lot easier, since the top of the cleat was level.

I still have to put some cleats on the sides, then It's time to measure for the seats.

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2008 9:09 am**

Seat tops are cut out and dry fitted. I made cardboard templates first, then transferred that to plywood. Most of the pigmented resin has been applied to the inside of the front and rear compartments.

Solid mahogany slats for cockpit seating. It's going to be a while before they are finished and ready to install.

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2008 9:53 am**

pretty cool..

where did you get those slats. rip um down yourself?

Whats your feel on the tinted epoxy..

did it lay down well..
How well do you think it will deal with UV if it was exposed to Sun light.

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2008 11:15 am**

I found some Â¾" stock on ebay that was conveniently cut to the length that I wanted. I had those 6 pieces planed down to Â½" to save a bit of weight. I have a few more for various bits of trim. I may have to steam bend something.

On the pigmented epoxy, it's not suitable for direct exposure to the sun. It's a nice alternative to plain coated interiors of compartments, but definitely not an aesthetic alternative to paint. On horizontal surfaces it looks decent, but as with all epoxy, it's hard to control runs on vertical surfaces. Especially in areas with features like cleats.

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2008 11:17 am**

Wow, that is pretty low for that gudgeon. I did a few holes that close to a corner too. I had to grind away just a little of the final cosmetic fairing (fillet) to get the flat backing washer to fit. Looks like you may need to do the same if you fair a final fillet there.

edit - And there were a few washers I had to grind one edge of just a bit so a structural fillet would have right of way.

Looking good!

Posted: **Tue May 27, 2008 10:27 pm**

gk108 wrote:

Solid mahogany slats for cockpit seating. It's going to be a while before they are finished and ready to install.

But it's going to look good!

I like this idea. May have to apply it to my SH14; when I get around to building it.

Posted: **Wed May 28, 2008 11:40 am**

Little Gem provided plenty of inspiration for me. While the V10 is too small to do some things, swidm did get me thinking...

There will be some very strong similarities to his hatch system on my little oval holes in the front.

ks8, I'm on a scavenger hunt for a small scrap of SS to possibly use instead of washers for the gudgeons. While test fitting the rudder, it looked like there is enough flat spot to work with.

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2008 9:51 am**

Progress!
The rear seat is in place and I spent Saturday making knees.

A coat of resin sure brings out some color. I made some flour from the offcuts of the knees. The fillets here have a 50/50 mix of pine and mahogany flour. A little dark, but not bad.

Note masking tape on the gudgeon holes to prevent mud daubers from building nests.

Both the transom and the doubler are meranti. The doubler is a left over piece of Â½" from the D15. A nice range of colors for a bright finish.

The next step is to glue the knees and foredeck in place.

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:28 am**

Nice.

Are you going to put any sort of face panel on the side benches to stiffen the front edge, and give a bit of hand grip? More mahogany? Curious.

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2008 6:01 pm**

ks8 wrote:Nice.

Are you going to put any sort of face panel on the side benches to stiffen the front edge, and give a bit of hand grip? More mahogany? Curious.

I need to do something there. The plans call for a sweeping arc on the seat tops that provide stiffness to the sides in that area. What I'm going to try is a gusset that will hopefully do that and provide support for the middle of the seat as well. It's looking like those seats will be the last parts to be built.

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:43 am**

Foredeck is on.

Still pondering the knees.

I guess they are ready to glue on.

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:53 am**

gk 108,

Your picture of the knees opened my eyes to possibilities for clamping my breasthook pattern. Ponder long enough and sometimes someone else comes up with a solution. Drilling a clamping hole is a real good idea, I've done it on other projects but not recently and sometimes I suffer from C.R.S. Also, clamping the piece of scrap ply to the rubrail will assure the proper angle. I like it, thanks again.

don

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:37 am**

Glad I could help, Don. I was having the same kind of mental block about trimming the foredeck with something to cover the seams at the edges. Some sort of cap on the rubrail that is almost tall enough to call a toe rail. Then Wobblylegs posted pictures of his toe rail and I had a similar epiphany. We often need a catalyst to make things gel, just like the epoxy.

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:36 am**

Looking good Gary

Posted: **Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:48 pm**

Looking good.. looking forward to see how this bright stuff works out for ya..

