May 2018

This month it's all about fiber-glassing or encapsulating the hull at least one side.  I've already made a few mistakes and will walk you through what went right and what went wrong and how I'm going to do it better on the other side.  First of all, I made the decision right away to break the project into 3 parts.  The port, starboard and transom.  I'm starting with the port side because it is closest to the work area and will have the least running around.  I believe it would be nearly impossible to encapsulate the entire hull in one go especially for a small crew and we just don't have the experience to get the job done quickly.

We have two types of glass; 2 oz mat glass that is 50 inches (1.27 m) wide and 10 oz woven cloth that is 60 inches (1.52 m) wide.  The cloth will lay over the mat hopefully giving the finished project a smooth finish.  I cut 0.2 inch (5 mm) strips from  standard 2x4 construction lumber to use as battens to temporarily hold the glass in place on the hull.  I used long staples from a standard T50 manual staple gun to attach the battens to the hull.  My intention was to only place battens at the top edge of the sheets so the glass will hang loose and when the epoxy is applied, the glass will then be able to stretch with the aid of gravity.  The two different widths will make this impossible to achieve so my next idea was to place a batten at the top of the mat and then at the top of the cloth and sneak the battens holding the mat (and covered by the cloth) out when I apply the epoxy.  Greatest plans of mice and men oft' go astray...

The first step is hanging the two layers of glass (2 oz mat and 10 oz cloth on top).  I made a vertical  spooler for that shown below and discussed earlier.  It turns out that the mat glass will not come of the spooler without ripping apart and large sheets can not be handled because the mat will fall apart under its own weight.  I did not expect that since I've never worked with such large sheets.  I expect that if you had 10 or 15 people handling it in a well coordinated manner you could make it happen but who has that kind of man power.  So the first step failed and we resorted to laying the roll on a long table and cutting 10-12 feet (3.3 m) at a time and hanging those one piece at a time.

Spooler was useless for the mat and not that handy for the cloth.  Your better off unrolling on the table .

Three runs of 10-12 foot pieces worked very nicely.  It turns out that the mat is very stiff as well as fragile.  It will not make turns along the hull.  Short pieces are necessary to make these turns so this turned out for the best.  I have battens along the top edge of all the runs and I've overlapped the mat about 1.5 inches (30 mm) which just covers the battens.  These would have been easily removed if they were not later covered by the woven cloth.  The next step was to run out the cloth and hang it on top of the mat.  The spooler actually worked very well for the first run at the gunwales nearest the floor.  We had three guys working and we were able to get the cloth up in one piece without too much pulling of the weave. Again, we stapled battens at the top edge of the cloth and proceeded with the next run (again overlapping about 1.5 inches (30 mm)).  The next run did not fair to well.  We had the cloth despooled but then it was necessary to lift it in place way beyond our reach.  We would have done better rolling off what we needed folding it as we went and then place the folded cloth on one end of the boat unfolding it along the length of the boat.  That is what we'll do on the other side.  Anyway, we hung all three rows of cloth and stapled battens at the top without regard to the battens that were trapped underneath holding the mat and that was our biggest mistake.  This method leaves battens that are holding the mat inaccessible.  I thought that I could epoxy around those areas and once the glass was sticking to the wood I could peel back sections and pull the battens out.  That might have worked but it was apparent that it would be pretty messy and risked over stretching the weave.  Truth be told it took us over 4 hours, one evening, to hang that glass and we were pretty tired and itchy.  I decided to leave the problem for another day.  Never try to work through something tired.  A few days later I tackled the problem.  My solution was to put additional battens below the now hidden battens holding the mat glass in place.  These new battens would hold both the mat and cloth.  Next, removed the battens holding the top of the cloth and draped the cloth (~10 inches) down over the newly installed battens.  This allowed me to remove the hidden battens that were only holding the mat glass since the newly installed battens just below were holding both the mat and the cloth.  I then undraped (straightened it out) the cloth and reapplied the battens at the top of the cloth.  I repeated this on the second layer.  Now I only have battens at the seams (covered only by the 1.5 inch of overlap) of the cloth and 10 inches down from the seam (fully exposed and easily removed).  All the battens are now easily removed once the epoxy is applied.  I realize now that this procedure would have been simpler to perform in the first place and that's my plan for the other side.

