GV10 - Fast Garvey 10 - Waiting to fish in Salt Lake

[Spcmnspff]

This is my first build. I really like the support from Bateau given the forums and resources provided to the builder. This ultimately led to my decision to buy the plans from this site.

I needed a boat that I could car top. Our family vehicle is a GMC Yukon XL so we have a little extra room on top. The S.O. wants a pop-up camper soon, so I needed an alternative way to transport the boat given the fact that the hitch will be taken. Another factor is weight - hence the GV10 and not the GV11 and budget is somewhat of a concern as well.

Fortunately, Salt lake has a local macbeath's hardwood retail outlet. I called them first and figured it would cost $200 in plywood using aquatek 6566. I spent 3 weeks trying to find a cheaper source of acceptable alternatives with no luck. Actually their current prices for 1/4" at 43.00 are comparable to ultraply XL, which I cant find in salt lake anyway. There really isn't much savings using that stuff compared to the quality difference with true marine grade ply. I'm not saying quality boats cant be built out of ultraply (heh I read those posts too) - just that at 30 - 40 bucks a sheet anyway, why not use aquatek? - Provided you have a local source of course.

While looking at the nesting for the plywood cuts I did notice that sheet four is mostly structural. I.e. the transom, thwarts and frames are cut from the 3/8" ply and the hull and bow transom are cut from the 1/4". I decided to use 3/8" AC doug-fir for this sheet and use the 1/4" aquatek sourced from macbeath's for the hull. That saved me about 50 bucks. We'll see if I regret this decision later on.

So week 1: Made the cuts in the plywood leaving frame 3 for later. It just seemed I didn't need it to form the hull and I could check measurements before cutting when needed. The aquatek meranti I have is pretty good stuff. I read the blog on bateau about the quality of their aquatek being hit or miss. This one has good, clear faces, 5 plys and absolutely no voids. The only issue seems to be this stuff likes to check a little on cross cuts. All the seams will be taped and filleted anyway. I don't see this as a problem just yet.

Here's a pic of the stamp that came on the aquatek:


This is washed out a little. The stamp says "Marine Ply. Dragon. Aquatek 6566"

Here's all the cuts laid out:


After the first couple of days of back ache I decided I needed saw horses. I built some knockdown ones for about 18 bucks worth of 1x4 furring strip from the local box store and some decking screws I had on hand. Here's all the pieces up off the floor and laid out on the saw horses:


Total time of actual build thus far is about 15 hours.
Planning and research is about 4 weeks. Haha.

Up next: gluing the frames and the hull together. I'm waiting on 6 oz woven fiberglass tape coming by mail.

[wadestep]

Good to see another GV10 in the works - looks like we're about the same stage of the build. Good luck! I understane your desire to use the sawhorses - I limped in to work today after spending so much time bending and kneeling this weekend.
wade

[Spcmnspff]

Thanks, Wade. Fiberglass shows up today. I have cabosil and I'm picking up wood flour at lunch. Lets see how far along I am by the weekend.

[scoperk11]

I got the same wood as you and paid 70-85 for it! Nice cutouts so far though you'll be excited to stitch her together. I like the idea for the sawhorses too, I wish I made made mine knockdown.

[Spcmnspff]

Thanls scoperk. After browsing over your gallery, I can only hope that my project turns out as nice as yours. =D

Ok so I made some progress wednesday night and then after work today. Also this is now a collaborative project. As I was applying some filled epoxy to the hull seams Wednesday night, the wife stopped by the garage, informed me that I was doing it wrong and taking too much time, took the kit from me and glued the seams in no time. Haha! It turns out that cooking skills are applicable in boat building! So the remainder of the night I was relegated to mixing the epoxy while she wet out the cloth and built the splices. We worked well as a team and by night’s end we had the first sides of the hull and frames done.



Now here’s where inexperience becomes a factor, heh:

For one working in the Utah spring weather meant that temperatures began to fall as night set in. The ambient temperatures fell from about 68 degreess down to 45 and then maybe even cooler. I did not store the epoxy indoors which surely would have helped. So the viscosity of this stuff went from thick to really thick as time went on.

