SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Power Boats only. Please include the boat type in your question.
Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

Spoiler Alert... I have been running this boat for 2 seasons.
Image
Image
I figured its high time to pay it forward to the forum that taught me so much along the way in the hopes that it helps those starting up facing the same learning curve. I apologize that the model is not a Bateau original, but I figured I might get a pass. I looked hard at the Fast Skiff but ultimately decided I wanted something different. I suspect some of what I did will draw out experts to correct upon what I did. I have thick skin, so please share your opinions (that is how I learned reading the treasure trove of build threads here)! I documented the entire process, time, and expense with a lot of photos including all the mistakes that give the boat character (insert rolley eyes :roll: ).

First, I have 2 books recommended somewhere in these forums. Happy to pass on to others starting up. First people to PM me your address and I'll send them out.
1. Devlin's Boat Building - How to build any boat the stitch and glue way.
2. Boatbuilding with Plywood 2nd edition (Witt & Hankinson)

From here on I'll copy and paste from the build journal so the tense may be a bit off at times... Here we go starting from when I started thinking about the build...

Before the build...
I have always appreciated the simplicity of a small flats skiff and the intimate experience on the water delivered by such sleek, low to the water boat. Fishing in New England, they are about as far from practical as you can get in most people’s eyes which I believe to be complete crap 😊. There are far too many opportunities to utilize them from flats, salt ponds, beaches, and plenty in fresh so never the less my fascination grew every season. One of my favorites is Skimmer Skiff https://skimmerskiff.org/ a small company based in Florida making high quality boats by reputation at affordable prices. I have a knock around 1970 something 14’ aluminum boat with a 20hp Mercury 4 stroke that does all I want a small boat to do but it is old and not very high on the cool factor. That makes it hard to justify buying a $10-$15K impractical production model when I already have a perfectly good tinny in the garage that costs me $0.
I tend to be hands on and the thought of tinkering and fabricating a skiff adds fuel to my fascination with flats boats. Over the years I have almost pulled the trigger on Chesapeake Light Craft Kayak designs several times but in the end the next shiny marble pulled me away. Search online and you can find any number of plans, forums, videos, photos etc. to flood your mind with endless ideas and dreams of a mirror finish paint or complete customization control. In my usual impulsive nature I skipped hours of research, flipped through a few forums, and narrowed the search down to two designs pretty quickly.
My criteria were as follows:
- I wanted to be large enough to easily fit 2 people, or maybe myself, wife, and two kids hopping around
- I didn’t care if it was a speed demon, so I wanted to reuse my 20HP Mercury 4-stroke. @15ft it won’t win races but the engine should be fine.
- Small enough to be easily manageable with the tiler engine
- Didn’t care about live well or insulated cooler storage
- Wanted to easily store 9ft fly rods under gunnel
- Small enough to re-use my existing tin boat trailer

I got down to two:
1. Salt Boat Works – Flats River Skiff 15 https://saltboatworks.com/product/flats-river-skiff-15/
2. Smith Marine Design – Crystal 16 flats skiff http://www.smithmarinedesign.com/crystal16.html

Ultimately, I went with the Smith Marine Design Crystal 16 skiff because it was slightly larger and well, it is just pretty and the strip plank build sounded like a challenge I would be up for. I like the reverse chine and simplicity of a stich and glue design of the Salt Boat Works Flats River Skiff 15 but the build photos of the Crystal 16, strip plank design, and higher gunnels/bow sold me.

I set an estimated budget of $3500 from what I could scrounge up online for cost info.

10/26/20 Note: Please take a moment’s pause now to wait for those who have built boats before. They need to wipe the coffee off their keyboards as it just shot out of their nose while laughing at my optimistically naïve estimation.

9/26/22 Note: All of the above was before boats and wood / supplies costs skyrocketed after 2020 so I look back and laugh now. I got in right before the market blew up and even then my estimations were a joke.

A few disclaimers:
1. I am an average around the house handyman. No specific skills, no specific training. Youtube and forums paired with observation have been my teacher and even at that half the time I make things up as I go along. “Its Fine” is my mantra. How hard can it be, right? Good thing I chose a strip built design, not exactly entry level for a first time boat build (insert rolley eyes here).
2. I have never built a boat, never done any fiberglass or lamination work beyond making a new transom for my 14’ tin boat which was a hack at best. I fully expect that to show in the work so expect that as you read on. I expect those with experience or carpentry skill will roll their eyes the entire way through. My skin is thick 😊.
3. I agreed with my wife that if I successfully build this skiff that the ugly brown tin boat would be sold. I probably lied about that, time will tell. Afterall, I’m not duck hunting in a flats boat 😊. Deep down I think she already knows that.