Posted: **Sat Jun 07, 2008 1:36 am**

Thanks guys. I'm wondering how it will turn out, myself.

I glued the knees in last night. Tonight I worked on the little filler pieces between the knees and the doubler.

Looking down from the top, you can see the little notch cut in the knee to receive the filler. I figured I would get a better fit if I waited until they were glued on the make the notches.

I'll glue the fillers in later along with some plywood strips along the sides for inwales. I bought a Taco rubrail kit and I need another layer of Â¼" to get enough thickness for the length of the screws. Meanwhile, I found this old comic book...

Posted: **Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:22 am**

I had to back up a little bit before moving forward. Those fillers on the transom didn't look right somehow. I made another pair that are wider and glued them on. After everything sets up good, I'll blend them in to the knees and dress the tops flush.

Next I tackled the oarlock sockets. I made a jig from scrap wood to drill dowel holes and marked the drill bit for depth.

Then it was on to the strips to make the rubrail thicker.

These have a 45Â° bevel cut on the bottom edge. With the 45Â° bevel on the butt blocks it has a nice mitered look.

Posted: **Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:24 pm**

GK, boat is looking great, really like all the litttle details

very interesting

Daniel

Posted: **Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:27 am**

Yup. Those little details are what slows me down. I tabbed the knees on the bottom side and cut limber holes in the mid frame. Then, I did a lot of trimming and sanding. Somewhere along the line, the skies cleared enough for me to get outside and finish preparing the mast partner. It's about ready to glue on the boat. I have developed a plan to deal with those gaps where the partner meets the rubrail. It's a ridiculous, time consuming plan, but, it's a plan. With luck, there won't be any exposed end-grain on the partner.

After the partner is on, there's a round of QF to do on the inside, then glue the mid seat in and paint. Sounds simple, right?

Posted: **Mon Jun 16, 2008 6:26 pm**

GK - those time consuming details are what's missing from my build. And they will look great. I'll probably progress slower and add deatils with each successive build. Once I've got something to sail, I won't be so worried about getting it build quickly.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:43 am**

Mast Partner Part 1 (of 4???)
Underside of partner precoated and sanded around the edges with 60 grit and glued in place with a pretty fillet.

Front edge of partner masked to protect deck finish and a very thin fillet applied.

After that set up for an hour, 9 oz woven tape was applied over the fillets on the underside.

I lightly brushed some neat epoxy over the small fillet before removing the masking tape.

Notice the ends are still rough cut. Part 2 will require some crazy router work.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:51 am**

Mast Partner Part 2a

Trimming the ends.
First, using a flush cutting router bit, the end is trimmed flush with the rubrail corner.

Then, using a rabbeting bit, a Â¼" offset is cut along the bottom edge of the end.

Next, using the Â¼" offset as a guide, the end is trimmed again with the flush cutting bit, leaving the end of the partner Â¼" in from the edge of the rubrail corner.

Part 2 will be continued as soon as I fix the dead power switch in my router.

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:16 am**

Ahhh.. technical difficulties...

You are moving along at a good clip GK.. And it is looking sweet.

What kind of wood is that... its gonna take some pretty good stress isn't it?

Are you getting better or do you just have more time to work? LOL

Posted: **Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:27 pm**

I guess it's more time to work, because there is certainly room for me to get better.

All of the intended brightwork is Honduran Mahogany. In fact, the only parts not made of mahogany are the cleats and DB box ends. Those are Cypress.

Partner Part 2b

Here we see the reason why I need to get better. After fixing the router, I finished the cuts I was on and managed to break chips off of the corner where I didn't need to. The solution was easy enough, except for finding the chips in the pile.

A little plastic to hold it there while it cures.

And we're ready to go again. Components for part 3 are already slightly steam bent.

I'll have a nice, clean edge to work with.

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:16 pm**

Mast Partner Part 3

I made the blanks for the end pieces a good bit oversize to start with so I had room to play. The bottom edges were beveled to match the angle of the rubrail, then the top was planed down to a height just above the partner. While doing this, I tried a few different clamping schemes.

