A skiff
- Thread starter cracked_ribs
- Start date
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
When I flip the hull I'll see if I can fill it with all four (!) we have now...man, that would be chaos
Dorman Point
Well-Known Member
She’s going to smash a head sea with that stem and keel.Squaring off chines, blending surfaces, cutting rub rails.
I just cut some poster board into strips and mashed it up against the wall of epoxy to use as a dam. It's quick and easy and keeps the epoxy in place until it kicks. I know a lot of guys clamp boards with packing tape against the hull to achieve this effect but this is a quick and dirty version and it'll all be sanded so I don't bother with anything fancier.
Here's one after I peeled off most of the poster paper, which took about 15 seconds:
The rest will get sanded off at some point, which will take about a minute.
Here's my beloved Hitachi worm drive with a block clamped to it so I can make 1 3/4" strips off the hull ply remainder. More bedroom work, which always makes me smile.
And a stack of rubrails and inwales on the hull.
About the only other stuff going on is me blending in the chines and the stem to smooth that all out. Still a ways to go there and the pics don't really look like anything.
Off to the cabin on the island for a bit; may not be any updates for a little while. First trip there since my kid learned to walk; should be interesting. I will have to figure out a way to keep him away from the wood stove.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
That's my hope; I'm trying to offset the light weight and shallow V by exploiting a bit of unconventional bow geometry. If I can keep the bow in the water at speed I think it'll run fairly smooth for a light boat without much deadrise.
I'm hoping the full length keel will keep me pretty straight in a following sea but it's a tradeoff. There'll be times when I'll have to park it on the back of a wave, or make sure not to get overtaken and slung around. But that's rare enough on the inside here that I think I'm good with it. If that little motor will push her to 20 knots it'll be worth it: Ladysmith to Thrasher and back on five bucks or whatever. Say ten. Now that'd be a nice change.
I'm hoping the full length keel will keep me pretty straight in a following sea but it's a tradeoff. There'll be times when I'll have to park it on the back of a wave, or make sure not to get overtaken and slung around. But that's rare enough on the inside here that I think I'm good with it. If that little motor will push her to 20 knots it'll be worth it: Ladysmith to Thrasher and back on five bucks or whatever. Say ten. Now that'd be a nice change.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Well, as I used to occasionally shout after a short breather between songs back when I was the singer for a hardcore band...enough rest, it's runtime.
I spent a bit of time up at my cabin, just unwinding. The kid, who's about to turn one, was pretty into the whole experience. I think this is the first time he's really grasped that we were in a house, that's different than our usual house. Previously he got really blown away by the forest but now he's starting to get used to it.
Anyway one handy gadget I was very excited to get and try out was this pair of bluetooth-enabled ear pro.
I'm a frequent listener of podcasts and now I can lean on a sander while listening to something interesting...really relieves the boredom of power tool usage.
Other than that it's just pictures of incremental sanding progress:
Chines are squared up, couple of voids to fill but nothing too dire.
Oh, test fitting rub rails:
The side lighting makes all the surfaces look really rough, but they aren't, particularly. Better get a skim coat of filler on there so I don't look like I'm making a mess of it.
I spent a bit of time up at my cabin, just unwinding. The kid, who's about to turn one, was pretty into the whole experience. I think this is the first time he's really grasped that we were in a house, that's different than our usual house. Previously he got really blown away by the forest but now he's starting to get used to it.
Anyway one handy gadget I was very excited to get and try out was this pair of bluetooth-enabled ear pro.
I'm a frequent listener of podcasts and now I can lean on a sander while listening to something interesting...really relieves the boredom of power tool usage.
Other than that it's just pictures of incremental sanding progress:
Chines are squared up, couple of voids to fill but nothing too dire.
Oh, test fitting rub rails:
The side lighting makes all the surfaces look really rough, but they aren't, particularly. Better get a skim coat of filler on there so I don't look like I'm making a mess of it.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
I got sick of looking at the rough spots towards the bow so those got some fairing; I also got to work on the rub rails and spray rails. Now I'm starting to think the whole thing is coming together.
The screws are temporary, of course...they'll be removed and everything will be held together with epoxy.
The rubrails need to be extended right to the transom as well, but that last section is almost straight; I can knock that off pretty easily. The forward 3/4 or so was the part that actually benefited from rails cut to fit the sheerline. The rubrails are 2 layers of 1/4" meranti plywood; the spray rails are meranti 1x2s cut in half. They probably aren't necessary with the reverse chine, but on the off chance I end up with a nice paint job, I thought it'd be nice to have some semi-sacrificial rails for the fenders to go bouncing off rather than the paint. The utility of them would be pretty dependent on me actually doing a good job on the paint, though, so probably a waste of effort.