Step 1 - Plans...
7/21/20
Three days after the plans were ordered they were at my door. I opted for the full plans printed on plastic instead of just the plan drawings. I didn’t trust attention to detail transcribing measurements to plywood so I thought that might simplify things for me a bit. We’ll see. I had a bit of a “what did I get myself into” moment when I saw the plans. No step by step instructions, but a logical order of pages. Step 1. I need to learn to read cad designs right after I number all the pages so I can keep them in the same order. Hold my beer… The more I review the plans and compared to the online journeys documented by other builders the more obvious the build steps became.
Image
Image
It dawned on me that material prep for a strip plank hull design is going to be time consuming considering it is expensive to find full length cedar strips pre-milled locally. Your options are to try and source strips locally, buy shorter lengths milled through build suppliers and scarf* or source full length boards and even more expensive to have them shipped in by truck. Basic math using the strip calculator from CLC (great site with good info BTW) https://info.clcboats.com/tips-and-tric ... ll-i-need/ put the estimated strip materials and their cost somewhere around an $800-$1000 difference in price between full 16ft length with truck delivery and shorter 6-8 ft lengths that require scarfing. So, overall likely $1500-$1700 + shipping in cedar Bead & Cove strips roughly. FYI – design calls for about 2300 lineal feet of strip.
Bead and cove has the advantage of looking tight and pretty but considering I am not going to expose natural wood finish (I might try on the transom, haven’t decided yet) I really don’t care so that is a time consuming step I’ll skip. The structural integrity overall doesn’t add much according to what I read. So, given I am not worried about the extra step of bead & cove then shorter lengths of square edge scarfed together will save some money. I’m going to look into buying 1x8ft cedar lumber and rip down ¾” x 8 ft strips and scarf them together for full length. Considering the number of strips and prep work to make all that I figured that is a good place to start before I occupy half my garage with a Strong Back and mold frames only to sit there for a month while I make strips. Seemed like a logical starting point to do a few boards over time and I can do all the cutting outside while the weather is nice before winter.
*First term I learned, Scarfing (remember, I am new to all this). There is a detailed guide within this free book https://www.westsystem.com/the-gougeon- ... struction/ and plenty of online videos that simplify the concept. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_af8-e76Fhc.
Last edited by Ruge13 on Mon Sep 26, 2022 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

8/10/20
I assumed making 16 ft strips would take some time so that is where I started. I will start building this fall but until then I can get materials ready. I have the tools, but I am used to working with oak and pine not with wood as light and soft as red cedar. I know very little about other woods so I was very appreciative when the woman at Premium Plywood in Hyannis spent 30 minutes with me explaining grain differences and Pro’s / Cons of various types of materials. Nice to have a local source nearby and I went home with a few clear vertical grain Red Cedar 6ft and 10 ft 1x6’s. You can go to Home Depot or other lumber suppliers and sort through Cedar fence or decking but they are typically knotty and will take a bunch of hunting to get decent material, but will be cheaper. I decided not to do that and buy the more expensive clear vertical grain lumber form a supplier that provides other boat builders locally.
To make the scarf joints I followed the process shown here from Salt Boat Works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_af8-e76Fhc using some scrap wood hiding in my basement. I read several different ratios for length of cut. 1:8, 1:12 were all recommended by different builders online. I am making ½” x ¾” strips so I set the angled boards to make a 3” cut length. I set this up on saw horses and routed down a scrap piece of ¾” plywood to test the angle. Aside from the cheap plywood the jig seems to do the job.
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

The plywood test piece chipped up a bit but I expected that with cheap wood and glue but the jig worked reasonably well and I got what I wanted out of it. Next step was to try it on a $50 cedar board. The first board had some rough edges but ran fairly well. First lesson learned, go slow! The soft cedar cuts easily and the fine bottom edge chips easily. The second board was much cleaner at a slower pace and the rest went easily. Six boards were ready for glue including making the jig in under 2 hours. Those three 16 ft glued lengths should be enough for about 1/4 of the strips needed. It will be interesting to see if my estimation math was even close to correct at the end.
Image

Glued up the ends using Elmer’s Max waterproof wood glue. Note: More about that when I get into ripping boards on a later day. I lined up the boards, stacked them while gluing with 12”x12” squares of garbage bag in between so they didn’t glue to one another. Then I stacked 80 lbs of weights on the joint, cleaned up the excess glue and let sit. My assumption was within 24 hours glue would be dry in my dry basement.
Image

8/11/20
24 hours later I uncovered the top board only to find a lot of wet glue. I assume the plastic over top of the joints slowed the drying process. Over the next 3 days I slowly uncovered each board letting the top glue dry before sliding the board off, flipping it over (bottom still wet in contact with plastic) and uncovering the next. All the while stacking weights on top. After 3 days I had 3 dry, scarfed, 16 ft boards and could move on to the milling process.
Lesson Learned: Use a different gluing process. Next time I will not stack boards and instead use drywall screws and washers to secure the boards tight for drying. Same process used to laminate transoms or scarf plywood shown here form Salt Boatworks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnpxQMJVz4w. I didn’t do this the first time around because I didn’t want screw holes in the middle of my strips.

