D5 weight in 4mm?

[PJPiercey]

You really did a great job on the glass work and, really, all of it. I would be tempted to leave the whole thing bright finished and just varnish it. It sure speeds up the finish work to not have to use paint. Your work is so neat I don't think you have to cover up anything Nice work

Paul

[Cascadie]

Paul, thanks! It's like a 50/50 paint job, though. It looks good from 50 feet away and going 50 miles and hour. Hope I never go that fast in this boat, though.

The seams look like they entrapped air or something though. If you look at them at one angle, they stand out, being really milky looking. At another angle they are completely transparent, as you would expect a good glass job to be. I would love to stop putting on finish, but I planned on paint, and so I also left my pencil lines behind, at least on the inside. I squeegeed on another coat inside and out and I need to final fit and install the seats, so I have time to decide.

If I had it to do over again (actually I have enough wood to do another, eek!) I'd use a fiberglass roller, since some of the glass floated in the epoxy, grrr. I was lazy and didn't squeegee it down, just going along with a brush. I think I'd also use something like peel-ply or some plastic on the edges of the glass tape. I used 9 oz tape non-biased, and I cut off the sewn edge with scissors so I reduced a bit of sanding that way. It's a lot more work on the front end, but saves a lot of sanding time. I would also just do tape, and not stitch. I think if your cuts are all good that's doable, right? There was only one area that was pretty tough and that was along the keel right at the transom.

Heading back over after a little dinner to laminate the oars, and hopefully the epoxy has gone off enough to fit my seats. Building a boat is hard work, but very satisfying hard work.

[Cascadie]

Oars are laminated, still too tacky to flip the boat. I get a night off, it looks like.

[Cascadie]

Kinda disappointed with today's progress. I sanded the epoxy, then I went and purchased some "fast" hardener, and got the seat bulkheads coated. I wonder if my local paint store let this hardener freeze over the winter, or something. It was still tacky after 4 hours of curing. I also suspect that of the GelMagic in the store. The Blue part of the tube is all granular. When it pumps through the tube is very difficult to dispense, but as it mixes the granules dissipate.

Waiting for the all that to cure I cut down the oars and cleaned them up a bit. I have to make a special tool to mark down the octagonal lines prior to hand shaping them round.





I'm using a band saw and belt sander for all this but you could use a jig saw or even a handsaw and a plane. Get you in shape for rowing.

[gk108]

When regular epoxy gets cold and crystallizes, you can warm the bottle in a water bath and dissolve the crystals. After that, you are good to go until it gets too cold again. Maybe gel magic acts the same way.

[steve292]

Nice oars.
I had to use the hot water trick last night on my hardener for the S3 primer.
If it crystallizes due to the cold, it needs to be warmed up in water that is quite hot before the crystals will dissolve.
It won't affect the properties of it adversely by doing so.
steve

[Cascadie]

Excellent! I'll soak the GM today and see how it works out. I want to bond a little thickness to the crown of the transoms, and I'll try the GM then.

Incidentally, my sister owns a business selling paddles if any of you who are building kayaks are interested. I won't link directly but it's ThePaddlePlace dot com. She carries almost all the high-end lines.

[Cascadie]

I have to laugh at myself today. There was about a teaspoon of GelMagic left in the tube.

Another day of little progress, at least visually. Center and rear seats are in. One of the time-consumers today was making the rear seat the same width as the center seat. I'm also setting the front seat a little lower and it will be the same width as the others. I left out the vertical extension of the forward seat frame to allow for my gunwales. I'm deciding how to do the bresthooks.



I used clamps on either side to square the hull before epoxying and pin nailing down the seat tops. There are a couple of blocks under the transom to level it to the work bench, and the right side is held down by a bungee on that clamp on the table end. So far the hull is still square within 1/8". I hope it stays that way after all is finished!

[Cascadie]

All the seats are in, and all the fillets are finished! The last strip of the gunwale is bonded on, and I think tomorrow will be the first coats of paint and primer. I have a bit of payback to my brother-in-law for the use of his shop, and some materials: he builds really high-end skateboards, and I'll be producing some of them for him as repayment. Anyway, today's progress...





The bare spots along the gunwale are where I had temporary thwarts installed while bonding in the seats. I'm pushing for early-mid next week for launch!

[Cascadie]

Got some paint on today!

Doubles as a rabbit trap.


Something kept bothering me about painting and I couldn't figure it out all day long. Then it dawned on me: forgot to bond on the keel.


Oh well, I'll just sand back a bit and bond it on in the am. Worked the oars a bit today in between as well but neglected to take pictures. It's murder pulling a spokeshave in a 93 degree shop.