But I have spent so much time in my big boat tethered to docks loading and unloading that I figured what the hell. Also, maybe I'll manage to get a decent finish on the rails and they'll look nice. It goes with the classic lines, I think.
The screws are temporary, of course...they'll be removed and everything will be held together with epoxy.
The rubrails need to be extended right to the transom as well, but that last section is almost straight; I can knock that off pretty easily. The forward 3/4 or so was the part that actually benefited from rails cut to fit the sheerline. The rubrails are 2 layers of 1/4" meranti plywood; the spray rails are meranti 1x2s cut in half. They probably aren't necessary with the reverse chine, but on the off chance I end up with a nice paint job, I thought it'd be nice to have some semi-sacrificial rails for the fenders to go bouncing off rather than the paint. The utility of them would be pretty dependent on me actually doing a good job on the paint, though, so probably a waste of effort.
But I have spent so much time in my big boat tethered to docks loading and unloading that I figured what the hell. Also, maybe I'll manage to get a decent finish on the rails and they'll look nice. It goes with the classic lines, I think.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Quite busy at the moment but the screws are all out and the clamps are off; the various rails are now permanently attached.
I believe this is the first time I've gotten the boat in one picture, although of course the angle and the shorter focal length necessary to get this picture do distort it a bit.
I believe this is the first time I've gotten the boat in one picture, although of course the angle and the shorter focal length necessary to get this picture do distort it a bit.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Thanks very much - I do like them just a tiny bit on the curvy side.
Dorman Point
Well-Known Member
Sweet sheer line...
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys - yeah the prow is maybe a little overdone, but it's easier to trim down than build up so I went with the max I thought I'd want, and I can shape it a bit after she's flipped and have more of a sense of the overall look.
I have to say I am pretty happy with how the sheer came out, that has a pretty graceful curve to it. I worked hard trying to get that and I think it came out pretty well.
I have to say I am pretty happy with how the sheer came out, that has a pretty graceful curve to it. I worked hard trying to get that and I think it came out pretty well.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
All right, I finally have a somewhat photogenic update.
I'm working on ensmoothenating the hull...it's actually fairing out pretty fast.
Fairing pics are always super boring though and I won't go to far into that. I am laying down my own mix of epoxy and a combination of wood flour, fumed silica, talc, and phenolic microballons. The talc really smooths out the mix. It's not the easiest thing to sand so as I go in layers, it'll get progressively more microballoons, and less of the rest. I like wood flour because of the microscopic shape of the particles, and the ability of the epoxy to get right into the cellulose. That stuff is amazing. I like the talc because it makes for such a smooth mix, and having a bucket around means I can dust my forearms and hands before I start glassing anything, and I don't really get itchy. Plus gloves go on really easily.
At any rate the fairing process is starting to move along a little quicker now. Somewhere I should still have some powdered carbon from my last boat so I'll see if I can find that for guide coating, and then I'll be rolling on the fairing in a serious way.
What else?
The great saga of the hammer drill finally ended...note hard reference for trigger finger; laying alongside the frame is of course just asking for trouble.
I think I ordered that back in October. Anyway I chucked a wire wheel in to it, after soaking it in acetone for a bit to make sure it didn't have any contaminants in it, and I use it on sections of epoxy that are cured, but have too much texture to sand. It roughs them right up and allows for a good bonding surface, although I was chatting up a local plastics supplier who formulate their own epoxy, among other things, and they thought I was mostly wasting my time and said that unless the cured epoxy was absolute glass, subsequent layers would stick to it really well. I don't know anything on the subject but what I read on the internet, so I'm not taking chances.
The fun stuff this weekend though was all motor stuff.
I spotted a local guy selling a motor I immediately wanted for a kicker: a 1967 Evinrude 3hp. They're cool motors, with a main jet screw dial right on the front, and a lean-rich idle screw as well, so a really tuneable machine, on the fly. The guy wanted $200 but when I showed up to see it, he flooded the hell out of it and couldn't get it going. I still wanted it and after chatting with him for a bit I was pretty confident he wasn't trying to unload a wreck, so I said forget getting it running, I'll take it. He was happy I didn't stand there and make him sort it out, so he threw in a 3 gallon Moeller tank with an OMC fitting, plus a brand new hose. For $200 CAD I think that's a hell of a deal.
While all this was going on, we were talking about the project I'm working on, and how I like building boats, and he said hey, I might have something you'd be interested in...I was just going to hang it on my wall, but you sound like the type to get it working again. Somebody took the carb apart and lost it and I figure it's just but maybe to you, it's salvageable? I'm not great with engines so I was just going to clean it up and hang it like art.