After trimming, I settled on this method to clamp. Basically, I clamped cleats to the partner, then pulled against them. After filling the remaining gaps under the ends with putty, the pieces were glued on and left to cure.

When cured, the remaining excess height and thickness was planed down and sanded smooth. The ends were cut flush and cleaned up with a chisel.

A little router work and some sanding and all the sharp corners are gone.

Just a little more cleanup and it will be ready to seal and finish.

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:20 pm**

Looking good Gary. Hows everything doing since CR. Looks like you have been very busy on the V10, you had time to take out the D15.

Tom

Posted: **Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:26 pm**

Man, I'd better not let my brother see this thread. He might figure he's getting sub-standard quality.

That is some great work. The extra time spent now will pay off greatly once she's afloat. Keep it up.

Posted: **Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:08 am**

Hey Tom. Things have been busy around here. My boss finally came by a few times and completed the rebuild we started about 3 years ago. I took the D15 as a chase boat and we got it wet in Lake Miccosukee.

We're girding our loins to do battle against the scallops this year. I have to stop working on the V10 long enough to come up with some kind of temp sunshade.
One Sunday afternoon, it was way too hot to do any boatbuilding, so I had to take her to go cool off in Wacissa. As is often the case, I wasn't the only one there with a homebuilt boat. Here's Elsie Mae, a cypress strip canoe.

These two said the boat works properly because they caught a 6 lb bass in it already.

Shaun, tell your brother that he will be happier that he didn't sacrifice speed for beauty. That applies to build time as well as on the water. I'm just guessing here, but your boat is probably going to weigh nearly the same as mine, even though it's 2 feet longer. With my leg o mutton sail, I might be able to sail closer to the wind, but that alone probably won't make up enough difference to win the race. I'd have to get some new-fangled keel designed in the Southern Hemisphere, I guess.

Posted: **Thu Jun 19, 2008 7:47 am**

Where are Miccosukee and Wacissa?

Jbo

Posted: **Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:28 am**

They are both south of here.
Miccosukee is a fair sized lake, but about 80% is too choked up with weeds to get to. Good fishing and duck hunting. It's about the closest place to put in any decent sized power boat. Take Metcalfe Rd south from T'ville. A few miles after you cross into FL, you get to the town of Miccosukee. Turn left at the store and follow the pavement to Reeves Landing and the fish camp.

Wacissa is further away in the same direction. Metcalfe Rd turns into SR59 in FL. SR59 hits US90 and jogs east a few miles, then breaks off south again, crossing I-10 and US27. After you get to the town of Wacissa, SR59 turns west, but if you continue straight for a mile, you hit the river. Some excellent canoe and kayak waters. The river has some problems with weeds choking it, but has enough traffic to keep most of it clean. The riverbed is peppered with spring vents and blue holes and the water is always as clear as the picture above. It's one of the few really natural places like it in the state. Highly recommended. The only disturbing thing down there is the airboat traffic, but high fuel prices seem to have made them reduce their running time.

Posted: **Thu Jun 19, 2008 4:24 pm**

Wicassa is a pretty lake Gary. Take care of yourself in that heat and have fun scalloping.

Tom

Posted: **Fri Jun 20, 2008 2:43 pm**

gk,

Not commented on your thread before (don't visit this section often) but have been watching occasionally. Very nice work, and "Mast Partner Part 2a" will be filed for future reference. Dunno what for, but it's a nice way of trimming ends. One day I'll let you know if I copied you

Tim.

Posted: **Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:11 am**

Thanks, Tim. I pondered over this stage of the build for a long time. I've been a little nervous about the whole thing because I've never done much of this kind of stuff and it's an expensive piece of wood. Please copy away. Stay tuned and you'll see the trim that your toe rail inspired.

With a great sigh of relief...
Mast Partner Part 4

About the easiest step. Roll on some resin to seal it.

And if you look close, you can see where I glued those chips back in place. That seems to have been a good enough fix.

Pressing on.

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:14 am**

I worked on making trim to cover the seam where the foredeck meets the hull. I did a lot of pondering on this and no obviously simple solution came to mind. I was stuck on the idea that whatever I did had to cover the full width of the rubrail up there and something that wide would never bend to the contour of the hull. Then Wobblylegs posted this picture of his toe rail.