1) Hang the three runs of mat glass with battens on top edge.
2) Hang one run of cloth with temporary battens at the top edge.
3) Add another run of battens below the battens holding the mat in the first run.
4) Remove temporary battens holding the cloth and drape the cloth down exposing the battens holding the mat.
5) Remove the battens holding the mat (the new battens below them are now holding the mat) and undrape (straighten) the cloth adding permanent battens at the top edge of the cloth.
6) Repeat for second run.
7) Third run is on the flat bottom area and does not pose much of an issue.

Stylized cartoon of the sequence used to install the glass.

Placing battens to temporarily hold the glass in place.  The batten shown on the right is holding the cloth around 10 inches down from the edge of the exposed cloth and right on the edge of the mat below.  At this point I was still working things out. 

Narrow strip of cloth being smoothed out and placed next to the keel stump.

This is before I removed the covered battens.  No way to do this during the epoxy application phase.  

Again, there are battens that will be very difficult to remove once the glass is wet.  I'm glad I found a better way.

More pictures are coming.  We plan to start wetting out the fiberglass Saturday morning (May 19).  I have a crew of 5 coming to help out.  There has been a lot of planning for this day. I'm sure that it won't all go smoothly but hopefully we have bought us enough leeway with good planning to have everything work out well.  Stay tuned.  I'll have someone take pictures of the process and I'll tell you what went right and what went wrong and what I'd do different next time.  There are always lessons to be learned.

May 19,
All preparation work has been completed.  My crew of 5 met at the house at 8:00 am Saturday morning for coffee and discussion.  We were working by 8:45.

We had one gal (my wife) measuring out epoxy and harder using a digital kitchen scale with a tare feature.  This in by far the easiest and quickest method for metering out epoxy.  One man was on top of the hull applying epoxy while two were rolling epoxy on the side of the hull from the ground.  After the two on the ground made it to the midpoint of the hull, we switched one to assist with the top of the hull.  I was assisting everywhere generally working seams and edges and assisting with epoxy delivery.

We started about a meter from the stern on the bottom.  We started out pouring generous portions of epoxy onto the to part of the hull where it is fairly flat.  We then moved the epoxy around with laminate rollers.  Later we found that this was not the best technique.  It is much more efficient to move the epoxy around with standard 9" paint rollers with 3/8" nap.  The laminate rollers are slower and can dig in creating ripples that hard to remove.  The ripples come from compressing the mat and glass.  It is important to take care of the paint roller covers and keep them working.  If they sit unused, they will cure up and get hot.  It will happen eventually and you need to be ready to remove the cover before it becomes a permanent part of the roller frame.  By cheap roller frames in quantity.  Do not buy cheap covers.  You don't need to buy the expensive ones but cheap ones will fall apart.

Always work toward the loose end of the glass.  The glass stretches when it gets wet and there will be some excess you will need to move to the edges.  I actually thought this would be a bigger problem than it was.  Where the glass was draped nearly vertical, there were very little issues.  Gravity helped keep the glass stretched.

This is from right before we began.  You can see one batten exposed and right above another that is just under the overlap where it will be easy to remove.

Similar to above.

That is Alfred Kuhn on the left and me on the right discussing how we are going to proceed.

On the left is Nick Robey and me on the right discussing the plan.

This is a laminate roller.  It's great for smoothing out wrinkles and working epoxy into seams  and edges.  I do not recommend using this roller for the general field work if you are wetting out multiple layers like we are here.

I took a hand held kitchen mixer beater and put it in a small drill press set on the lowest speed (~800 RPM).   It was a great time saver.  Worked wonderfully and probably made the day manageable.

Me demonstrating the mixer.  This was a dry run with no hardener.  I wanted to make sure the speed was correct and there was no splashing.

It's not all work, work, work.  When you get a creative, talented crew together, you had better expect a bit of fun.

