Boat Builder Central - Builder Forums

Howdy all,

My name is Joey, I'm going to be a senior at Texas A&M this fall. Currently, I am a Civil Engineering student and also a member of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets. I'm going to be building a SK-14 on the forum and posting my progress along the way. I got into boat building and fishing when my older sister, AggieGirl, decided to build her SK-14 and I helped build it with her and my dad. I've really enjoyed getting to work on her build and go fishing with her when we can, so I decided I might as well build a boat too. I'm hoping to get this build done before the end of June so I can really use my boat before school starts again and I have my academics taking up my time. Looking forward to posting on here, learning from everyone else on here, and finishing this awesome project! Here's my first Epoxy of the project! Just slapped it in the puzzle pieces and threw the weights on top of some plastic liner and a flat board. Epoxied the transom together (used anything that was heavy and every clamp I had to hold this bad boy together).

Welcome, Joey!

Good luck with your build, you're off to a nice start.

Welcome Joey!!!! Jeff

Great to see both a sister and brother both building. As far as I know this is a first

Fuzz, I think you are correct!!!! Jeff

Welcome to the forum!

Congratulations on the start of your boat building project.

After watching, assisting and accompanying your sister in building and enjoying her boat what have you learned that will inform your decisions about the design, layout or construction of your SK 14? What would you do differently?

Browndog, I think the biggest thing we've learned so far is that it's really easy to do something wrong if you don't have everything laid out and have to rush to get stuff your missing. Also, the shape of the boat is greatly affected by the way its supported while sitting in the garage. We noticed it hooking almost instantly while being on our saw horses, so we had to tape some foam and get it level again to make sure it wasn't warping on its own.

Did a lot of work on the boat this weekend. We got the bow stitched together and epoxied (w/ wood flour) together, same with the rest of the hull. We did it a little differently this time compared to my sister's build.We stitched up until the puzzle pieces and then stitched the bow and worked backwards to keep the structural pressure build up at the end and then trying to stitch the bow. I initially stitched all the way to the bow and had a lot of trouble stitching the bow and getting it symmetrical because of the pressure, so took I took that little section out and redid it. I think it worked a lot better this way, so I think we'll continue that in the future. We then attached the transom to the boat, but messed up by screwing in the transom all the way down instead of leaving like 1/4" for the curvature of the board, so it has a flat spot on both sides of the hull. I'm not terribly worried about it because it is very subtle and it's still symmetrical so it shouldn't affect driving and steering too much. Next we epoxied (w/ wood flour) the rest of the hull leaving the stitching in, after the epoxy cured, we removed the stitching and finished epoxying the hull. Once all of that was dry, I sanded the hull and prepped it to fiberglass the seams of the hull, cleaned it all up, and then fiberglassed the hull. I will probably sand down the hull again tonight and get it ready for the next step, which I think is inserting the stringers (I'll figure out tonight.)
Here's the stitching of the boat before epoxying it.
Here's the transom attached to the hull of the boat.
Full view of the hull and transom being fiberglassed.
Fiberglassed bow, a little rough but nothing a sander can't fix.
Close up of one of the transom corners that is fiberglassed.

You are moving right along. Helping with your sisters build was a big help I am sure.

Question, are you done with the transom glass? What glass do the plans call for? I ask because it looks a little light to me but I am only guessing here.

Been a while since I did and update, I would've posted more but I got sidetracked with a bunch of smaller projects and I lost a lot of my progress photos because my phone got dropped in a river.

The next thing I did on the boat was zip tie it to the shape I wanted and got the nose to come together, after that I peanut buttered the seams of the boat to hold the shape that I had. After peanut buttering, I sanded the seams to make sure they were smoothed and ready for fiberglassing. I then put in the stringers, peanut buttered and fiberglassed all the seams and places the stringers butted up to the boat. to get the stringers in, I used a leveling laser to mark the center line of the boat and then used that centerline and a jig to mark the equal offset of the longitudinal stringers. I used super glue and curing spray to tack in the stringers until I peanut buttered and fiberglassed the joints. I then flipped the boat over and fiberglassed the bottom of the boat. I did one side, sanded and then did the other side the same way. I used quart sized mixing buckets to mix epoxy and used paint brushes and plastic spacial knifes to spread epoxy onto the fiberglass. After attaching the stringers, I sealed the bottom part of the hull with epoxy. I just used epoxy and a paint brush to apply and seal the boat. I the used some cedar to make some extra support for the front deck. I dado cut the wood and peanut buttered it to the inside of the the front hatch area (The Dado cut on the cedar allows it to bend slightly without breaking or putting an insane amount of pressure on the shape of the boat, it will support more than stress the boat now). I used a level to make sure the top of the cedar was 1/4 inch low so the front deck was flush to the top of the sides of the boat. I also did the same cedar support for the inside of the boat to support the regular deck. After that, I attached cedar to the outside of the boat for the rub rail to be attached. The only downside to the Dado cut is that you have to fill all the holes in-between the wood and boat with peanut butter, and it takes a long time. I then decided I wanted my hatch door to be the shape of an "L" and the hinge at the front deck support to make the hatch more accessible and easy to use. To do this, I used extra plywood to extend the front stringers and put a piece of cedar on the extended stringers so the hatch door would be supported sufficiently. I also, foamed the center part of the hull so I could cut it easily. I then foamed the rest of the hull and front of the deck, and added more Dado'd wood to the boat. I also filled in the holes between the Dado cuts and the boat. I will have to sand and plane the Dado cuts so it is flat.

Great progress! Looks like you picked up some experience.

Great progress!!! Jeff

Looks terrific and you already know how fun the boat is to use. Looking forward to seeing next progress.

Dougster

Great work on the boat, first of all, great progress!

"The only downside to the Dado cut is that you have to fill all the holes in-between the wood and boat with peanut butter"

I'm not convinced you need to. If you slathered some neat epoxy into each hole to seal it, I would think that would do it. What was your reasoning for needing to fill them?

VT_Jeff wrote: ↑Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:17 pm Great work on the boat, first of all, great progress!

"The only downside to the Dado cut is that you have to fill all the holes in-between the wood and boat with peanut butter"

I'm not convinced you need to. If you slathered some neat epoxy into each hole to seal it, I would think that would do it. What was your reasoning for needing to fill them?

I'm filling them because I don't want the wood to get in there and cause anything to rot.

Im thinking about putting only one skeg on the bottom of the boat as opposed to two skegs. Anyone have any experience or advise in this area and the difference between one or two skegs?

AggieBrother23 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 3:59 pm Im thinking about putting only one skeg on the bottom of the boat as opposed to two skegs. Anyone have any experience or advise in this area and the difference between one or two skegs?

One skeg is the way to go, There is absolutely no advantage of having two and may be detrimental, there are better ways to help in bottom shaping.

Tom