I had a

moment when I realized that it didn't need to cover the whole rubrail. I already had a rough idea for the cross-section of the pieces, so I cut out two of them. Somewhere in the background noise that little voice told me that I should cut an extra one since I don't know what I'm doing, but I ignored it.

I made a crude steam box using a wood fired camp stove and a 5 gal metal bucket with a lid.

It worked pretty good and the first piece bent right to the lines. That filled me with too much confidence, I guess. I forced the second one too hard, too fast and it broke in two, so I went ahead and made that third piece.

Here's the broken one, a finished one and one cooling under the clamps.

The finished one barely looks bent compared to the one under the clamps. After they cooled, they still sprung back a good bit, but that was considered when I laid out the curves. They ended up pretty close to the right shape.

The idea is to overlap the seam and lay flush with the deck. A fillet will cover the gap on the outside. I drilled holes along the rubrail where I wanted the outside edge to land and inserted nails to locate against. Clamping pressure pulled it all into place.

The wood I'm using for these is from the same batch that my cockpit seats will be made from. It is very much darker than the deck, partner and knees.

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:01 am**

very nice gk...

the need to steam is catchy isn't it..

that toe rail is a good idea..

Posted: **Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:36 am**

mecreature wrote:very nice gk...

the need to steam is catchy isn't it..

that toe rail is a good idea..

The one that hasn't been glued on yet has relaxed back to nearly straight during the overnight. I'm going to torture it on the rack for the day and try to get it glued on tonight.
I think maybe I'll try to avoid stem bending in the future. Those two little pieces of wood sure are going to consume a lot of time compared to other parts that size.

Posted: **Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:17 am**

Not much progress the past few days because of weather and other things. The other strip of trim is in place. I ended up using a heat gun to get the final shape on it. After I cleaned up my sloppy glue job, I worked on the last detail for the bow. A pad for the cleat. It's not glued in yet and may be subject to minor changes.

Posted: **Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:22 am**

N-i-c-e-!

Your toe rail is definitely a step up from mine!

Tim.

Posted: **Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:34 pm**

Nice mixture of grains. should look neat with a layer of epoxy on it..

Posted: **Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:09 pm**

Excellent...

Posted: **Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:35 pm**

Serves you right to have to wait so long to sail that boat. You're making me look bad.

JK

You're the kind of builder that inspires those like me to do better. Keep up the great work.

Posted: **Tue Jul 01, 2008 11:52 am**

Thanks, guys. It does look good with a coat of resin on it. Very dark wood. No pictures yet, though. I glued that last piece on the bow and added a little more putty to the outside fillet and sanded to the profile I wanted. Then I drilled oversize holes for the bow cleat and filled them and coated the dark wood with resin to seal. It's all sanded now, ready for another coat of resin. I'll see if I can get a good picture of it after that.

Posted: **Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:02 pm**

Super job! WOW!

Posted: **Tue Jul 01, 2008 3:03 pm**

I guess I do have a picture. Deck and trim sealed and sanded.

I'm going to try one of these rollers for the next (2nd) coat of resin on the partner and knees.

Posted: **Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:07 am**

I've been working on the inside and middle seat this week. QF has been applied to the seams on the inside and sanded.

The middle seat is shaped and glued in. DB slot is rough cut.

Still more work to be done with the middle seat. The back edge needs some stuff glued on to mount the seat slats.

Posted: **Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:25 pm**

Have you used the adhesive roller yet and if so how did it work out?

Posted: **Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:54 am**

I haven't made it there yet. I've been trying to get the rest of the boat up to the same point of finish as the front. Some parts don't even have the first coat of resin on them yet.

I have a blank made for the starboard cockpit seat. Here it is after a little cleanup.

It still needs the outside edge cut to the contour of the hull, then some support for the middle needs to be made.

While that was curing, I spread some QF around the rear seat area and sanded that down. Also finished tabbing the middle seat to the hull.

Posted: **Mon Jul 07, 2008 4:05 pm**

Gary this finishing stuff seems to gone forever doesn't it. Looking good guy! You'll have something to be proud of when you get done.

Tom

Posted: **Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:56 pm**

Yeah, Tom. It looks like I'm going to have to take a little break, anyway. I have a chance to go stay on the Wakulla River for the rest of the week.