Nick Robey doing a little clean up.  I supplied acetone for clean up.  Works fairly well.  You still end up with a film but that usually can be washed of with dish soap.

This our latest family member.  He loves to give us a hand in the boat shop. 

Caroline Whetham hard at work.  We used this floor squeegee to remove excess epoxy.  It worked but it was easier to roll over the area with a dry roller.  When I say a dry roller, what I mean is a roller where you have already used up most of the epoxy in it.  It is not actually dry.

We started out applying the epoxy exactly like you apply paint.  That was what everyone was use to.  Although this worked fine, it took many coats and a lot of mechanical work to get the glass wetted out completely.  The more you work the glass, the more distorted it gets and the less it wants to lay down nice.  We soon discovered that you want to get your roller almost dripping wet and roll only a short area without letting the roller dry.  A small area quickly becomes saturated with epoxy and you move to a new area.  Only after a section is saturated do you let the roller run 'dry'.  Use the dryer roller move excess epoxy around and push the glass against the plywood.  Remember, you want to see the weave clearly with no epoxy pooling on top.  On the other side, the glass will turn clear (mostly) when it is properly saturated.  There will be areas that turn milky and this is normal.  There are also specks that won't turn clear no matter what you do.  I think this is normal as well.  If you have too much epoxy, the glass will float to the surface and leave a gap between the wood and glass.  It will also leave a raised area that will need additional sanding and  when you sand that area, you will sand right through the glass and leave a void.   It is very easy to apply epoxy and fill the weave after the work is cured (or when it is almost cured and still sticky).  At that point you apply the epoxy exactly like rolling on paint.  

That is Al Kuhn surveying the work before beginning.  The for legged guy is Fig.  I think he's showing Al what to do.
  

Just finishing the bow area.  Everyone else is heading for the beer cooler.  I'll be right there guys.  Don't wait on me.

We had extra epoxy made up so I rolled on a second layer where the epoxy was still sticky but set.  

Dog help is always appreciated.   

That is me on the left in the red shirt.  I'm using one of the small plastic laminate rollers which is great for edges, crinkles  and especially seams where several layers are overlapped.  You can see that I'm working the edges.  On the right is Caroline Whetham using a normal paint roller to apply epoxy to the field.  Hey, we are almost at the end here.

A crew has to eat and we had no time to take a break.  We grabbed a slice when we could.

The day got warmer than I would have liked but we still did not have trouble keeping up.  By starting from one end of the boat and working toward the other, you can keep your leading edge wet while the epoxy cures behind you.  Make sure that you completely finish all edges and seams as you go or it will harden on you.  If you have a cool day or enough help, you can start putting on your finish layers of epoxy by rolling them on just like you would paint over the areas that have become tacky but not cured.  If the epoxy cures, it will have to be washed with soap and water before additional layers can be applied.  When the epoxy cures, an amine waxy residue will rise to the surface and will prevent bonding of additional layers of epoxy.  If the epoxy is still tacky, the amine will continue to rise to the surface of the new layer and it won't matter.  One more thing.  Do not sand until you wash the amine residue off, it can get embedded in the sanding scratches and will resist being washed off causing problems.

We will make a few changes when we tackle the other side.  I would like one more person to help meter out the epoxy, and we will rely more heavily on standard paint rollers.

May, 28

Time to clean up the edges and along the centerline of the bottom of the boat to prepare for laying glass on the other side of the hull.  I am feathering the glass back about 3/4 of an inch (2 cm).  I'll epoxy the fiberglass over the feathered portion and grind back smooth once it's cured.

Sanding the glass back 3/4" at the bow to allow overlap from the other side.  I'm going to add up to 3 additional layers of woven glass at the bow to provide protection from the inevitable extra wear expected there.  

Feathered the glass back beyond the rounded corner on the  transom.  

