FS14 from Seattle

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craigyb
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FS14 from Seattle

Post by craigyb »

Hey all, I'm Craig in Seattle. I've been kayaking around the sound a bit over the last few years and decided it's time for something a bit bigger for crabbing and general fishing. My son's getting close to college and I'd like to spend a bit of quality time out on the water with him before he goes away.

I'm new to boatbuilding but not new to making stuff. I don't have a full garage, so inside my little kitchen I have a few 3d printers, a CNC router, and a 40w CO2 laser cutter. I do 3d modeling and find myself using the 3d printers more than anything else. One of the things I learned to do to finish off a 3d print is to apply epoxy resin - it removes the striations between lines in the print and gives it a bit of durability due to surface tension, so I do have about a quart's worth of epoxy resin experience at least.

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After a minor shipping issue I ended up with the FS14 CNC cut kit at my house. As I mentioned before, I have a CNC router, but the cutting envelope on it is just to small to do anything this large. Pricing out quality marine plywood locally, it seemed to make financial and free-time sense to buy the routed kit and have it shipped. I opened up the kit and carefully laid out each panel, jigsaw cut the tabs out, and got to work lining up workpieces to epoxy while I sanded down the rest of the tabs.

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As I mentioned, I don't have garage space. Having spent a bit of time mulling over the boat-in-a-box instructions and some of the builds here, I decided it seems more important to have the jig flat and square with the molds than to have it on a perfectly level work surface. The only caveat is that I'd need to figure out how to prop up the jigsaw cuts and the butt joined stringer pieces.

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I'm hoping there's no issues layering work like this. There's no undue stress on either side of the lengths of wood and the amount of pressure I have on there is keeping everything nice and flat.

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The stringers are setting up in the kitchen on my rollaround stainless steel work surface. It took exactly six pumps of epoxy and three pumps of hardener from the metering nozzles to do all of this with no waste. I didn't figure that out before hand, it just ended up that way after epoxying up the puzzle cut pieces, wetting the buttblock area, and then mixing in the wood filler for the butt blocks.

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I think I may have applied too much pressure using clamps on one stringer, if so I may have to figure out how to recover. I slid the butt block off while it was still wet and added a bit more but a lot of it squeezed out afterwards. We'll see tomorrow. I feel pretty good about the amount of work I got done today. I left the tabs on the 2-part pieces to get them setting up ASAP, trying to manage time a bit.

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I'm hoping if this all sets up within 48 hours that I can have the molds up and maybe get some stitching in during the weekend. Lofty goals, but I have a bit of imperative to get this banged out before the rains set in.

pee wee
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by pee wee »

Welcome, Craig! Looks good so far, and with medium hardener it should be set hard well before 48 hours.
Hank

Jeff
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by Jeff »

Craig, Welcome and really happy the kit made it to you, although not timely!! Regardless, you are on your way and we look forward to watching your build and all of us here on the Builder's Forum will assist you should you have questions!! Again, welcome!! Jeff

craigyb
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by craigyb »

Waiting on epoxy to dry to satisfaction. In the meanwhile I CAD'd up a few little 12mm radius inner/outer spreaders for when I get to the hull. Both the inside and outside are exactly 12mm so I can use them for both sides of the hull. They cost a few minutes to CAD and pennies to print so I figured I'd see if it works better than doing it by hand or by popsicle stick. These are in PETG, basically water bottle material. I tried mixing some epoxy with a different 3d printing plastic and it quickly started to melt, this stuff wont.

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I also remembered I did try making a wooden boat once.

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It didn't float.

Jeff
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by Jeff »

Craig, this is going to be a very interesting build!!! Jeff

craigyb
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by craigyb »

I got a bit more done today.

The very bottom puzzle joint of the stack either did not have sufficiently mixed epoxy, or was anaerobic enough to not set up. The other three set up fine. I let the bottom joint sit another 24h, and it was not looking any better and was gumming under sandpaper. I took off as much epoxy as I could and applied some fiberglass tape along the joint with fresh epoxy. It set up to satisfaction and I moved along.

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I mentioned before I don't have a garage, and I somehow thought I'd get the strongbacks straight and leveled along the sawhorses and would ignore the whole piece not being level. That didn't work. The human eye wants to square things off from a nice level surface, and without the aid of lasers and places to put them I decided to assemble in my driveway. It took almost half the day just getting everything in square and the mold setup.

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After that, it was pretty easy on the mind and hard on the body. I moved the joined pieces up to place, and realized there are holes on both sides of the hull, and none along the bow stitch. I'm not sure if that was meant by design, but removing outer holes that don't stitch to anything while putting three holes along the bow line would help 'register' the piece as to where it's meant to go. I also have holes along the rub rail area to make sure are closed off, maybe they're there for that purpose. I drilled bow holes to taste. I actually had this many zip ties and a lot more in stow. I didn't have enough screws.

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It's all stitched up and tack welds are setting. I used the little spudger tool I 3d printed, but I have been using little 3d printed big flat popsicle sticks more since they're a nice flat surface. Once it's safe to remove the zip ties I'll move onto taping and glassing.

Fuzz
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by Fuzz »

With you having to work outdoors I think after I got the taping done I would go ahead and coat all the outside wood with a coat of epoxy. My fear would be an unexpected rain soaking the wood. At the least it would cause you a delay while things dried out. Others may feel different.

Jeff
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by Jeff »

craigyb, fast work and looking really good!! Is your son enjoying the build? Jeff

craigyb
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by craigyb »

Sons been gone until the other day and has an itch to get it done as well. I got the stitches out and got the glass on the next day.

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Next day, I found high spots and a few dry setup areas. I got the wet layer of tape down but didn't get the dry layer of glass sheet wetted well enough. I sanded down around the high spots the next day (Tuesday, yesterday) and re-epoxied around them, pushing down with a roller to make sure all the glass came down. I still got some high spots on the first fairing layer. I assume if the wood is well saturated and faired over that a a 1/4" missing bit of glass sheet here or there isn't a deal breaker? Didn't imagine so.

Son will do a lot of the sanding from here on out. There's a lot of sanding involved, FYI, I've done all this thus far and now need my son's help.

craigyb
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Re: FS14 from Seattle

Post by craigyb »

I'd also like to know how to apply the provided fiberglass up to 6" past the waterline as prescribed, without ending up with the same amount of loss as cutting all the way up the side. I had meant to follow the BOM and spec but could not figure out how to do this part without losing as much material either way.

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