8/15/20
I borrowed a benchtop planer from a friend and passed all 3 boards through at 3/4” height to knock off any rough edges around those scarf joints. Next, I set up my table saw with a Diablo 10” ripping blade and went to work. I am following this process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcfZGLf2JeI. I have seen a few online videos for ripping one quarter inch cedar strips to build canoes. Most said rip wider and plane down. The masters rip to nearly exact one quarter inch strip widths so of course I skipped the advice of 90% of the weekend warrior videos including the one just mentioned and attempted to rip down perfect strips, at 16ft length, one quarter inch wide, with one person, and a saw that was not supported by two equal plane surfaces to support the 16ft boards on either end cleanly so they needed to be supported by hand using a wood material that is super flexible. Hold my beer. Now, if you have done any ripping you know where this is going. The first board went haywire. Saw marks and gaps all over the place. Uneven thickness of the strips etc. It was a complete horror (insert expletive here) show. About half way through I stopped and re-evaluated. I have a planer, why did I think I would avoid using it? Giving up on my dreams of perfect ripping technique I widened the cuts to 6/16ths. This was enough material to have plenty of forgiveness in the cut widths and 3 passes through a planer, two on one side and one on the other and in the end have perfect ¼” x ¾” strips.
I did not route to bead and cove, so this saves time. This hull will not be “bright work” (boaty term for bare visible wood like a strip canoe or kayak) so I am not worried about perfection in the sees between strips. Epoxy, fiberglass, and fairing compound will fill all those voids easily and won’t compromise any structural integrity, afterall the glass does the structural work in a build like this, the wood hull is just a frame. I read on a forum to think of this like an Epoxy/fiberglass boat, not a wood boat build, the wood is just a mold. I do plan to make the transom bright and use Mahogany strips so there I will be much more particular with fitting of the strips and may bead and cove. We’ll see.
Moving on to the second board is where I learned lesson two. This one was from the middle of my glue stack. The first rip snapped at the scarf joint. Not enough glue in the joint. Second rip snapped the same. Third held just fine and I could finish the rest of the board. That was foreshadowing for what was to come on board 3.
Board 3 was the bottom of my glue stack. The first few strips held as expected but by the 4th or 5th strip one snapped, then another, then another. Shortly after the entire rest of the board snapped. Apparently, there was a large void in the joint where the end grain had soaked in all the glue. As a result, there was very little holding the two boards together and it let go. I then had to go back and rasp off all the excess glue back to decent wood and glue again. This time I used the process shown before with drywall screws and washers to hold the joint tight along with weight. I’ll go back and rip down the rest of this board when I scarf a few more.
In the end how much did I get out of 3 16ft boards and $250 in lumber? About 480 of the 2300 lineal feet of strip I need, so 21% of the total. I thought I would get about 570 lineal feet out of those 3 boards so I hit about 80% of what I estimated. Based on this the hull material cost is looking more like 2X what I originally estimated in materials but I expect to get a bit better at this with less scrap material in future scarfing and ripping efforts.
Lessons Learned:
1. Don’t believe you are Nick Offerman on day 1 when you have almost zero ripping experience. Cut wider, then plane down to get near perfect ¼” thick strips.
2. Be sure you get a very tight scarf joint. Don’t be in a hurry here. It may be good enough for a 16ft 1x6” board, but once shaved down to 1/4 “ every little bit of glued surface is needed.
3. I severely underestimated the materials and cost needed to finish the hull, oops.

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

8/16/20
Planned down all the strips from yesterday. At 3/8ths thick I could get a rough pass on one side and one additional clean pass on each side to get a perfect ¼” thick strip. I found passing them through three at a time was easily manageable. Any more than that and I fought them a bit to stay clean. The photo below shows a set on the right where I attempted to rip the right size and a set on the left where I cut larger and planed down. Noticeable difference in strip quality.
Lesson Learned: Don’t cut corners, take the time to plane. This will likely save a lot of time hand planning and fairing on the hull later on.
Image

8/18/20
Got 10 more 1x6” boards from Premium Plywood to make 5 more 16 ft lengths for strips. I’m getting better at creating the scarf joint, took me 2 hours to make the jig and cut the first set for 3, this time it took 45 minutes to cut down 5 including clean up. Glued them up using the method in the video from Salt Boatworks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnpxQMJVz4w binding them down with screws and fender washers. Also swapped to Gorilla Glue. I used regular, not wood glue, because the regular is waterproof while the wood glue is water resistant. I’ll let it set up a few days then clean up the joints and rip them.
Image
Lesson Learned: Don’t put boards close together without plastic between when you glue and don’t over use it like I did. If you have never worked with Gorilla Glue, it does not wick into the end grain to the extent that Elmer’s wood glue does. The glue sets up quick and is an exothermic reaction. I left quite a bit thinking it would wick in but instead it expands like spray foam during the reaction and sets quickly. Glue is super strong but makes a mess. It is going to be a b#!@h to get the boards apart and cleaned up. I can only hope it did not adhere to the plastic between the boards and the 2x4 I screwed to underneath.

8/20/20
Got all the Strongback and Frame lumber ordered up. Some 16ft 2x8’s for the Strongback (the platform and support used to hold up the frame on top of which you build the hull) and the MDF sheets to cut out the frame sections. That should be here tomorrow, and I am hoping to get into tracing out the frame pieces this weekend. I expect that goes fairly quickly considering I am not Lofting plans (process of transferring dimensions to stock). Instead I ponied up for the plan set that was already traced to scale on plastic sheets so I could just trace and cut. I didn’t trust my own manual error while lofting. The transom (2 sheets of Okoume plywood glued together is part of the frame so I will need to tackle that as well. I picked up a sheet today so I can get that cut and glued to set through the week.
Image
Above is my new boat stacked on the floor, ain’t she pretty? Next to it is the new tow vehicle 😊.
Here is where I am stuck… originally, I thought I might strip the transom over with mahogany and finish it bright. Sort of the same look as a Sportfishing boat. It isn’t a lot of extra work, I just need to strip out some lumber and glue it down and I planned to do that before stripping the Hull so that the hull strips butt up against the Mahogany. This way the end grain of the mahogany is on the hull and there is no end grain of cedar strips visible on the transom. However, the okoume has a nice visible grain to it that I could even tease out with a light stain. I thought strips might look nicer considering the transom of this little boat is not much real estate to show off grain. Now I am torn... not sure what I am going to do here.
Ran the ugly glue seems through the planer, cleans them up nice. One more pass and this one will be pristine.
Image

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

8/21/20
Went to Premium Plywood to get the transom sheet. Between that and the MDF panels I want ot get started tracing plans and cutting frames. Starting with the transom, I laid out the pattern on ¾” Okoume plywood taking advantage of the straight edge. I used a finish nail to punch the nodes where straight edges met. There are a bunch of edges in the plans that are not straight and have a bit of a curve to them. It is one of the design elements I like about this boat compared to other stich and glue designs of straight plywood panels. There are a few ways to do this but I opted for the most KISS (keep it simple stupid) method with transfer paper, an idea I stole from some questions I saw answered online. As a kid this was called carbon paper. Friggin millennials… Anyway, I slide a page or two under the curved lines and traced them with my pencil. This left a nice clear transfer to the plywood. I went back with a straight edge and joined up all the straight lines.
Image
Image
Image
Image

I then went on to trace out several of the mold frames onto 2 sheets of MDF before I called it a night. I’ll go back and finish that up next week. I didn’t expect to be tracing patters before the weekend so that puts me a session ahead of the schedule in my head made up as I go along. Yay Me.
Note from 9/4/20: You see what I did not do in the transom photo above? Center lines…. I never marked center lines from the plans in some of the earlier frames and transom. MARK THE CENTERS!! This will cause headaches later!