I had trouble with to small areas where the mat was overlapped.  No matter how much I worked these areas, I could not get the epoxy to fully saturate the glass and the wood.  I suspect that the epoxy was left too thick in these areas and cured just enough to inhibit saturation.  I check these spots and others  after the epoxy was cured by tapping on them with a piece of wood.  Sure enough, you could hear the hollow thwack instead of the solid thud expected at these two small areas.  Nothing to do but cut them out and re-glass those areas.  I found it pretty easy to use a sharp chisel for this procedure.  I went pretty quickly.

Just chisel around the edges and lift the bad spot out.

The other bad spot.  You can see some additional spots to the left and to a lesser degree to the right.  I extended the cut-out to include these areas.

I cut out a piece of mat and cloth to fit holes and saturated them with epoxy and laid them in.  I actually wetted down the wood first to make sure that the wood and the edges were wet.  You can see that the issues occurred where the mat was doubled (left) and quadrupled (right) on overlaps.  The uncured epoxy was very thick here probably causing accelerated curing.  I'll take extra care to remove excess epoxy in these areas next time.  

Lessons:

1)  Be smart about hanging the glass.  Keep overlaps to a minimum.  Mostly they ended up around 2 inches (5 cm) which is good.  There were some that were larger and these can be avoided.  Make sure the glass drapes.
2)  Make sure you have a quick and smooth method to measure and mix the epoxy.  Next time I'm going to use two people and two mixing stations with their own scale; one for the epoxy and one for the hardener.  Next to the hardener station I use an egg beater from a mixer set into the jaws of a small drill press set on a low speed.
3)  Apply epoxy with a standard 3/8" paint roller starting near where the glass is temporarily fastened.  Apply very liberally and keep the roller very wet until the area you are working on is saturated.  It will turn very nearly clear.  Then allow the roller to become 'dry' and go over your wet areas spreading the excess epoxy to new areas and pushing the glass against the plywood.  The cloth weave pattern should be very apparent and there should be no pooling of the epoxy.  If the epoxy pools, the cloth will 'float' off the plywood and leave a raised area.  It will require excess sanding and expose the cloth.
4)  Work the overlaps and edges with the laminate roller right after an area has been saturated.  Work the epoxy through the glass until the glass turns nearly clear.  Work edges until they lay flat.  It's tempting to staple the cloth around the edges but this will tend to also lift the glass off the edge because the glass does not like to make sharp corners.  Instead trim off as much as possible and let the glass lay straight down.  Curves can be handled in that fashion.  So if you need the glass to bend around a corner, make sure the corner has a good radius.
5)  If the epoxy is still tacky when you are finished or if you have enough man power, roll two to three layers of epoxy to completely fill the weave and a little extra.  Otherwise you will need to wash the cured epoxy with soap and water before you start the weave filling layers.  These layers go on just like paint.
6)  Trim all the edges with a sharp utility knife before the epoxy is completely cured.  It will be a lot easier and you can ensure that the edges are properly seated against the plywood.  If the epoxy is still tacky, you can always use a little fresh epoxy if the edge is being difficult about laying true.
7)  Take your time and do not panic.  Most mistakes can be fixed.  Check the weather forecast.  If it is going to be hot that day, choose another day or start very early in the morning.  Try to have fun.
 

April 2018

Yes it's been awhile since I have posted updates on the boat.  Mostly since little has been done.   I'm still trying to procure another drum of epoxy so that I can encapsulate the hull.  I thought I had this issue solved when West Marine discounted a 55 gallon drum of 5:1 MAS epoxy and the associated mini-drum of hardener 70% off retail price.   I did some quick research on the product and jumped on the deal and ordered.  Some things that I found out:  5:1 epoxy is chemically superior to 3:1 epoxy.  MAS epoxy has much reduced amine blush eliminating wash-down between coats.  MAS epoxy is 3:1 currently.  So what was the 5:1 MAS epoxy that West Marine had?  The only negative feedback I got in my search was that MAS did not provide a temperature/curing chart nor was technical support helpful on the subject.  Well, at that price I can do quite a bit of my own research.  Most people agreed that the product was effectively equivalent to West System epoxy.  So I thought no issues and I'll make sure that I keep the products separate.  A week later and I received the email that I was dreading about 5 minutes before I was about to call them.  The MAS kit was no longer available.  Now I'm screaming bait and switch so I give them a call.  To my surprise they were pretty helpful.  It turns out that when they went to retrieve the drum in South Carolina, it was no longer in a condition to sell and the product was disposed of.  This particular product from MAS is discontinued and no longer available.   Well, that is the story that they told me so I'll have to accept it.  This might explain the 5:1 and 3:1 discrepancy.  I hear that MAS is always tweaking their products and improving them unlike West System which is more reluctant to modify their main epoxy product.  Their are benefits to both approaches.  With MAS you get the latest and greatest, with West System you get a proven product with tons of information and testing.  Without a huge price savings, I'll stick with what I know and use West System.