He goes and grabs this Gamefisher 1.2 out of a shed and says "if you want it, it's yours, might never run again but I don't know. It ran at one time, I had it on a canoe, but I don't know how to fix that stuff."
If you've never seen one of these, this is how small it is:
I'm holding it in one hand at arm's length to take a picture of it. If there's another gas outboard you can hold in your hand like that, I've never seen it! I don't know what it weighs, practically nothing. Twelve or fifteen pounds? Nothing. The 3hp is about twenty five or thirty pounds, I'd guess.
So that was my Saturday, going and picking up these two motors. I took the wife and kid and made most of a day out of it; the guy was about an hour away and there's a couple of cool stores near him so we went to a park and let my one-year-old run around, he's just learning to manage walking and running on rough ground, and went shopping, and came home with a couple of engines.
Sunday I had a bunch of stuff to do but around 1pm I freed up for a bit so I set the new motors on my beater motor stand. Mostly I just wanted to make sure the Evinrude really ran.
[video=youtube_share;qwaCr4MkL6Y]
Yeah, two minutes of effort there and off she went. I love how smoothly she runs up and down the RPM range...this will be a killer trolling and get-home motor. And with a separate tank and hose...not many mechanical problems that take out the main will sideline the kicker, so that's awesome. I lifted her off the stand, and put her away for the time being. By this time I was curious to take a look at the Gamefisher; I've never seen one up close before. I pulled off the cowling and started checking the usual stuff.
The noise of the 3hp attracted this old guy from across the alley. He often shows up to give unsolicited, terrible advice. When I was moving my big boat into the back yard, he kept coming out and walking behind it and then telling me I was coming at it from the wrong direction. He thinks that because a previous owner had a big boat in the back yard, a 32' commercial salmon boat. I know the boat, it was built in a shipyard down in Sidney, BC, about thirty years ago. I saw it on Google's original streetview image from the alley. It was up against the west wall of what is now my back yard.
Consequently, they hauled it out going east, because obviously they couldn't cut the corner around the west wall, which is my neighbour's garage. The alley is actually narrower east of my house, but still, based on the location of the boat, that was the only way to get it out.
The guy from across the alley always tells me you can't get the boat out going west, you have to go east. I get my boat out going west because I don't park it where the salmon troller used to park, there's a garden there now. But no telling this guy, he's resolute that the thing I do regularly can't be done.
Anyway the guy hears the Evinrude and I guess it spurs him into action. He comes out and sees me working on the Gamefisher. This is the best recollection I have of the conversation.
"Can't start her, eh?"
"No idea; she's been sitting for a long time. I just started looking at her now."
"She's probably seized at her age."
"I suspect not."
"Oh I seen it before, that's how they go. She's garbage, me son, you paid good money for garbage."
"Seems to spin okay."
"Seized up like she were welded in place."
"Uh huh."
"I'm only saying so's you don't throw good money after bad. I seen it many time afore, but your generation never seen a machine and you don't know what you're seeing."
"Seized up, huh?"
"Sure as the day you were born, me son. S'only sad you couldn't see her before you spent the money."
This is what I was doing while he was talking:
[video=youtube_share;-sQ29umM-34]
Anyway I mucked around with her for about forty minutes. Needs a good carb clean but she'll do fine. I'll get some non-marring pads or something and clamp her on the back of my wooden dinghy from 2018 and use her to cruise around when there's no wind.
[video=youtube_share;56zdLkOeDY4]
I apologize for the sparse updates recently - fairing pictures suck and I've been short on time. But I think this rather large update somewhat makes up for it. Or I hope so, anyway.
I'm working on ensmoothenating the hull...it's actually fairing out pretty fast.
Fairing pics are always super boring though and I won't go to far into that. I am laying down my own mix of epoxy and a combination of wood flour, fumed silica, talc, and phenolic microballons. The talc really smooths out the mix. It's not the easiest thing to sand so as I go in layers, it'll get progressively more microballoons, and less of the rest. I like wood flour because of the microscopic shape of the particles, and the ability of the epoxy to get right into the cellulose. That stuff is amazing. I like the talc because it makes for such a smooth mix, and having a bucket around means I can dust my forearms and hands before I start glassing anything, and I don't really get itchy. Plus gloves go on really easily.
At any rate the fairing process is starting to move along a little quicker now. Somewhere I should still have some powdered carbon from my last boat so I'll see if I can find that for guide coating, and then I'll be rolling on the fairing in a serious way.