8/22/20

I didn’t make nearly as much progress as I had hoped today life got in the way all day and tonight I only had enough time to cut all 2x8” and 2x4” lumber for the strongback, mark out all the measurements to speed up assembly, then piece together the strongback 2x8” frame. I’ll go back and add in all the cross members when I lift it up on legs and casters that should be here next week. By then I’ll be cutting frame parts so that will give me a place to mount them. Also means I need to get the Tin boat out of the garage ☹ so I’ll need to find a home for that.

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

8/23/20
Milling day. I have 5 16 ft boards to rip and a 10 ft 1x12 from a friend to strip out. In 3 hours I had all ripped down and planned to ¼”. Only broke a few and averaged 11 strips per 1x6” so I’ll pretty happy with that. Lots of expensive saw dust, hard to tell from the photo but that is a 2ft high pile. I’m now about 70% complete with the strips I’ll need according to the estimate. This last batch gave me another 880 lineal foot for strips. I bunch these up into groups of 10 and store in my dry basement for now. It was over 90 in the sun and high humidity today so I had a hard time keeping sawdust from gluing itself to the sweat dripping off my face.
Image
Image
Don’t have any lesson learned today, all went according to plan and practice is paying off in quality and speed. The gorilla glue and screw/washer hold down definitely worked better. Much tighter and higher quality finished scarf joints. This one shows the joint between a good board of clear vertical grain and a lesser quality board (for strips anyway) that has a variable grain.
Image

8/30/20
Good progress this week. First up, I finished up transferring all the frame plans to MDF sheets. Not much to describe with this. It took me an entire afternoon to get them all cut out. Circular saw and jig saw went to work. 1 sheet in the rain came so I moved the party inside my garage. One of the aspects of this boat design that intrigued me was the compound curves on the hull. The frame below shows this with a convex curve on the bottom section and a concave curve on the top section. Trying to keep them symmetrical following the drawn lines with a jig saw was, well lets just say fun.
Image
Image
Above was the second “oh #$%!” moment of the build. I forgot to mark the center line on about half the frame templates so after cutting some of the center keel didn’t meet in the middle. I had to stop and mark them all, then go back and clean some up using a straight edge from chine to keep and remove the miss to even up the sides and hit center.
Image
Reading all the build threads on forums from those who cut their own frames and strips I heard the jokes about sawdust. If you take on a project like this I would strongly recommend you take the sawdust issue seriously. Milling outside was one thing, but cutting MDF in my garage, even with the doors open was more than I expected. This is after a second round of sweeping and vacuum. Every square inch of a 2 car bay was covered in a thick layer of dust floor to ceiling. In the end, nothing 15 minutes with a backpack leaf blower can’t solve but the air was thick and you can expect everything to be covered in dust.
Image
Image
4 hours later and I had a pile of frames and transom pieces. Next up was the strongback, the frame used to mount the hull frames that the boat is built on. Took about 1 hour, 16ft long by about 3 ft wide. I put it on 20” legs and casters so I can swing it around and pull it out into the driveway for when it comes time for weeks of sanding fiberglass, fairing, and primer.
Image
My goal this week is to get the cross members mounted on the strongback, the hull frames stood up, and the transom (made up of twin ¾” Okoume) pieces epoxied together.