This is the add online for the epoxy.  It still (as of April 4, 2018) says that there is one unit available.  The on negative feedback complains of the poor technical support in regard to temperature vs curing times.  They actually liked the product.  I'm not sure that deserves a one star rating.  

I'm still on track to purchase a drum of West System epoxy this Spring.  The boat will be encapsulated by the end of Spring.  That is my promise to myself.  West System drum is $3100, hardener another $1500 but I do not need to by 10 gallons of hardener, 5 gallons ($750) is probably all I need.  The money is being saved and I'll soon be there.  The MAS kit was $2000 for epoxy and hardener, it would have been nice to be able to spend that extra money elsewhere on the boat.

I looked and realized that I have not posted in quite awhile.  You can't go by the dates necessarily, because I sometimes post updates on topic to older dates as I did with the last post.  I'll try to keep you guys a bit better abreast to the progress in the months to come.

April 24, 2018

Well, I've managed to make the order.  In a few days, West Marine will call me and tell me that my order has been shipped to the store near Nashville, Tn.  This time I called ahead to make sure the product was available.  There are 8 drums in their warehouse.  Hopefully they are not all 'bad.'

This is the receipt for the order.  It's official.  Soon it will be time to resume building the dream.

Unfortunately, I still will need a little more fiberglass and a few more gallons of hardener to get the bottom done.  I'm thinking I should get slow hardener as I move into spring.  I'd rather have it set up a bit too slow than run-away cure while I'm applying.  You can see from the price, and that is just the epoxy with no hardener, how excited I was to find the above deal.  Too bad it went sour.  I looked up on West Marine's sale website and that deal is still there although it is only 60% off.  Well 100% off something not available is no deal.

April 27, 2018

Hey hey hey.  It's a special day for me and my wife.  And... West Marine called me from Nashville Tn.  The drum of epoxy is in.  I just have to drive up there and get it.  Hopefully that will happen on Sunday which, coincidentally, happens to be my birthday.  Happy birthday to me.

In Nashville tying that big drum of epoxy onto the trailer.  Actually had a truck, but it is a lot easier to slide that drum off a trailer than out of a truck.  That thing weighs quite a bit.

Yep, I'm happy I finally was able to get that drum.  Now to get back on the project.

My wife is excited too.  Might also be because she scored a new pair of sun glasses from West Marine.  A nice thank you for driving up to Nashville with me on my birthday to pick it up.  It's around a 2 hour drive.  Of course we had to stop in a Cinco de Mayo's to have a pitcher of their margaritas and some of their awesome fajitas.

I think there is a drum of epoxy following us!  Nice sun glasses babe.

May 2017

May 2017,

Yes, I skipped a month.  Not much went on during April.  Still trying to raise money for the next step which is encapsulating the hull.  I've done a bit of work on the appendage keel as you can see in the March page although some of that was performed in April.  It just didn't make sense to start another month with just an incremental improvement.

I have started to look at the Isuzu C240 diesel that I purchased.  I'm starting to tear it down and go through it checking all the parts as I go.  When I'm done, it will be a new engine.  I like this engine because it is simple, gear driven cam, its been around a long time and parts are relatively inexpensive.  I still need a "V" drive transmission though.

I've removed the Velvet drive transmission.  Looks like it could use some TLC.  It was suppose to have been a strong running engine when it was removed.  I'll keep you posted once I'm inside.  Keep you finger's crossed.