What else?
The great saga of the hammer drill finally ended...note hard reference for trigger finger; laying alongside the frame is of course just asking for trouble.
I think I ordered that back in October. Anyway I chucked a wire wheel in to it, after soaking it in acetone for a bit to make sure it didn't have any contaminants in it, and I use it on sections of epoxy that are cured, but have too much texture to sand. It roughs them right up and allows for a good bonding surface, although I was chatting up a local plastics supplier who formulate their own epoxy, among other things, and they thought I was mostly wasting my time and said that unless the cured epoxy was absolute glass, subsequent layers would stick to it really well. I don't know anything on the subject but what I read on the internet, so I'm not taking chances.
The fun stuff this weekend though was all motor stuff.
I spotted a local guy selling a motor I immediately wanted for a kicker: a 1967 Evinrude 3hp. They're cool motors, with a main jet screw dial right on the front, and a lean-rich idle screw as well, so a really tuneable machine, on the fly. The guy wanted $200 but when I showed up to see it, he flooded the hell out of it and couldn't get it going. I still wanted it and after chatting with him for a bit I was pretty confident he wasn't trying to unload a wreck, so I said forget getting it running, I'll take it. He was happy I didn't stand there and make him sort it out, so he threw in a 3 gallon Moeller tank with an OMC fitting, plus a brand new hose. For $200 CAD I think that's a hell of a deal.
While all this was going on, we were talking about the project I'm working on, and how I like building boats, and he said hey, I might have something you'd be interested in...I was just going to hang it on my wall, but you sound like the type to get it working again. Somebody took the carb apart and lost it and I figure it's just but maybe to you, it's salvageable? I'm not great with engines so I was just going to clean it up and hang it like art.
He goes and grabs this Gamefisher 1.2 out of a shed and says "if you want it, it's yours, might never run again but I don't know. It ran at one time, I had it on a canoe, but I don't know how to fix that stuff."
If you've never seen one of these, this is how small it is:
I'm holding it in one hand at arm's length to take a picture of it. If there's another gas outboard you can hold in your hand like that, I've never seen it! I don't know what it weighs, practically nothing. Twelve or fifteen pounds? Nothing. The 3hp is about twenty five or thirty pounds, I'd guess.
So that was my Saturday, going and picking up these two motors. I took the wife and kid and made most of a day out of it; the guy was about an hour away and there's a couple of cool stores near him so we went to a park and let my one-year-old run around, he's just learning to manage walking and running on rough ground, and went shopping, and came home with a couple of engines.
Sunday I had a bunch of stuff to do but around 1pm I freed up for a bit so I set the new motors on my beater motor stand. Mostly I just wanted to make sure the Evinrude really ran.
[video=youtube_share;qwaCr4MkL6Y]
Yeah, two minutes of effort there and off she went. I love how smoothly she runs up and down the RPM range...this will be a killer trolling and get-home motor. And with a separate tank and hose...not many mechanical problems that take out the main will sideline the kicker, so that's awesome. I lifted her off the stand, and put her away for the time being. By this time I was curious to take a look at the Gamefisher; I've never seen one up close before. I pulled off the cowling and started checking the usual stuff.
The noise of the 3hp attracted this old guy from across the alley. He often shows up to give unsolicited, terrible advice. When I was moving my big boat into the back yard, he kept coming out and walking behind it and then telling me I was coming at it from the wrong direction. He thinks that because a previous owner had a big boat in the back yard, a 32' commercial salmon boat. I know the boat, it was built in a shipyard down in Sidney, BC, about thirty years ago. I saw it on Google's original streetview image from the alley. It was up against the west wall of what is now my back yard.
Consequently, they hauled it out going east, because obviously they couldn't cut the corner around the west wall, which is my neighbour's garage. The alley is actually narrower east of my house, but still, based on the location of the boat, that was the only way to get it out.
The guy from across the alley always tells me you can't get the boat out going west, you have to go east. I get my boat out going west because I don't park it where the salmon troller used to park, there's a garden there now. But no telling this guy, he's resolute that the thing I do regularly can't be done.
Anyway the guy hears the Evinrude and I guess it spurs him into action. He comes out and sees me working on the Gamefisher. This is the best recollection I have of the conversation.
"Can't start her, eh?"
"No idea; she's been sitting for a long time. I just started looking at her now."
"She's probably seized at her age."
"I suspect not."
"Oh I seen it before, that's how they go. She's garbage, me son, you paid good money for garbage."
"Seems to spin okay."
"Seized up like she were welded in place."
"Uh huh."