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

9/5/20
I started work on the transom. Following some comments in threads from Boat Builders forum I mixed up a batch of thickened epoxy to do that. First, I lined up the two halves of the transom to where I wanted them, clamped them together and marked the center line as well as marks along the outer edge so that after I separate and lay in some epoxy I could slap them back together in the same pre-set location. Next, I mixed up the epoxy. Considering I have no clue how much epoxy would be needed, I just started with 7 pumps of Resin and Hardener which seemed like a reasonable amount to begin with arbitrarily. I am sure there is a formula for this, in fact I know I read one online or in one of the building books but I’m more of a hold my beer, trial and error kind of guy. The West Systems pumps are made to equivalently deliver the appropriate proportion of each which makes it simple. After pumping them out I dropped in thickener. For thickener, I used Colloidal Silica which Is factory recommended as sort of an ideal all-purpose thickener. It is dense enough to work well with epoxy but light enough to be sandable. Not recommended for fairing** because it does take some work to sand down. Wood flour serves the same purpose.
Image
Having never worked with colloidal silica I also had no idea just how light and fluffy that stuff in. It gets into the air. Don’t use outdoors where it is windy, mix without wind. Don’t sneeze or breath towards it. Indoors, it gets up in the air quickly and is a bit caustic breathing it in. Respirator would help. It does mix up into a nice peanut buttery consistency.
Image
Next, I used a grooved spreader to lay on the epoxy to one side of the transom. Took about 30 seconds to realize 7 pumps was not enough so I spread that out then quickly mixed up another 14 pumps. Random guess based on the coverage 7 gave me. All said and done, I was ready to flip the second half and add weight to cure for a few days. The grooved spreader allowed for a lot of epoxy. I expect this will help with any epoxy wicked into the plywood as well as any gaps or air in the seem.
Image
Image
After mating the two halves and lining up the marks I put in a couple screws and washers to tighten down just as I did with joining the cedar board scarfs. On top of that I added all the weight I had laying around and a bunch more screws to hold them together. I’ll let that sit for a few days to cure up and then move to sand down the edges to match. End to end this took about 30 minutes. Worked with epoxy about 10-15 minutes of that 30 min and at room temp I should have had about 20 minutes of pot life.
Image
While the transom cured, I worked on mounting the frames to the strongback. Earlier this week I completed the strongback by refining the level, squaring the frame and securing all cross members. Now, following plans I mounted and centered all the mold frames. When placing the keel I noticed 2 issues. First, a few days in the ridiculous humidity we have been having warped the MDF so the keep is a bit twisted and bent. Nothing that can’t straighten but when you look down the keep it is not perfectly straight.
Image
I’m not too worried about this, I think it will straighten out in the frames and the margin of error is still high enough that I can work strips and sanding around it to fair it back out again later so I’m going to press on. The second issue is that after I installed the keel I noticed it sits high in the frames. The pockets on the keel must not be deep enough so the top of the frame points do not meet the ridge of the keel board. This means I will have a goofy ridge when I strip so I will need to tap the keel back out again, cut the pockets deeper, and slide it back in to fit flush.
Note: 9/8/20 The keel straightened right out once inserted in the frames as expected.
Image
At least all put together now it is starting to look like a boat project 28 hours later! I want the first strips on 1 month later than when I started, by the end of Labor day weekend.
Image
Later this weekend I knocked out the pockets for the keep so they fit flush with the top of the frames now. Last step to complete the frames is to finish up the transom. This was epoxied together with thickened epoxy but as you can imagine with both halves individually cut using two different patterns there is a bit of manual error in aligning the edges. The keel matching the center line needs to be cleaned up as well. For this I borrowed a handheld belt sander and some coarse paper that came with the following disclaimer… “it is not about what you sand, it is about what you don’t sand with the belt sander”. Wise words, that sander shredded down the edges of ¾” dense marine plywood and epoxy. Mounting the transom to a saw horse with clamps, I was able to sand down the edges to match in about 10 minutes. Much faster and easier than I expected. You will notice a few of the screws and washers still left in the transom on the inner wall. That’s because the epoxy is so strong that I can’t get the screws out within stripping the heads. I’ll need to drill those out and fill with epoxy later on. I’ll do that months from now when the hull is fiber glassed and flipped and I begin working on sealing the inner hull. Below is a Before / After of the transom edges.
Image
Image
Image
Ready to Rock – except for the painters tape over the frames to keep the hull from gluing to the frames, forgot that before the photo.
Image

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

9/7/20
My goal was to get the first strips on the hull by the end of the weekend which seems like an easy task however it is Albie season and well, I’m not a barbarian. It is actually this time of year that makes me want to build this boat. Small boat fall fishing for False Albacore is on top of my fishing to do list.
Anyway, here we go. The boat came with plans but virtually no instructions for build. Online, I have all but memorized the few build galleries on the Smith Marine Design web site. Following the progression of photos there and several strip builds threads online I decided to start on the main chine and work out from there until the strip twist or flex is too much to hold. Then, split the difference and work out again.
Image
Image
Above, just lining up a strip on the chine and test fitting. Then covered all frames with painters tape. On the vertical plane they flex and lay down nice and easy. On the flat bottom plane they have considerable twist near the bow and I have to fight them with clamps to get them to lay down solid enough to glue. Working transom to bow the strips are laid and stapled to the frames along the chine terminating at the chine mark on the bow keel strip. At least I remembered to mark that line from the plans 😊. The second strip on the opposite side is clipped to lay inside the first. This will alternate along the keel and both sides need to be stripped at the same time to prevent hull twist. Once completed, all the staples come out before sanding and fiberglass.
Image
I placed strips on both planes. Glue goes between and clamped together. I wanted to be sure there was a nice clean edge along the chine. BTW, got all these 4” clamps off Amazon for $35.
Image
Image
Above you can see the overlapping strips on the bow. I am using a Dremel edging tool to cut them.
Image
With the glue dry time I can only do 2-3 strips a day so the entire hull is going to take at least a month and a half. Considering 2300 lineal feet of strip and each strip is approximately 16 ft that is about 150 strips or almost 50 days. See you in October.
Image
The bow is proving to be particularly tricky. The twist on the keel is pretty strong so I have to get a bit creative with the clamps to hold it together. This part is slowing me down, takes a lot of glue and needs to cure up or the pressure pops it open and pulls staples when I relax the clamps.
Below, day 1 complete and ahead of my Labor day weekend goal.
Image