The engine exploded all over my work bench.  Well, not really.   Time to go through everything with a micrometer and see what is good and what goes in the garbage.  That was the hardest tear down I have ever performed.  That is one solid build motor.

Surprising, but all of the major components; cams, crank, etc. check out.

February 2017

February 27, 2017

I've been working hard on making the appendage keel for the boat.  The appendage keel is a triangular keel at the aft end of the hull where the rudder is attached.  It also provides directional and lateral stability as well as protection for the rudder.  I've chosen to build it up from laminations of 3/4" marine plywood.  Actually, I used scraps from cutting out the bulkheads and keel.  It took every scrap I had in the shop and managed to clean the shop at the same time.

The first step was to lay out the appendage keel on the work bench.  Gathering all the scrap 3/4" plywood I could find I ripped it to 4" width.  I cut and rough laid all the 4" strips within the outline on the workbench.  These are loosely laid so when I had filled my outline I clammed the entire assembly with 1" bar clamps.  I lost about 5 or 6 inches when I applied pressure via the clamps.  This shrunk the triangle.  I measured for additional pieced and added them where I thought would fill the triangle back out.  These steps were repeated until the entire appendage keel lay out was filled with wood under clamping pressure.

Lines were drawn at the boundaries of the appendage keel and down the middle.  All the pieces were numbered and I cut about an inch along one of the boundaries.  This helped me align the pieces when I glued them together.

I glued (West Epoxy) about 10 - 15 pieces at a time and made sure I had adequate clamping pressure. Ending up with a stack less than 12", I was able to run them through the portable planer and quickly clean up the sides when I was done.  It was also difficult to maintain the proper shape clamping more than a few pieces together.  After the first set, I used a pneumatic stapler to hold the pieces together.  Two in the middle and one on each end of the pieces.  This kept everything aligned without too much danger of the staples interfering in drilling holes and final shaping.  The 5 sections were then realigned once the epoxy was cured and the sides cleaned.  I used strips of wood to temporarily hold all the sections together.

All the sections held together by strips of wood.  

 Once I was happy with the lay out, I used the circular saw to cut the entire keel to shape.  It took two passes, one on each side.  I then marked where the two 1/2" stainless steel threaded rods would go and where the cut-out for the prop would be.

Notice the two faint lines where the threaded rods would be drilled and the cut-out on the left where the prop will go.  

Two half inch holes for the threaded rods will go from the bottom center to within 3/8" of the top and bottom edge.  A tricky drilling.  I actually got a little off in the last two sections and had to make some adjustments.   In the end, I was happy with the results.

This is the jig I built to guid the drill bit through all the pieces.  I only have a 24" drill bit so I will have to repeat this jig set-up a few times.  This is actually the second setting of the jig.  You can see that there are shims under the jig to hold it off the keel.  This maintains the angle but is appropriate for the holes that are progressively toward the side.

A close up of the jig.  I used aluminum blocks to guide the drill bit.  The shaft of the drill bit was narrower than the bore so there are two aluminum blocks on either side of the 2X6 with different holes.

The boring jig was securely screwed into the appendage keel before each bore.

All together with the threaded rod in place and everything tightened up.  It worked!  

 The next step is to cut a cove into the edge that will receive the rudder.  The rudder thickness at the appendage keel will be 3 3/4" so I will make the cove with a 2" radius.  This will give me 1/4" between the appendage keel and the rudder for a smooth flow of water over the rudder.

I've attached a 2X6 along the edge that will receive the cove.  This will allow me to attach a fence to guide the circular saw.  I also added a brace to steady the keel.  This piece weighs a few hundred pounds and I do not want it falling over especially while I'm working on it.

You can see the fence an a few of the initial cuts.

This view is a little better.  You can see the cove marked on the foot of the keel.  Also not that I recessed the appendage keel bolts and provided a smooth surface normal to the bolts so the washers and nuts would sit tight.

Just about finished with the rough cutting.

Time to knock out the rough stuff.