"I'm only saying so's you don't throw good money after bad. I seen it many time afore, but your generation never seen a machine and you don't know what you're seeing."
"Seized up, huh?"
"Sure as the day you were born, me son. S'only sad you couldn't see her before you spent the money."
This is what I was doing while he was talking:
[video=youtube_share;-sQ29umM-34]
Anyway I mucked around with her for about forty minutes. Needs a good carb clean but she'll do fine. I'll get some non-marring pads or something and clamp her on the back of my wooden dinghy from 2018 and use her to cruise around when there's no wind.
[video=youtube_share;56zdLkOeDY4]
I apologize for the sparse updates recently - fairing pictures suck and I've been short on time. But I think this rather large update somewhat makes up for it. Or I hope so, anyway.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
I believe he is, or maybe born in Ireland but here for a long time; I have a hard time telling those accents apart.
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
The updates are coming a little more slowly right now but it's not that I'm not working on the boat; I continue to put in about ten hours each week which is around what I've been doing since the beginning. But now everything is slow and not very easy to photograph in an interesting way.
Some of it just feels repetitive but of course that's boatbuilding.
I taped down the reverse chines just for extra wear resistance, and then I slopped on a couple of layers of what I call hard mix: fumed silica, milled glass, and talc. It's extremely hard when cured so six ounce weave and two layers of hard mix should make for pretty tough chines. I squared up those edges with my usual poster board strips.
I was a little worried the skeg or keel hadn't stayed quite straight enough when I was weighting it down so I hit it with the laser level to make sure. I ended up sanding it in a couple of spots with the long board, and putting a little wood flour mix on the on the opposite sides.
Now I'm happy with it.
Then I worked on saturating the spray rails with epoxy, and getting good fillets on them.
Since I had the laser out, I marked out the rough horizontal from the chine line. In reality it'll sit lower at the stern than that, I just want a reference mark for about where I'll graphite the hull.
Other than that, its just fairing. But it's getting close. To be honest, it doesn't need a ton of fairing; I have to say that I'm quite happy with the way the glass lay down. You can see I haven't put much compound on, but so far, most of it is relatively fair and it's smoothing out nicely.
Some of it just feels repetitive but of course that's boatbuilding.
I taped down the reverse chines just for extra wear resistance, and then I slopped on a couple of layers of what I call hard mix: fumed silica, milled glass, and talc. It's extremely hard when cured so six ounce weave and two layers of hard mix should make for pretty tough chines. I squared up those edges with my usual poster board strips.
I was a little worried the skeg or keel hadn't stayed quite straight enough when I was weighting it down so I hit it with the laser level to make sure. I ended up sanding it in a couple of spots with the long board, and putting a little wood flour mix on the on the opposite sides.
Now I'm happy with it.
Then I worked on saturating the spray rails with epoxy, and getting good fillets on them.
Since I had the laser out, I marked out the rough horizontal from the chine line. In reality it'll sit lower at the stern than that, I just want a reference mark for about where I'll graphite the hull.
Other than that, its just fairing. But it's getting close. To be honest, it doesn't need a ton of fairing; I have to say that I'm quite happy with the way the glass lay down. You can see I haven't put much compound on, but so far, most of it is relatively fair and it's smoothing out nicely.
fishin solo
Crew Member
Very impressive look forward to seeing the end result. Nice work
cracked_ribs
Well-Known Member
Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far.
I'm using the longboard basically to mark the highs; I have a super aggressive one that's about 36" x 4", and just a flat piece of hardwood with 36 grit on it. It rips material off, but you have to watch it or it'll eat through glass. It's great for the running surface, you can really flatten it, but you can see on the curved sections in a couple of pics I basically just use it to scratch stuff up so I know it's fair, and do most of the actual sanding with a RO sander.
I'm about to switch to a slightly less brutal longboard, 17" and a little flex. That'll make the forward areas a lot easier to deal with. But the big nasty longboard sure lets you know when things aren't aligned correctly, that's for sure.
I'm using the longboard basically to mark the highs; I have a super aggressive one that's about 36" x 4", and just a flat piece of hardwood with 36 grit on it. It rips material off, but you have to watch it or it'll eat through glass. It's great for the running surface, you can really flatten it, but you can see on the curved sections in a couple of pics I basically just use it to scratch stuff up so I know it's fair, and do most of the actual sanding with a RO sander.
I'm about to switch to a slightly less brutal longboard, 17" and a little flex. That'll make the forward areas a lot easier to deal with. But the big nasty longboard sure lets you know when things aren't aligned correctly, that's for sure.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
is all your woodworking skills self taught or did you get some formal training from someone?