Maybe I'll get to see how suitable the D15 is for scalloping.

I'm not absolutely sure, but I think I have the last parts glued to the hull. Here's the middle support for the starboard cockpit seat, viewed from below.

I wrapped each seat with a little packing tape in case it got sloppy under there, then clamped the support to the seat and hung it in place while the glue cures. These will also be tabbed to the hull with 9 oz woven.

Posted: **Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:01 pm**

Looking good...

How was you stay on the River. Have you beatin that D15 all up yet...

Posted: **Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:14 pm**

A few scrapes on the paint. The dock really had no provisions for mooring a boat and we had 2 and an aluminum canoe. The daily storms tended to blow them around at the dock. It was a great place to stay in a steamy, early morning Tarzan movie set kind of way. The Florida jungle that I love. A little too far up the river for serious scalloping in small boats, though. 25 miles round trip and a bunch of it is manatee zone. We may make another run from the ramp at St. Marks on Thursday.

Posted: **Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:58 pm**

Finished with the Quick Fair on the inside. Weather, scallop season and a side project have impeded progress. The side project is the 4X10" bass guitar speaker cabinet in the background.

Since the last rounds of sanding may have exposed some bare wood, I'm going to roll a coat of resin on the inside of the boat , then it's on to the primer.

I guess any kind of bright finish on my plywood seat tops is out of the question now. There was a good bit of open grain on the face veneeers and I filled it with QF to keep the wood from misbehaving. Notice all the white spots where the open grain is.

Still, this meranti is really a lot denser and somewhat heavier than what I got for the D15. Good qualities to have for frames and transoms and stuff.

Posted: **Sat Aug 02, 2008 12:54 am**

Looking good Gary!

Tom

Posted: **Sat Aug 02, 2008 3:53 am**

Yep... seal it up. Getting close! At least there won't be the severe checking problems associated with DFir. You might even be able to fill those sorts of openings with straight epoxy, just as it is getting cooler, to minimize air bubbles from wood venting (for the future)... and you could always put your own thin veneer on there for bright work, later, if you really like the idea. It wouldn't weigh that much on the seat tops only. If it doesn't get too hot, bright work could look very nice there. Pick a light colored species for a veneer?

Have you got any baffle or port system planned for the spkr cabinet?

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:33 am**

It's sealed on the inside and the foredeck got its final coat of resin.

I'm really happy with the way the dark trim looks.

I rolled most of this coat on with a foam roller, but on the foredeck area, I switched to this fur roller:

It did a real nice job of laying down a smooth, thin coat with none of the bubbles that you get with a foam roller, but it shed a lot of fur and left bugs on the finish. You can see some on the partner in this picture:

Hopefully, they will sand off when I prep for the clear LPU.

And the speaker got a coat of resin on the outside to toughen it up. As you can see, it has a 6" X 6" round vent on the rear of the cabinet. It's a copy of a PV box that seems to be popular. I'll load it with Eminence BP102 drivers, so it should shake 'em up when it's done.

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:54 pm**

Very Nice!!

frazoo

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2008 2:06 pm**

Well placed brightwork is a wonderful thing.

Those fuzz bugs will lessen after sanding, but they may not go completely away.

I've been thinking of trying the very short fiber nylon brushes, the flat pads, that some use for applying epoxy paint to a garage floor. I'm wondering if they would minimize bubbles, ridges, and fuzz bugs. Of course I'm running out of unfinished area... but that seems like a good thing!

What about a veneer on the seat tops of the same species that you have on the foredeck?

Cabinet is looking good too! Are you keeping its interior smooth and reflective for the highs, or padding it?

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:58 pm**

Beautiful!!!, question what are you putting over the epoxy coating on the foredeck?

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:58 pm**

Hopefully, they will sand off when I prep for the clear LPU.