All the rough stuff is knocked out. The next step is to cut out a bit of the upper section where the prop will eventually go.  I have not worked these details out so I'm leaving myself plenty of room. I do want to cut out a bit though so I can clean the cove up with a cove plane and be able to slide the plane all the way through the cove.  The plane I'm using is actually an antique wood plane use to made molding.  They are very cheap but extremely versatile.  Because they are readily available (and cheap) you don't feel bad about modifying them to suit your work which I did a bit to the ones I used.

Plane work is done.  Wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination. 

60 grit sandpaper glued to a 3" schedule 40 PVC pipe cut to the length of a sheet of sand paper cleaned this cove up with quite a bit of elbow grease.  I sanded until all the score marks from the circular saw were removed.  I then followed with 100 grit sand paper on the same PVC.

The next step will be to radius the forward edge.  I'll end up with a 1" radius at the leading edge.  Then I'll smoothly take the 2" thickness to the full 4" over 4 or 5 inches.  I'm also contemplating glueing a few of the sections together so that I have only 3 easily managed sections.  The top two section will have the drive shaft tube bored through them.  I'll glue the last three sections together as I mount them on the hull.  It will be nice having a relatively light section to handle when I prepare the bottom of the hull for attachment of the appendage keel.  

Now it's time to flip it over and radius the forward section.  Once flipped and secured, I drew reference lines to help guide the work.  One centerline along the edge.  Two more lines 1" to either side of the center line.  This would be my minimum 1" radius although I'm not going for circular.  The last two lines are 5" from the end and draw on the sides.  These help guide the where the taper ends.  There were a few staples that needed pulling so I would not dull my tools.  These took a bit of digging out. Apparently I was not as careful as I though I was when assembling the piece.  No worries, the fasteners only needed to hold till the epoxy cured.  I then just radiused the end with a power planer making sure to mirror my movements on both sides.  I worked slowly till I had a pleasing radius even along the entire side and cleaned it up with a belt sander using 60 grit paper.  When happy, I chose a side and made a template of half of the radius with a piece of plywood.  I used this template to make sure that the radius was even all along the edge and the same on both sides.  I was very pleased that there was little finishing work to perform to make the end fare and even.  Actually I was quite surprised.

Checking the radius with the template.  A centerline is marked on the template and aligned with the centerline (barely visible do to sanding) on the edge.  This is critical because if the template is not plumb with the work, you will not have the correct shape.

After finishing the radius off with the belt sander, first using 60 grit and then 100 grit, I've redrawn the centerline that I came close to sanding completely off.  I just wanted to retain the reference line in case I make modifications.  Also, looking at the line gives my a nice feeling that everything is even and straight.  

A side view showing the progress.  

All the power planing was followed up with 60 grit sandpaper on the belt sander and then 100 grit.  The entire piece will be finished this way once I've mounted it on the hull and cut out the section for the prop.

Getting close to being done.  I've cut out for the prop and shaped everything for smooth laminar flow.  Now I'm just doing a little filling with epoxy so that everything is smooth.

January 2017

January 3,

I measured how much epoxy I have left and have decided that there is not enough to ensure full saturation of the cloth for even one side.  I'll have to save up my pennies and purchase another drum of epoxy.  I don't expect to have that kind of money for some time so in the mean time I'm choosing projects that can be accomplished with little or no money.  One big one is the construction of the skeg keel appendage.  I'm making the skeg out of laminations of 3/4" Meranti plywood ripped to 4 inch widths.  This will produce a strong and stable appendage.  I've been cleaning out the boat shop so naturally I have a large collection of scrap plywood from the bulkheads and keel stump construction.  I used every scrap I had and was able to collect enough for the entire skeg.  Keep your scrap, you never know what it might be useful for.  Now comes the task of lamination.  I've dry laid the entire skeg and bar clammed it together.  I lost 3 inches in the clamping process.  This means, I'll have to lay up the laminations in sections compensating for the lost length due to clamping as I go.  I figured as much and have a few extra pieces of lamination for that purpose.

I've detailed this process in the February section.