9/13/20
A week has gone by and its been all stripping. 40 strips laid, 20 on each side. Earlier in the week I ordered up a dozen inexpensive 30” bar clamps that showed up Friday from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08C4 ... UTF8&psc=1
This let me make some fast progress over the weekend as the width of the clamped area was getting too wide for my clamps. I was hoping to complete 3 strips a day. Instead my average was over 5 strips a day. Getting 2 on in the morning, 2 at lunch, and 2 at night as well as a few other time savers helped. For example, I changed glue to Titebond wood glue. Preferred glue of plywood boat builders online. https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/u ... o?pid=2030
The weather this week was less humid so the glue set up faster. The Titebond seems to dry faster than the wood glue I was using. Over the weekend I went through an entire 8oz bottle. With the glue setting up in 2 hours or less I could keep moving clamps and adding strips. I changed the direction I was working. I was starting from the transom and working forward which of course meant I was marking and cutting angled strips to make them fit butted up against the alternating overlapped strip from the opposite side. This also means I had a bunch of ugly cuts that I can sand out later when I fair the keel and bow. Instead, starting from the bow, snugging up that angle cut then letting the strips run off the transom not only saved time but made the strips butting up against the overlapping strip from the other side much more clean. Considering this is not structural I’m not looking for perfection here, just slapping them together and will said it clean but you can clearly see the difference on top where I started from the bow and below where I started from the transom.
Image
This also let me clamp in two strips at a time per side. The strip butting up against the overlap at the bow and the second on top that overlaps to the other side.
Saturday while a few strips dried I had another milling sesh to make expensive saw dust. Ripped and planed down three 6ft cedar 1x6’s and three 9ft 1x4’s. I did not scarf these together to make 15ft strips. As a result, this went much faster. Easier to control the wood with one person and I knocked the entire set out in about 1 hour. I must admit, was pretty nice not doing this in ridiculous heat and humidity like I did a month ago. This should be the last of the strips I need for the hull.
Image
So here we are a week from when I started stripping.
Image
Things are getting tricky at the bow. The twist is so strong now that the strips rip out the staples and I can’t get them to clamp quite right. Things are getting sloppy. So, It my be time to lay down keel strips and then work out to close it up. We’ll see how a few more go and reassess the situation.
Now for the not so great news. There is a major issue along the chine on the port side. Just behind the bow the hull should be laying more or less flat. At the bow the chine is slight and grows as you follow it back a few frames before it goes to almost 90 degrees. If you look at the bar clamp, then the staples in front of it you can see the two strips (one light, one dark) laying at an angle to each other. They should be almost laying flat at this point in the frames. Seems I clamped a bit too tight early on, this would have been the first day back on labor day weekend.
Image
Looking from below you can see how they bent out from pressure and pulled away form the frame and chine point.
Image
I debated what to do about this for a while. Seems the options are to wait it out and sand it to shape later, cut it out and splice in new strips, or break it free and re-glue. I opted to wait it out and will sand down. If I can’t get to sanded to the shape I want then I’ll cut out the section and splice in new. It is just annoying that I didn’t see this before the glue set up.
While we are on the topic of shotty workmanship 😊, there are a few spots where the scarf joints in some of the 16ft strips were not perfect. This leaves some gaps where the strips don’t match up perfectly. I’d like to think I am saving weight in the hull 😊. Its not big deal, nothing some thickened epoxy can’t fill later before sanding. The wood glues do not have the gap filling properties that epoxy does so that is an easy fix later on.
Image
Overall I’m pretty happy with how things are going. It is starting to look like a boat and I am ahead of where I thought I would be by this point which is cool but I still have a loooooooooong way to go. The plan for the rest of this week is to keep stripping, probably put on keel strips and work out to keep the staples from ripping out.
Image
Below you can see the twist that you have to put on the strips to get them to form to the frame shape near the bow and how many staples I have to put in some places to keep the strip from moving when pressured.
Image

9/14/20
Upgraded my staple gun to a newer Bostitch and staples from a narrow crown ½” to a wide crown 14mm / 9/16”. The stronger gun drives the staples all the way in and the extra length keeps them grabbing even with the twist on the strips. The few I did today were sooooo much easier without ridiculous clamping to keep them in place along the bow keel and front frames. With the additional clamps last week, I am now able to simultaneously work on the bottom on one side and the gunnel/side on the other. This will speed up stripping time considerably.
One month into the project and just hit 40 hours total (not counting research time, interweb, typing this summary etc) there is the time breakdown. To date total cost has been $2105.73 (not counting the cost of my time) with an estimated $2K left to spend on additional lumber, fiberglass, resin, some hardware finishes etc.
Total Time 40
Milling 11.5
Lofting 6
Frames & Strongback 11.5
Transom 1
Stripping 10

On the milling side, cutting my own strips rather than ordering them likely saved me $700-$1000 in material and shipping cost. Well worth the time!

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

9/15/20
Hit a milestone today, at least in my head :). The strips finally got high enough along the bow and keel to be even height with the rest of the keel. I can now add center strips to define the keel and work out from there.
Image
This means from here forward every top strip needs to be marked and cut to tightly fit the angle created. To do that I dry fit two strips of uneven length. This way the seam won’t align when I but up the remaining lengths running out over the transom. Overlapping the strips on the bow, I marked and then cut the angle needed to fit them tight. Well, roughly right. It not perfect, but epoxy and glue will fill in the minor gaps and sand to shape later. Ignore the yellow gorilla glue over run that foams up as it cures. It easily sands down and I had to use that glue while I waited a day for the next batch of Titebond to show up. I’ll clean that up when the hull is done when planing and sanding. The method I used is described here. https://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/strip- ... ing-bottom
Image
I then took extra time fixing these two strips into place because they should be as straight as possible down the keel. Easier said than done with wobbly strips so I ended up pulling staples and repositioning several sections until I was happy with a reasonably straight line eyeing down the keel. All of this I just figured out as I went, no real instruction here so I’m sure there is a right way, or at least better way to do it then I did. I did not glue these strips together at first like all others. Instead the angled fit together left a V shaped groove along the length. Using Gorilla glue I filled the gap. The Gorilla glue has gap filling properties that epoxy does while the titebond or other wood glue do not, they will soak into the wood fibers. If this needed to be a structural joint I would have done this with thickened epoxy but it is not. The entire wood hull is simply a mold for the fiberglass and the keel layup will add at least 3 layers of biax glass tape and cloth externally as well as another 2 layers internally plus epoxy fillets later on.
Image
There is an obvious issue at the transom... the frame A, which is the last frame before the transom, is a bit lower than the transom edge. As a result, the strips flare up. That is going to leave a low spot I will need to fill and fair out later after glass. It’s too late to reposition the A frame now with 40 or more other strips already in place. There is also a gap due to the angle of the strips meeting the angled transom.
Image
Taking note, I’ll fill that with thickened epoxy after the hull flips over before the seems are filleted and glassed. Like mudding drywall. Again, no big deal I think. If you see me swimming back in some day because my transom separates and the boat sunk you will know why :). Looking back, I could have used some advice to use a long level or straight board to line up the height of each frame piece to be sure the heights all aligned and made sense. A more experienced builder would have made this mistake at some point and corrected before stripping. I don’t think this is a design issue at all, for sure this is builder error where I missed a cut by 1/16th of an inch or so. No worries, lesson learned. Had I been building a bright finish hull that would have been a showstopper for sure as well as any of the other dozen finish work mistakes that fairing compound, sanding, and paint will easily hide.
Anyway, back to my regularly scheduled stripping program....