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:19 pm**

Gary, have you tried a Thermacell to keep the bugs away? They work better than anything else I've seen. They even keep mosquitoes off my wife to her satisfaction. A lofty goal in the GA swamps

Posted: **Sun Aug 03, 2008 10:27 pm**

Larry, I keep forgetting to pick one up. The boss's wife packed a small one on the Wakulla River trip, but we never needed it. She highly recommended it, too. I have to do something because insects that are drawn to the light really limit what I can do at this stage. Yesterday was a good example. I wanted the epoxy to be tack free by sundown, so anything that might land at night wouldn't leave marks. With this last coat, I wanted to make sure that anything sanded through to bare wood got covered again. Applying the resin too early meant that the plywood would still be heating up and outgassing and the bare spots made themselves quite evident by blowing bubbles in the fresh resin. That's when I took a break for a while before switching to the fur roller. After I did the foredeck in that second session, the areas that bubbled got another last coat. Finished right before sundown, killed the lights and hoped for the best.

I picked at the big fuzz bugs today and they sort of pulled out of the epoxy intact. They may not be too much of a problem. The idea is to have enough dried saltwater on there to hide that stuff, anyway. If that doesn't do it, I'll spec an extra long snotter and leave the excess laying up there to confuse the eye.

Never let anyone tell you that 'sweat equity' in your boat is not a tangible thing. It looks like this:

Another place for some extra line or something.

Posted: **Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:59 am**

A little bit of progress.
I got this thing done and out of the way Saturday.

No power rating, just a warning; don't clip your 1000W amp. It got the full treatment, internal bracing between front & back, Penn hardware, Neutrik connectors and yes, stuffing, literally. I used surplus polyester batting from a local ladies undergarment factory that closed a few years ago.

Now for the important stuff.
I sanded the bugs off of the foredeck and partner and gave them another coat, this time with a good old foam roller. That turned out real nice, just needs a light pass with 320 grit before the S3 clear.
Right now I'm working on the cockpit seats. The mounting points are all in place.

The seats are shaped and the corners rounded.

I'm a bit undecided about the exact method of fastening these seats to the mounts. They need to be removable for easy refinishing, but they need to help provide resistance to oilcanning in that part of the hull. Those are inch thick cypress cleats on the mounts, so a wood screw will work, but would a machine screw with a nut & washer be better? Or a tee nut? Things to ponder while I sand all those little slots.

Posted: **Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:49 am**

A little progress report, though progress might not be the right word, since I had to back up a bit.
I've been trying to make absolutely certain that all surfaces are well sealed. While doing that I noticed things like a little QF slopped on the mast step where it will have a bright finish. Got that scraped off, but exposed bare wood doing it. It got another pair of last coats.
Stood on my head while prepping the area under the mid seat for priming and noticed a couple of fillets that were defective, so they had to be done again.
The bottom panels just behind the mid frame are giving me a hard time as well. They have some areas that just kept sucking up resin and wouldn't seal. Those areas got their 5th coat last night and I think they are finally sealed. No telltale pock marks from the resin running back in the vents as the plywood cooled overnight.
The cockpit seats are sealed up and ready to move on to their next step. The daggerboard is finally completely sealed as well. The entire blade is covered with surfboard glass and sealed, but the end grain of the NZ pine plank got opened up when I cleaned up after gluing the mahogany stops on the top. I used my heat gun to warm the blade about 4" below the top, then brushed resin on the top and stops. At the same time I was coating the cockpit seats, so I could just turn around and brush more resin on that end grain as it soaked in. I know I hit it 5 times and it still looked dry when it cured. Here it is after the final coat of resin.

I'm getting real close to breaking out the primer. Gotta see what this weather is going to do.

Posted: **Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:31 am**

Lookin good gk.. It will be nice to see primer go on..

And nice speaker cabinet too.

Posted: **Mon Aug 25, 2008 10:30 am**

GK - I can't wait to see those seats finished. Something like that is going into my next build, which will be strictly for sailing; a C12. Your detail work is incredible, and inspiring. Keep it coming.

Posted: **Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:14 pm**

All it takes is 20+ inches of rain to get in the way of progress. Everything except my sandpaper stock seems to have survived intact. I hope I can get back at it in a few days.

Posted: **Tue Aug 26, 2008 5:01 pm**

Gary glad you survived sandpaper can be replaced. Hope all else is well and you can finish that pretty boat. I imagine Fay may hurt the scalloping.

Tom

Posted: **Tue Aug 26, 2008 9:39 pm**

Already restocked the sandpaper. I'm sure the scalloping is poor around St. Marks right now. My boss was making moves toward getting a houseboat that is (was?) tied up there, so we would have a base to operate from. He heard from the owner last Thursday and she said she removed her valuables and the shore power in preparation for the storm. My guess is that it either sank at its dock or broke loose. Either fate is OK by me. "You know who" wasn't looking forward to the prospect of dealing with the issues that a 39 yr old houseboat might have.

Posted: **Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:32 am**

Tom

Posted: **Fri Aug 29, 2008 10:46 pm**

TomW wrote:

Tom

Well, wouldn't you know, I guessed wrong. The houseboat made it through the storm OK, sort of. We rode down to St. Marks this afternoon and looked it over. Both batteries were dead and there was a foot of water in the bilge. A quick survey shows plenty of issues, but it might still be a real bargain at less than $100/ft.

Posted: **Wed Sep 03, 2008 7:33 pm**

I haven't done a whole lot on this boat lately. It took a little while to get cleaned up and dried out from the 27" of rain that TS Fay dropped on us.
I bought a bunch of fine quality silicon bronze fasteners from boltdepot.com to mount hardware with. Lots of little holes to layout and drill. Here's one of my favorite tools, an adjustable drill/countersink for #10 wood screws. The collar will also adjust to drill deep enough for a plug over the screw head. It saves time, but the 18 holes for mounting the cockpit seats still took over 2 hours to complete.

Posted: **Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:02 pm**

I broke out the primer and started applying it on the insides. Painting the underside of the middle seat is not much fun.

I set one hatch in the front bulkhead to see how it looks. It's the same 2 layers of laminated plywood as the foredeck.

Posted: **Mon Sep 22, 2008 2:35 pm**

Looks good gk.. You sure have alot of stuff to paint around.

Posted: **Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:23 pm**

mecreature wrote:Looks good gk.. You sure have alot of stuff to paint around.

What he said

Posted: **Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:03 pm**

Yeah, I have the posture of a question mark for about 2 hours after I get through painting under the seats.

I applied two coats of primer to everything inside and the rubrails in a series of 6 - 5 oz batches. That took a whole quart.
There are a couple of places on the brightwork that need another last coat of resin, so I'll get that in a day or two, then sand the primer and probably use up the last of my QF before applying the last coats of primer.

If it was an old GM product, I'd probably just leave it primer gray.

Posted: **Thu Sep 25, 2008 9:56 pm**

Fun and games.

Sanding the primer on the underside of the middle seat.

Sanding the primer on the bottom.

Posted: **Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:16 am**

This round of sanding is over. There were several rough spots that needed some more QF to fill.
This picture shows the high spots really well. Note the slightly different colored QF along the lower frame fillet.

This area at the rear frame still looks bad. One more application of QF should do the trick.

This area of the chine seam is looking good after a little layer of QF over the primer.

I've decided the final pattern for the two colors that I'm going to use for the topcoat. The gray Kiwi Grip is very close to Bainbridge White, so I'm going to stick with factory colors and not try to add any tint to the Bainbridge White to darken it.

Posted: **Tue Sep 30, 2008 11:32 am**

Gary looking good guy!

Tom

Posted: **Tue Sep 30, 2008 4:34 pm**

It is looking good..

amazing the spots that sander can find.

Posted: **Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:00 pm**

mecreature wrote:amazing the spots that sander can find.

Turns any primed hull into a topographical map.

Mixed up about a tablespoon of QF and hit the bad spots again. They are done, it's done, no more sanding for fairing purposes. One more good coating of primer and the topcoats to go. Gotta move forward.

Time to do a little trailer shopping, or is that shopping for a little trailer?

Posted: **Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:27 am**

Top coats under way. At around 11PM I started with the rubrail in Orcas White. It's masked on the outside at the bottom of the rubrail, but I didn't mask most of the inside where the Bainbridge White will go. Two coats are brushed on so far. The first coat went on OK, looked like crap, but it was only the first coat. This is the second coat applied around dawn this morning.

One or two more coats and then I'll sand on it some more.