Now I found a great deal on this epoxy from a local guy who buys it in bulk. But this is generic epoxy, specifically it is unmodified diglycidyl ether of Bisphenol A. I decided to buy 1 gallon of this stuff before committing to the whole 3 gallons required for the build. Here’s my assessment. This stuff is THICK - without factoring in the cold weather! It sets up fast, except for working in cooler temps perhaps. And while maybe a little unwieldy it will laminate 6 oz e-glass with a little work. The upside being that it sets up STRONG. It accepts filler well and will probably make awesome fillets. There is supposed to be some blushing but I didn’t find any. The Utah climate is really dry so maybe it isn’t a factor here.

And finally I forgot or neglected to squeegie out any air bubbles between the top sheet of plastic and the work beneath it. So here’s the whole sandwich: On the bottom we laid down 2 mill plastic sheet, then we presoaked the areas with unfilled epoxy, glued the seams with filled epoxy, presoaked then laid out 2 layers of tape – 4 inch wide with a 1 inch offset on either side of the seam, then another sheet of plastic, then a board and a weight. The top sheet of plastic introduced air into the equation. Fortunately the mix was set up enough at this time that it did not get down into the cloth. But this did leave craters in the surface of the epoxy where air bubbles were underneath the plastic. In the floor of these craters, the cloth was still completely encapsulated in epoxy.

So the combination of forgetting to squeeggie and a super thick coat of viscous epoxy meant I came up with thick, wavy, ugly wields. Well – live and learn Haha. Looks like extra time faring the hull is in the forecast.

So Today I bought an orbital sander and sanded out the peaks and removed most of the cavities without getting down to the cloth. Now I’m considering finishing the frames tomorrow by taping the other sides, letting that cure and stitching the hull without taping the other side of the hull panels until after the frame is together. My thinking is that the cooler temps may have caused the epoxy to setup somewhat brittle. Also the thicker layers of epoxy may inhibit the flexibility of the panels if both sides where fully laminated with 2 pieces of tape. I did a sag test with one of the chine panels picking it up at the front and allowing the weight aft and torque to bend and stress it at the seam. This bent the panel almost to the point where it will need to be for the hull. It seems it’s both strong and flexible at this point. Can anyone tell me why this is a bad idea?

[Spcmnspff]

Okay so apparently my whole issue this week has been related to weather. Today it was 77 F and my mixed epoxy was the consistency of olive oil. Also I decided to go ahead and tape the other side of the hull pieces while I taped the back side of the frames. I can stitch the boat sometime next week. I gave up on the top layer of plastic and weight after the first one today. It took about 20 minutes getting the plastic sheet to flush out without any bubbles. I figure I can afford to fair this out later. All in all - not bad work today. It went really quick. Guess I had pay my epoxy dues. Haha. This stuff is actually pretty good. The guy that sold it to me is some professional epoxy chemist. He gave me a couple of samples of odds and ends he had lying around too. I might play around with them while the other stuff is curing.

[Cracker Larry]

I've never had any luck with the plastic. It makes more work than it saves IMO.

Epoxy needs to be at least 65 or 70 before it's happy. If it's colder than that, put the jugs in hot water and warm them up

Boat is looking good. It takes a little practice.

[AtTheBrink]

Just a quick tip. It looks like you are using a bit too much epoxy on your cloth. You just need to wet the fiberglass, no pooling of the resin, you are tryingbto get a 50/50 glass to resin ratio. More resin make for a weaker end product and more work sanding and fairing. I try to pull all the excess resin that I can out of the glass. Hope this helps.

[Spcmnspff]

Thanks Mike, I appreciate the pointer. It's ironic. I was just reading some guy's blog on how he glasses wooden boats and came to that same conclusion myself when he began to talk about "filler" coats, wet on wet, after wetting out. I think I am ok going forward with this. But I will keep this in mind when taping the fillets and glassing the bottom of the hull.

[wadestep]

I've got a question for you: Why are you using two layers of tape for the splicing of the hull joints? I don't have my plans in front of me, but I only used 1 piece of 6-oz woven tape on each side of the joint. It was plenty strong enough to bend the panels to shape. The way you're doing it certainly is fine, but maybe excessive. On the other hand, I am covering the boat with another layer of 6-oz glass, effectivly doubling the tape seams where the hull panels are butted together. If I remember correctly, only the joint between the 2 halves of the frames and also the keel needed to have 2 layers of tape. I could be wrong.