9/16/20
Started working off both the keel and the same side I have been working off of. With enough clamps I can now strip on 6 areas at once. The two bottom sides and both of the two sides within the bottom hull closing. Things will move faster now for sure. Titebond glue showed up so I can keep seems cleaner than the Gorilla glue. I know it will sand away without much work but it makes for sloppy photos that no doubt the more experienced builder crowd is turning their nose up at all over the interweb. So, here’s more of them 😊.
Image
Using the same mark edge and cut I can get squeaky tight overlapping seems which also lets me glue a bunch of strips at once. I am using a hand miter saw for this. Man you can almost hear the build snobs gasping at that (once they are done getting over the horrified emotional reaction to the glue in all my photos)… most would use a much classier Japanese handsaw for such a task I think. I can also now get a jump start on the next day by cutting and dry fitting a bunch of strips that I can glue up in the morning before work. If that lets me get 2 sessions before and after work with 12-14 strips a day I should finish well ahead of the mid October time frame I expected. In a few days my wife and I are about to have our second daughter so that might slow me down for a few days… might.. 😊.
Image
Alternating top and bottom the open space closes up pretty quickly. Above is dry fit, below is 6 strips glued up. They are so tight they don’t even need clamping.
Image
Where I do need clamps it is getting too tight to use the bar clamps. For some a set of inverted squeeze clamps puts pressure on both top and bottom at the same time.
Image

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

9/26/20
A few things have happened these past 10 days, hit several mile stones. First, here we are at the end of week 2 of stripping. 76 strips total so far. That make 36 strips this week so about 7 per day. The cutting and fitting to close the top is a bit slower, as is the long side strips eating up all my clamps.
Image
Second, we completed our other build…this happened which delayed the stripping by a few hours. Reading long build threads taking months and months if not years to complete a boat I decided that increasing the labor force would be a good idea. Mia Elizabeth.
Image
The clamping situation is getting creative. Adding a few screws here and there to give me something to grab to, doubling or tripling up clamps to grab an edge, or in some cases using ratchet straps over the entire hull.
Image
Image
The ugly gorilla glue fill from the “V” gap in the top center pair of keel strips is proving to be useful. It is giving the clamps something to grab. So it was not a sloppy lazy use of glue, it was instead a well anticipated ingenious build strategy. Yah, I did that by design 😊 and flawlessly executed. You are welcome to borrow my technique.
Image
I am really looking forward to the day when I can cut off all these bow strips. You can do it any time, or do it as you go. I decided to wait until the end as a final step in cleaning up the hull after stripping. That, and the transom clean up.
Image
Image
After 24 hours of stripping I am down to the last little sliver to fill. This one sliver took almost 1/2 hour itself to fill. With this done, and a few left on the other side the bottom of the hull is almost done. On the sides I have maybe 15 strips left and that will be done as well. I should be able to finish this by the end of next week I think, that is if I don’t succumb to sleep deprivation with a 2 year old and a 2-3 hour sleep schedule for baby time.
Image
Image

9/29/20
Passed a major milestone early. Finished up stripping over the past few days. I thought this would take me into mid October but being able to lay a few strips every 5 hours or so, plus up all night with the baby made things go faster. I also ordered up 5 gallons of West Systems 105 Resin and 1 gallon of hardener as well as all the biax fiberglass tape and cloth needed to complete the inside and outside of the hull. At 58 hours since I started and a total cost of about $3100 (not counting time) I have a couple gallons of epoxy, some fiberglass cloth, a wood boat shape, and about $300 of MDF and pine that will end in a bonfire to show for it. I also had about 8 16ft strips left over so my guessing on the total needed was pretty good I think. I’ll save these and maybe make use of them on the interior somewhere. I’m thinking the first bulkhead and bright finish them like the transom. We’ll see how motivated I get. The stripping process took 28 hours start to finish. I have no way to judge if this was fast or slow but I was pretty happy with the speed.
Image
Image
The moment I was waiting for finally had come… trimming the bow and transom. Now it looks like a boat 😊. Using a Dremel edge cutter it took about 45 seconds to zip through each. I’ll go back and clean up the edges to shape once I start sanding in a couple days. The bow is a bit rough in some places. For sure I’ll need to fill and sand to shape before glass.
Image
Image
The above photo is one of the aspects of this design that appealed to me. Concave surfaces that can be more easily achieved with a strip build. I love the lines of this design, for a flats boat there is a fair amount of bow flare. Looking back, if I were to do this again I would spend a lot more time and attention joining and cutting the bow sections to make for a better fit. This would save time filling before sanding.
Image
Now the joy of pulling staples!! This took 2 hours alone. One hour per side. To do this I used a large 10/0 VMC hook and a comfortable pair of needle nose plyers. I sure do love those 9/16th staples and stronger new gun that dove them deep into the frames... they were fun to pull. If you ever decide to take on this type of project the staples were fine, and in some cases, you need the longer length to grab up near the bow but if you can use 2 guns and ½” staples near the aft sections where there is no twisting or flexing and especially in the transom marine plywood vs the MDF frames it will sav you some work when you have to pull them. I didn’t, and pulling the longer staples from the transom was a b@%ch!
Any guesses as to how many staples were in this boat? I counted them as I pulled them. 2063. Which means I was pulling them at a rate of about 17 per minute or 1 every 3 ½ seconds.
Image