Posted: **Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:33 am**

The first coat went on OK, looked like crap,

It takes about 4 coats before it starts to look good

You'll get there. The worst is over

Posted: **Wed Oct 08, 2008 12:47 am**

Thanks for the encouragement, Larry. The third coat has really gone on nice. I switched to the whizz roller and foam brush for the rest of the way. I brushed the first two coats because I'm cheap and whizz rollers aren't. I've been using crosslinker on every coat so far and getting them done within 8 hours of the previous coat.

Posted: **Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:14 am**

gk108 wrote:...Painting the underside of the middle seat is not much fun....

Agreed. So why do it? Who's going to see it? The fish you pull aboard? Drunken passengers? People with eyes on their toes?

The boat looks real nice, BTW.

Laszlo

Posted: **Thu Oct 09, 2008 10:01 am**

Laszlo wrote: So why do it?

Well, the paint won't do any good if I leave it in the can, so I might as well put it on the boat.

Heavy rain yesterday prevented progress, but I got the fourth coat on the rubrails this morning. With a 24 hour interval between coats, I had to scuff the surface with a scotchbright pad. One more coat should do it. Hopefully, I can get that put on this evening. I have a 5 band rock show to produce on Saturday, so the rest of my week is about shot. By the time I get back to it, the paint should be cured enough to allow masking for the next color.

Posted: **Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:29 am**

Gary, for the s3 paint i use the same roller many times over - at least six times. You can only get a few uses with the primer though.

Posted: **Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:56 am**

Yes, I found the same thing. The whizz rollers are easy to clean and you can reuse them many times with S3 paint.

Posted: **Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:15 am**

Rubrails are painted, seat tops need another coat or two. I never have been good at guesstimating the amount of paint I need. Rubrails on this boat require enough paint to cover ~4 square feet. Guess who is out of white paint because he didn't consider that 4 square feet?

Brightwork is prepped for clear coat. Rubrails will get a little careful wet sanding, then after the Bainbridge White is done on the interior, the brightwork and rubrails get clear coat.

I only masked one time and used an X-acto knife to cut the tape/paint interface, similar to the way ks8 did his.

Posted: **Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:01 am**

That looks beautiful gk.

Posted: **Mon Oct 13, 2008 2:09 pm**

Nice. Clean treatment of the deck drain groove.

Posted: **Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:38 pm**

Thanks guys. I am still getting accustomed to the way the S3 paint makes me ask myself 'What the heck am I doing here?" for a bunch of coats before I get to the "Dang, now that's what I'm talking about!" coat.

ks, that little bit of paint in that gutter was the subject of much pondering. I had a hard time deciding just how to end it on the inside edge. I ended up cutting a strip of white paper with various angles and concave curves to lay in there and get an idea. The K.I.S.S. version prevailed, so it's parallel to the centerline.

Here's some pics of the transom and knees.

I'm a little iffy on my treatment of the top edge. It is what it is, but now I wonder if I should have capped it with some of the dark mahogany.

Posted: **Mon Oct 13, 2008 9:31 pm**

Wow Gary, sure would like to come by and see her sometime. Looking awesome.

Marty

Posted: **Tue Oct 14, 2008 11:32 am**

flatpicker wrote:Wow Gary, sure would like to come by and see her sometime. Looking awesome.

Marty

How about Thursday? That's about the only evening I'll be home before 10PM this week. There's an actual paying gig on the horizon for our little band and I want to change the setup the rehearsal room.

Posted: **Tue Oct 14, 2008 12:37 pm**

That's really looking good, Gary

Very nice!

Posted: **Tue Oct 14, 2008 4:41 pm**

love the clear woodwork really ads a touch of class

Posted: **Tue Oct 14, 2008 5:10 pm**

Gary she's coming right along and really like the woodwork. Hope you are feeling good about her also. When's the launch date now. Know you always have other things going on.

Tom

Posted: **Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:12 am**

Launch date? Well, I'm pretty much still on schedule for a 2008 launch date. Like most ships, she'll have to spend some time at the yard fitting her out after she rolls down the ways, but she'll be able to make way under her own power.

Posted: **Wed Oct 15, 2008 12:24 pm**

gk108 wrote: she'll be able to make way under her own power.

Didn't know you had equipped her with fins!

Tom

Posted: **Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:51 pm**

I hope she isn't going to be named Christine... like the car...

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