Ruge13
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
Posts: 26
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2022 2:35 pm
Location: Centerville, MA

Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

10/1/20
Spent some time yesterday laying out the Strakes. I won’t need them for a while, not until the hull is glassed and faired, but I had some down time so decided to start this. Another trip to the lumber yard and picked up some clear pine to set them up, the rest is just thickened epoxy and sanded to shape. I didn’t do much, just marked out the first 2 longer strakes of the four. While there, I did some nosing around for a transom veneer. Originally, I thought I might use Elm or Sapele boards stripped out and varnished for the transom but decided I wouldn’t get the same grain look I wanted. I found a sheet of Sapele plywood that had a really bright contrast swirling grain in a longitudinal shape that will work really well for the transom shape so ultimately, I decided to go that route. I can use the scraps for other parts later on and the cost is about the same at $100 no matter how I did it with Elm or Sapele.
Today I started sanding. After 4 hours I burned through 4 sander belts. 30 grit belts chewed through high spots pretty fast with the belt sander. You can see the difference here.
Image
I followed that up with an orbital sander and 120 grit to knock out the deeper grooves and unevenness from the belt sander. I was able to get through about 2/3 of the hull. Pro Tip – when you glue the strips, use more glue instead of less. Glue sands easily and the vibration from sanding will rattle weak glue joints apart. I had to go back and touch up a few separated joints with more glue after sanding, which means I get to sand again.
Image
Image
In the above picture you can see where I stopped towards the bow. I’ll tackle the bow in the next sanding session. That is going to take some work to rough shape, fill holes, and sand again not to mention deal with that chine issue where it raised off the frames. Not sure how that will play out and if I have enough material to sand it out or if I will need to cut strips out and glue in replacements. We’ll see.
Image

10/5/20
Made progress the past few days on the hull. Finished the rough sand down. For the most part the hull looks good. Some minor gaps to fill and one major correction to make with that port side chine at the bow. I saved that for last. With the boat wheeled outside the garage I could keep the dust to a minimum which was nice. Picked up a respirator and used for the first time. It is nice to not have 2 days worth of what feels like intense allergies after sanding 😊.
Image
Using the belt sander and 50 grit I went to town on the bow. Sanded the entire front section on the last 2 frames flat. Basically, everything forward of the second set of staple holes. The starboard side looks beautiful. The bow came out great, both are better than I expected. I left the bow sharp for photos but this will get rounded over before glassing as the fiberglass can’t fold sharp corners without causing air gaps. Port side, well, I got what I expected. Sanded through all of the material leaving a gap along where the fake chine was. The straight on shot shows the carnage.
Image
Image
This was the point where I would decide if I was going to cut out a few strips and re-do it, or fill and sand. I decided there was enough cedar strip material left to only need a fill and sand so here is what I did…
This is what the hole looks like.
Image
First, used painters tape to cover the hole and prevent epoxy from squishing out to the other side.
Image
Next, mixed up a batch of thickened epoxy using wood flour (exactly as it sounds, essentially really fine sawdust) to a peanut butter consistency. In the end I used 2 batches of epoxy to fill.
Image
Next, I crawled up under the hull. The light from above made it easy to see the trouble spot. My plan was to use the plastic squeegee to work in the epoxy but logistically that proved near impossible. Just slopping it on with my fingers worked best. I tried to create a fillet (imagine epoxy caulk bead filling a joint then smoothed with your finger) so the area was filled, strong, and with enough material to sand down from the outside.
Image
Image
I let this cure overnight and planned to sand the following day.
Image
The following day, after the tape was peeled off this is what was left. A rock hard, smooth finish, seem. BTW, the tape peeled very easy and left a smooth surface that barely needed sanding, only to level the height. Now I see why people use Peel Ply for fiberglass. I’ll definitely be doing that in the interior fillets! Using a random orbital sander and 100 grit this smoothed down very quickly leaving one or two additional areas where more material was needed.
Image
That was a lot easier than I expected and made a very strong seem. After sanding I spent a bit more time shaping up the bow to make the line as fair and straight as I can get it. The flat edge of the belt sander helps keep things straight as long as I don’t get crazy with it. I mixed up another batch of thickened epoxy and used that to fill those last 2 holes and every other small gap I could find on the hull where strips might not have met 100% or some glue was missed (remember pro tip: use more glue than less). I’ll let this cure up and sand before the weekend. I’d like to be at the point of laying down fabric and dry fitting fiberglass before the weekend. With any luck I’ll get some glass on it before Columbus day.
Image

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests