SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

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Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

10/11/20
First, there are a TON of materials online from forums to videos and articles explaining how to lay fiberglass. I watched them all reaching the stop sign at the end of the internet and had to turn back, read them all, then watched again. Bateau’s site Boat Builders Forum and Jamestown Distributors web site and youtube channels are great. I could list links, and did include a few in the reference list, but there are a ton! I found the info so helpful I stopped looking for materials discounted online somewhere else and decided to buy through them alone just because I appreciated the help. Full disclaimer – I have zero affiliation with either, they don’t know me from a hole in the wall.
Last week I got most of the sanding and shaping done. I didn’t get any time this week to do anything until the weekend. This weekend I finished up the final sanding including that trouble spot along the bow chine. Both sides are matched up pretty well now, I’m happy with the results and it is for sure solid even though it doesn’t really need to be. I rounded over the chines to about a ½” radius, same for the bow. This is needed for the heavy 1708 “17oz Biax tape and cloth to fold over the edges without causing air gaps where the material struggles to fold. I’ll go back and sharpen these up after fairing right before priming and paint.
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Once I was done sanding, I cleaned the entire boat with pressured air and then acetone. I don’t have an air compressor so I just fired up the leaf blower and blew the $%^$# out of it 😊 which left a nice thick layer of dust on top of my wife’s Jeep. I call it a win/win.
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Once clean, I started laying out the fiberglass Tape and cloth for test fitting. This will make things go more smoothly when I actually start glassing. This requires tape on the keel and chines, then one layer of cloth overlapped at the keel for both sides. I am going with heavy 1708 cloth and tape. This is a bit heavier than the plans call for but it will let me sleep at night considering how soft I am running boats 😊. That hull will take a bullet when I am done.
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BTW – before adding epoxy and wetting out the transom strip, I snipped the corner of the joints with scissors to fold them over. The thick 1708 doesn’t fold easy like wrapping a present, you need to cut the folds and overlap.
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Once I had everything laid out I rolled up the tape and laid cloth. Trimmed to leave a few inches past the botting of the hull. I marked up the hull and tape with arrows and labels so that I knew where to wet out and where to lay material. I then rolled this all back up on a cardboard roll for use when ready. The cloth I let set overnight so it could relax on the hull. I massaged this out for a bit by smoothing things out with my hands which removes all the lumps and uneven weave. Unlike the Biax tape which has a layer of chop strand matting on the reverse side, the cloth is just Biax cloth weave so it is much easier to work with.
The following day I set out to start on the keel and chines. Due to using heavy Biax tape and cloth, I understand that that material does not wet out from the top entirely, or at least not easily. So to do this, I first took a guess at how much resin I needed and set that out in cups for Resin and hardener. I’m using West Systems Slow hardener because I want longer working time given I am new to this. I then set aside a separate set of cups with an emergency amount in case I run out. Starting with the Keel, I gathered all the materials, brush, tape, gloves, etc and mixed up the first batch of resin for about 2 minutes.
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I wet out the wood areas slopily with a 3” brush following the width marks I made when I dry fit the tape the day before just enough that the epoxy was starting to run down the hull. After a quick sticky glove change I placed the tape down and smoothed things out by hand. I then went back over the tape pooring and brushing out more epoxy to wet out the material. Once I felt I had enough I went over the entire area with the bubble roller. Working the material with the bubble roller took more time, or at least I spent more time than when wetting out the material. Once satisfied, I cleaned up the edges where extra epoxy pooled up by brushing this down to dry spots on the hull. I am glad I readied an emergency stashof resin, I ended up using all of both batches mid stream on the keel. This let me gauge how much I needed for each chine and transom.
I then followed the same process for each finishing up the entire set in about 2 hours. Yah, I am slow because I spend a lot of time rolling bubbles to be sure I get nice clean, air gap free finish. This will save me time in the end because I won’t need to repair much (fingers crossed). I was much faster with chines and transom because I was far less neat. I also slopped on more epoxy to the wood so that the material wet through better from below. This helped get the tape to go clear and absorb resin much faster or more consistently as the advice I got was right, 1708 does not wet out from the top entirely.
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I was also afraid of blush considering I am working towards the lower end of the prescribed working temperature for the epoxy. Blushing is when the epoxy kicks and cures slowly leaving a greasy feel to the touch. This would mean a lot of cleaning with soap to remove the greasy finish in order to continue with other overlapping glass work or fairing. Overall, I am pretty happy with the results considering this is my first time doing this type of application. The day after, zero blush 😊 and few bubbles to deal with. Next, I’ll fill one or two bubble spots, sand it down, and glass the cloth for the rest of the hull. That will probably take me another 2 weeks.
You can see from the below photo one of the areas I need to fill. The white space between the keel strip and the transom strip is an air gap. This happened because the keel was done first and so it had already kicked and started to harden before I got to the transom strip. All of these voids must be drilled, injected with epoxy and cured to have a solid joint without a weak spot. Its not that the transom will fall off, it is just that it could be an area for delamination or cracking down the road. Anyone with a production boat has met this foe… a spot on the hull where stress or impact pushes into a void in the fiberglass through the gel coat. Those voids are air pockets that were never filled by the factory. Well, this factory is filling them. High quality constriction boats have far less of this, lower quality production line boats are full of them. You may not see them for a year or five, but sooner or later you will and can be a source of delamination or worse yet, water ingress. At the very least, you will need to fix them down the road which is far more difficult than now. Anyway, was still only an hour or so later so primary bonding is good “wet on wet”, just not soft and absorbent any longer which made it difficult to blend together cleanly no matter how much epoxy I dumped on there. No worries, it is pretty good and will be easy to fill.
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10/12/20
Spent some time last night fixing some of the air bubbles. When things were wet I thought I had far less. Now that epoxy has set up I see a bunch more. I drilled a total of 43 holes in the boat. Each bubble needs an entry and an exit hole. The deal is, you drill two holes on the outer edges of a void, then using a syringe you inject epoxy to fill until it runs out the other hole. For larger voids multiple holes are required. Below is the Keel void mentioned in the last update. I popped a few holes and injected. You can see the color change, white had air, clear means it filled in. You can see in the photo that epoxy is running out of the hole adjacent to the syringe. I did this in many small <1” and larger >1” size voids along the keel and chines.
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One area I will need to remember is the Keel. Here, you might remember I paired a set of strips down the center of the keel. This created a gap considering they are set on an angle and not cleanly butted together. Some of the gap I filled with Gorilla Glue, some I did not. I also touched up a few places with thickened epoxy when I was filling other holes before sanding. Well, the areas where the strips were not well glues together leave a clear path for epoxy to drip down onto the Keel support frame. This means that the epoxy under the tape just bled out and left an air void. I drilled and injected but again it just ran down and out onto the frames. So, I restored the tape to be solid and will not allow epoxy to seep out though the tape from above. When I wet out the cloth layers over top of the tape I won’t get any epoxy leak and should let me roll out any air under the cloth. This means when I flip the hull to work on the inside, I have to remember to then fill the keel with a bead of epoxy to fill up that space before adding a layer of thickened epoxy fillet then biax tape. No big deal, just need to remember to do that before sanding out the inside of the hull.
For those who have never done fiberglass work… Pro Tip: DO NOT run your hand along the clean dry epoxy the next day while admiring your work. The epoxy feels nice and smooth, yay.. then an hour later you realize you just filled your hand with thousands of invisible glass shards that now feel like death by paper cut. Ugg… Fiberglass sucks.

Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

10/18/20
Not much progress this week. Time is getting away from me and I needed to deal with winterizing my center console and Saturday was opening day of Upland season. The biggest issue is that right now noise in my house is a problem with the newborn, 2 YO, and sleep deprived Mom so power sanding is limited to a few hours mid-day on weekends. I did manage to get all the tape sanded down from last week and ready for cloth to be wet out which took about 2 hours. Now I know why people do this Wet on Wet… sanding fiberglass sucks. I feel like I have poison ivy all over from fiberglass dust. Even with goggles and respirator, dust still gets in your eyes, nose, and mouth somewhat so I have a constant allergy feeling for 2 days afterwards. When I flip the hull and skin the inside everything requiring layers will go on wet on wet so I only need to sand one time.
Once finished, I blew out the garage and boat with the leaf blower and washed the entire boat down with acetone again. I’m ready for cloth now so as soon as a few supplies show up in the mail I’ll move on to the next step.
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You can see the difference between sanded and not sanded. Everything glossy was knocked flat with 60 and 100 grit. I also now understand why builders say estimate your sand paper needs and double it. Fresh paper moves much faster. I bulked up on 5” sanding disks for future rounds. I also could have used the belt sander this time around but chose not to. That would have made things faster for sure, albeit with less finesse. The photos look ugly but all the edges are now smooth down to the wood so the cloth will transition nicely without air.
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I do have a trouble spot on the transom corner. I injected a lot of epoxy into an air void here but it wasn’t enough and when I started working it with the sander the void became obvious. I decided to sand that down to where wood meets solid resin and will go back over that spot with more tape before the next layer. I’ll do that wet on wet when I wet down the cloth layer. It is hard to tell in the photo what is air (which shows white under the glass) and what is not because the sanded areas now have the same color. So, I sanded all of this off and will patch it. No big deal. All said and done the transom edges will have 3-4 layers of glass tape and cloth so I am not worried at all about water ingress or weakness here.
I am pretty happy about the bow where layers of 17oz tape met. This sanded down nice and flat so I don’t expect large raising due to the extra material for fairing.
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Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

10/25/20
I wasn’t sure when I would get to this next step. After finishing the stripping earlier than I thought, a few life delays put me back on schedule for the end of October. Saturday I was able to get the hull cloth wet out. I laid a plan out in my head:
1. Make up a bunch of pre-poured cups of resin and hardener
2. Lay out fiberglass for one side, then fold back in half wetting one side out at a time
3. Cut and add patch for corner of transom
4. Cut and lay out a needed extra layer of cloth for the transom to go on first
5. Lay out One side of hull cloth, fold half back
6. Mix Epoxy Wet out patch and then transom cloth over top (overlapping all sides of hull)
7. Mix and wet half of one half of the hull
8. Lay down cloth in epoxy, then fold second half back on that
9. Wet out the second half of the hull and lay down cloth
10. Wet out the top of all cloth
11. Work bubble roller
12. Admire work
Of course I ignored how long it took to just wet out chine strips as well as the amount of resin needed and decided this process would take me no more than 1.5 – 2 hours. Lets roll!
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First, the laziness in calculating the volume of resin needed for that area and cloth weight made for some fun scrambling. Then I got frazzled and skipped step 4, which I didn’t realize until I was into step 5. This means I mixed up epoxy and had to put it down to quickly lay and cut a piece for the transom. Fortunately, 60 ish degree garage and slow hardener means I get a 30-45min pot life. In the end, I barely made it when I got to step 11 and epoxy started to kick over as I was rolling out the last of the bubbles. More on that later.
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Above is the start of step 5. Notice the cloth doesn’t go all the way over the transom? Wonder why? Seriously, if someone knows why please let me know. Why I cut it short I don’t understand or remember. I’m sure I had a reason when I cut it, but I don’t remember why. As a result, I need to splice in a silly patch piece to complete the transom coverage. Stupid. In the end, shouldn’t make a difference strength-wise.
Anyway, let me tell you how this all went down. I skipped step 4, got to step 5 and said crap… do step 4, then catch up with step 6. That sent me scrambling. The patch looked like this and is now buried under epoxy and the transom layer.
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At this point early on I already realized I didn’t have enough pre-poured resin and hardener made up to complete the side but pressed on anyway. I got through as planned and got the entire side wet out (overlapped the transom layer and patch wet on wet). This involved stopping every few minutes to mix up the next batch of resin which takes at least two minutes of mix time. Mix, dump, roll. Mix, dump roll a total of eleven times. When you think of it, I lost about twenty two minutes to mixing epoxy alone. No Bueno. Here’s the thing… I am out of time. The time I thought would take me to do the entire boat is what it took me to do the transom and one side. Lesson learned, eh?
Fortunately, my wife checked in on me towards the end and was able to help fill up three more sets of resin/hardener needed to complete the job. If I had to pour that I would have missed the window to roll out bubbles considering it takes five minutes or more to pump out the thick resin, so she saved me there. 2.5 hours total, baby Nap time over ☹ so I had to leave the boat half finished and rolled out the bubbles before the resin kicked over and started to set up.
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In the end I am pretty happy with how the side set up. I have a few bubbles along the chine (if you look hard you can see some in the above) that should be easy to drill and fill up. The overlaps on the transom are clean, I was worried about that. Came out better than I expected. That will make it easier to laminate the transom with the veneer after fairing. The corners of the transom look ugly for now but will sand down and fill with epoxy pretty easily, I think. I’m not concerned about these at all based on the previous experience sanding and filling. I have one more layer to put over the transom which will make 3 layers overlapping each edge and most of the wood and 2 layers over the center area which is overkill with 17oz cloth anyway. Inside of the hull would have a layer plus filets and edge tape and the veneer will likely add a layer of 6oz cloth just to keep the engine from pushing into the softer veneer wood but we’ll see. Overall that transom will be as strong as my 23’ Seacraft. The keel has 3 layers and the chines 2 layers, the same will be replicated on the inside for those.
So here is where I ended up by mid afternoon with one side.
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After the first “Oh So Fun” sanding experience I really wanted to finish up the glass work wet on wet and cut down the sanding iterations between steps. To stay within the set up time window I needed to wet out the second layer within 12 hours to keep primary bonding without sanding. This means after bedtime I returned to do this again on side 2. I mean, no one ever really likes side B anyway. All the milenials reading just scratched their heads and thoguht “whats a side B?”. Sigh….
This time I had the right amount of resin prepoured, actually I could have used one more batch but it would have been just to fill some weave on top. I changed my process a bit and tried to move a bit faster. I wet down the entire wood hull first with the roller, then changed gloves and went back over top with glass cloth. Smoothed out the bubbles a bit by hand and wet out from top keep down with the roller. This side took about 1.5 hours and again just finished before the resin kicked over.
In hindsight I would have done this with at least 2 people. The process was easy, but having a mixer or a second set of hands to get resin down faster would have been helpful. I jumped into this step based on a last minute “oohh, I have 3 hours to do this today” oportunity but better planning with a friend or two would have made this a lot easier or at least I would not have felt like I was racing a clock. Fortunately the slow hardener and cold air kept things moving slower. If I had the pot life dictiated by the manufacturers specifications at 70 degrees for sure I would have had solid resin half way through the wet out and that would have been disasterous. Lesson learned, I got lucky. When I glass the inside of the hull I plan to do the chine strips, filets, and hull cloth all in one step to avoid sanding so I’ll plan better for that one. I would also not be so stingy with resin, I’d pour up a bunch of measured batches and dump/roll much faster without worrying about using too much epoxy as what I thought would be too much was actually not enough or barely made it in both cases.
On the plus side, I now have a fishable, waterproof, and strong hull with relatively few bubbles to sand and fill. Next steps now are to sand and put the last layer of cloth on the transom, fill some bubbles and work on the transom corners a bit, then sand down the entire hull one last time to be ready for fairing. I hope to be fairing the transom by the second week in November so I can get that veneer on.
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Todays research question.. shear lines. How do I find them? Where should I cut them? Most people cut the shear and apply the rub rail before flippning but I can’t do that if I don’t know how to find it. The shear line and the hatches are the two parts of this build that intimidate me most. Fire up the google machine.. go!

11/8/20
Priority conflicts have prevented moving forward a bit considreing I need larger blocks of time with power tools and making a lot of noise is not on most afternoon’s agenda these days. That and it is now Upland Bird season and my dog knows it. Caution: shameless plug for this guy, he works his ass off 😊 and misses nothing. I can’t say the same for me.
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Never the less, I took advantage of a November 70 degree day, donned a full tyvec suit and sweated my #$%@ off for 3 horus this weeked. Sunday Funday.
Have I mentioned how much I hate sanding fiberglass?
I didn’t use a tyvec suit the last time even though I was wearing a respirator and I spent a few hours sanding glass and I hated life for days afterwards. I scratched myself to the point of bleeding on wrists, hands, and arms. This time I did, and while a bit swampy, man did it make things better! I wore rubber gloves and relied on the elastic bad at the wrists to keep dust out of my sleeves. Well, lesson learned there. Next time I will duct tape the sleeves down to the gloves and wear pair of work gloves over those to keep them from tearing all to keep the sander blow back from shooting up my sleeves. I’m still a bit itchy due to that but compared to last time, night and day better. I also stopped being stingy and ordered up a 100 stack of 100 grit sanding disks and a few more 60 grit sander belts. Swapping out disks every square meter or so really kept things moving and easier on my shoulders not having to press so hard to sand. Otherwise, I think the entire boat would have taken 4 or 5 hours to sand.
Two nights last week I mixed up a batch or two of epoxy and used syringes to fill up some air bubbles. There were more than I thought, but 2 hours of drilling and filling and I’d say 90% are filled. The rest seem barely cosmetic so I’ll just sand them down and fill with the fill coat to come next. I also filled up those trouble corners on the transom so that they are solid resin. Easier to shape them that way.
First, I used the belt sander to knock down the rough corners and shape the transom as well as any high spots from filling air bubbles, where the cloth overlapped along the keel and bow, and any really glossy spots where epoxy resin pooled up during wet out. Then I followed up with the orbital sander and the 100 grit to sand down through the sacrificial thread holding the cloth stitch together. The wet out seemed to leave just enough epoxy to cover up the glass thread weave and cause it to go transparent but not enough to fill the weave entirely. Having never done that before I assume that is expected for such heavy cloth so I sanded off the sacrificial thread to the point where the gloss was sanded off the weave. It became pretty obvious that when the threads were sanded off I get a striped pattern of glossy untouched weave and white scratched up string spot all running in one direction. When I pushed a little deeper I got a cross hatch pattern when the sander got down far enough to skim the top of the glass weave. My understanding is that is about as far as you should take it so you don’t sand out the weave which is what gives the glass its strength. Right or wrong, that is what I did over the entire hull. The end result leaves a little bit of gloss down in the weave but the top of the weave is now sanded a bit and the string on top is gone as well as any high spots of resin.
Remember that problem corner on the transom that I needed to patch (it got a patch, then 2 layers of 17oz cloth in the wet out)? Well, it had a few air pockets that I filled and then shaped it down with the belt sander to be more or less fair with the rest of the chines and hull.
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You can see in the photo where the weave was not entirely filled and some of the remaining air bubbles are sanded out to be filled. You can also see the horizontal thread sanded away as well as the cross hatch pattern where the sander got deep enough to touch the weave.
Some of the builder snobs out there are probably laughing at my glass work. Meh, for a first time I think it is going ok. Definitely learning as I go. Biggest lesson learned from the wet out, be ready with a lot more resin and use it. I would have liked to have a bit more resin filling in the weave before sanding the first time and I would have liked a bit more resin and time to knock out more of the air bubbles. Never the less, with 3 layers of glass here I think they are cosmetic. The layers beneath are solid and I certainly not worried about water ingress over time, it is 100% water tight.
This is my last fiberglass step on the main hull. This week I will wet out one more layer of 17oz over the transom to make a solid 2 layers over all, then add a fill or “neat” coat to the entire hull so that the weave is filled up. Then, another weekend on the sander, trim the shear (look at me being all classy, fancy boating term for cut off the excess glass along the edges), and I’m ready for fairing. I’ll start with the transom so I can get the laminate glued on. That will need a layer of glass once glued before the rest of the hull can be faired. Anyway, a blow off with the leaf blower and another wash down in acetone and that’s all for one day.
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It is 70 degrees, all that white frosty stuff is not frost, it is fiberglass dust. If I was not doing this outside (I close the garage door down on the 1/3 of the boat still in the garage, then wheel the boat around to do the opposite end) I can’t imagine how awful this would be. For example this is my car the following morning AFTER a 45 minute drive and said car was 50 feet away from where I was sanding. This is why my sinuses drip for 2 days even with a respirator. I forgot, did I mention how much I hate sanding? Next stop was the car wash for fear this is going to show up on my 2 YO. When I keel over from inhaling glass chards I want my head stone to read “Here lies Shaun, he should have bought a Festool”.
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11/11/20
I got some time one night this week to get the neat coat on. I’m glad I did this. The weave certainly was not filled enough and would have been weak. There is a big difference in the stiffness of the hull now, much better. The last 65 degree night we had I mixed up a bunch of epoxy and broke out another roller, this time a bit more heavy handed with the resin. There are very few spots where the resin pooled and seems to be much more material there to sand down now.
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I’m pretty happy with how the transom corners shaped up after filling some air pockets. This is the final layup here with 2 layers of 1708 biax cloth.
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The Dremel reciprocating tool made quick work of trimming off the excess cloth. I didn’t bother to get it perfectly lined up yet, figured this would give me more surface area to adhere the transom.
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The sanding this time went relatively quick and I dressed for it this time by taping down the cuffs. No dust blow back up my sleeves 😊.
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With the glass surface more even now, the glossy finish was easy to scuff up and even out. Ready for fairing and transom laminate. I thought this was interesting, check out the thickness of the glassed surface compared to the ¼” (or less after sanding) of cedar strip underneath. The second photo is of the transom and you can see the difference between 1 layer of 1708 and 2 layers. The transom wood is 2 layers of ¾” marine ply for size comparison.
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Ignore the wonky shape at the bow, this is because the hull hangs down below the plane of the frame and I did not cut it flush. I’ll do that when I cut the shear after the flip. To date I am 93 hours in, spent $3800 (remember the original budget estimate? right…) and have a fishable, waterproof hull.
Once done, I gave then entire hull another sanding and Acetone bath and tucked it away for a few days.
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Last note, I changed my respirator filters today. I can’t believe I used to do this stuff without it. Imagine what your lungs would look like.
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Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

From this point forward for a bit I will be doing separate parts of the project in parallel to manage time, so I split my notes into categories instead of date progression. You may see some photos that show steps ahead because I am posting this a category at a time but later on if you string the dates together it will make sense. While some steps were curing/drying I could move on to others prepping for future stuff.

11/15/20
I was able to get some time to make a lot of progress this weekend. First up, transom lamination. I cut a 4x8 sheet of Okoume that has a nice grain to it to a size larger than the transom. I also fabricated a brace so I could put pressure on the transom while gluing. I stole this ide from a build thread for another flats boat found online.
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In the mean time, I started researching what or how I could stain the wood to draw out the grain and darken it up some. I also looked up the process for varnishing. I originally thought I would use a light weight cloth to glass over the wood but given this doesn’t need strength that seems silly. Then, I thought I would build up a bunch of varnish but that also seemed very time consuming and weaker than epoxy. In the end I decided to follow this process from Boatworks today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqiXZrs5hvM to build up a couple layers of epoxy, then a few layers of varnish. After consulting with a boatbuilder friend, I decided to test some stain on a scrap piece of okoume and apply a coat of epoxy. It has no solvents, so should not be an issue but here are mixed reviews online about that. We’ll see.
Anyway, back to building. Step one I dry fit the frame and transom with winch straps. Then I mixed up a bunch of epoxy thickened with Colloidal Silica. Using a notched plastic spreader, I added a thick layer covering the entire transom boat side. Sorry I don’t have any photos of this. Then, added back the transom and fixed the frame with a bunch of clamps and straps. I’ll let this cure up for a couple days.
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In the mean time I tested up some sample colors and epoxy. Cedar is the winner.

11/18/20
I made some small updates the past couple days. Using a Sawzall, I trimmed down the transom to just larger than the hull shape. Using thickened epoxy with silica again, I filled in and leveled off the gaps along the rounded hull edges and the sharper transom. This will let me shape it flush with the belt sander and fair in with the rest of the hull.
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I am really happy with this so far. The laminate seems solid and I love the grain. It took me some time sorting through a stack of sheets to find one with that character. I really hope the stain exaggerates this.
You can see I added the first layer of fairing mix over the hull which sets me up for a nice weekend of sanding ahead. Yay, my favorite! This is the first of likely a half dozen coats and sanding iterations.
I did not trim off the bottom (which is actually the top) of the transom and will do that after the flip when it is easier to do a cleaner job. My expectation is to tape off the edges of the transom leaving a 1.5” border all the way around. I will prime and paint that border so that the transition from wood to hull paint is very clean which also means I am not too concerned with perfect edges on the plywood after trimming. In the end, the process will clean them up. The bottom of the boat will also get a sacrificial graphite/epoxy finish common now with smaller wooden boat builds so the area chine to chine down to the keel will be finished black with that process leaving everything above bare wood.
In the mean time, I have been testing stain colors and epoxy on a scrap cut from the transom. The middle golden brown color “Cedar” seems to be my favorite and I think it will blend well with the natural color of other accent Sapele trim and cedar I plan to use inside.
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11/22/20
I got a couple coats of stain to even out the tone on the transom wood this weekend. I like the color, but a little disappointed the grain muted some. It is still pretty, but I was hoping for more dramatic. I contemplated going back to the strip route with Elm over top, but I am going to press on and keep the ply. Afterall, I do still like it. Certainly, confirms my plans for the inside bulkheads. I’m definitely going the strip route there. Next step is 3 clear coats of epoxy and several of varnish.
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11/29/20
Here’s a little story about how to spend 20 hours, almost $200, and ruin a perfectly good transom. On my test strip, which was flat on the workbench, the Epoxy over stain came out like glass with no air bubbles. Here is what it looked like wet.
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When I put the epoxy on vertically, even though I hit it with a heat gun and had a heater running to get the temperature up so it would set quickly, it orange peeled really badly. The irony of it is that I borrowed some higher end epoxy used for bright work from above building friend specifically for this purpose. It does not have the same properties as the west Epoxy and should not bubble nor orange peel or blush. Murphy’s law I guess.
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I tried to sand it out to even out the height of the orange peels but in a few places even with 220 grit it went through the wood. Of course that has some resin in it, so it won’t take stain. Below is sanded with 120 grit then 220 grit , then acetone rinse.
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So now I have a choice, I can live with the mess and try to salvage the rest of it or I can scrap it altogether at this point and go a different route. I’m not going to be happy if it has imperfections, so my inclination is to take the nuclear route and at k it with a belt sander and 30 grit to rip it all off. I’ll start over and strip it out like it like I originally planned. This time, I’m going to plank it on top of quarter inch plywood flat on the floor so the Epoxy sets up like glass then I’m going to bond it to the transom. All said and done the transom will be nearly 3 inches thick and cost nearly $400. It will be the most over built transom of any 15 foot skiff ever built I think. I’m actually starting to worry about the weight a little bit.

12/1/20

Yesterday I picked up some new 8ft 1x 4x ¾” Walnut boards to strip out the transom as well as the remaining clean pine and ½” Okoume sheets to loft out the interior frames and stringers. I chose Walnut because it is a bit unique, don’t think I have seen this used on a boat like this before, I like the dark brown tone and grain of the wood. I’ll use the same on the inner gunnel caps. This morning I had an hour before work so I ripped down the boards to ¼” strips that I will plane down a bit thinner to consistently even out the height.
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This goes on record as the most expensive pile of sawdust I have made to date 😊. The second thing I did was take the remaining piece of ¼” Okoume from the original sheet and traced out the transom area to strip.
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Next, after planing I’ll lay out the strips and glue them down in a pattern I like. Learned my lesson from last time, I’ll sand this down the strips and epoxy/varnish this flat on my basement floor before using the frame to mount this to the boat again. My first guess is I will be short a few feet of strips so I’ll probably need to grab another board.

12/8/20

Lots of progress this week. I laid out the transom strips and arranged in a pattern I liked. I wanted a non uniform random look to the strips but was sure to make sure there were not groups of lesser grain. I then numbered them so I could lay them back in the same order once I put epoxy on the plywood. Next, the entire sheet of plywood was covered in a layer of epoxy to bond the trips down and I laid them back out again. This cured for 2 days under a layer of plastic sheet and weights.
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In the meantime I took a belt sander to the transom and ripped off all the epoxy and stained wood. Getting back to bare wood will allow me to bond this new transom laminate once completed.
I did not strip it down through the wood and previous epoxy bond to get it back to glass. I feel like I would have ripped it apart and opted to keep the relatively flat wood surface rather than risk any additional damage to fix. Below is where I left it.
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Once the strips had cured, I brought the panel outside and used the belt sander and 60 grit to level out the strips as well as remove epoxy that had seeped through the strip seems to the top of the wood. Walnut is a really hard wood so it took some patience to get this leveled out. I then started following up with the orbital sander down to 120 grit to remove and last epoxy and belt sander marking that would be visible once surface epoxy is applied. Next steps here are to get a few layers of the MAS clear epoxy and a few layers of varnish before laminating with the jig and winch straps again. If the look of the panel is any indication, I am glad this entire fiasco worked out. Strips of Walnut, Elm, or Mahogany were my initial vision so I’m excited to see how this finishes. The tone of the darker wood has more character. I expect to use bright wood for trim and a few other accents inside. This has a bearing on hull color. That dark chocolate brown transom means I need to use cream or muted golden colors I think. I decided to go with Fighting Lady Yellow for the hull above the water line with a white base inside although I may swap that to off-white or cream tone to soften the transition. I will also use graphite in a barrier coat for the bottom of the hull considering this will slide up on sand and a trailer often.
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12/13/20
What is it they say, the best laid plans something or other? This weekend I wrapped up sanding the transom. Apparently, my orbital sander is no match for walnut. Man is that wood tough. After a futile hour of 120 grit it became obvious, I needed more horse power to get the job done and unfortunately the panel is too wide for the planer. So, against better judgment I bought a few 120 grit belts for the belt sander and went to work. After an hour this had things pretty leveled out. The down side is that after an hour of continuous sanding with a lot of pressure applied and a very dense wood, my sander crapped out. Burned up in my hand, seized, shot sparks out the side, then caught fire. While that sat smoldering in my driveway, I followed up with the orbital and cleaned up any last remaining marks on the panel. Now I am happy with the result.
The following few evenings were spent applying the MAS epoxy build up. To do this I mixed up about half a quart of epoxy then brushed on the volume, tipped out the bubbles or other variances in the surface. After the first coat I was thrilled. Exactly what I had hoped, absolutely my original vision for the stripped transom, and I love the grain and tone of the wood not to mention the quality of the finish. Virtually zero air bubbles or blemishes.
Pro Tip – don’t play with your dog before epoxy. The dog hairs fall off your shirt so you spend 20 minutes trying to fish them out, then tipping out the epoxy.

Some day when the boat sinks and I float up on a beach somewhere you can Jurassic park me back using this mosquito. How a skeeter finds its way into the epoxy, in December, in my basement is beyond me. It is too deep to sand out and nearly invisible but remains the one artifact within the epoxy to play where’s waldo.
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After three coats, any unevenness left from sanding on the surface has leveled out. In between coats I lightly sanded with 220 grit sanding block and then acetone to knock out any higher dust particles or small surface air. With the fourth coat I now have a mirror like very clear finish. With each coat I was more and more worried of introducing a blemish that would compromise the quality of the finish. In the end, no such worry. From here, I’ll build up a few coats of Pettit Captain’s varnish and a higher quality Ox tail brush to give a rock hard, completed look with UV resistance. I am VERY happy with the result here, this is going to look beautiful so I am glad I did the extra work and didn’t sand down and just paint the transom. This was definitely worth the additional ~$200 in materials investment. I should have the finished transom glues on by the weekend assuming all goes well.
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12/20/20
This weekend made me happy. On Friday night I rigged up the frame jig used the first time to put pressure in the transom panel. Mixed up some thickened epoxy with silica and affixed the new panel. Took care to cover it with paper before anything laid against it.
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On Sunday I went back and trimmed it to shape. The Walnut and layered epoxy is so tough it took a Sawzall with a metal cutting blade to trim it to near the hull shape. Repeating the prior process, I then filled any remaining gaps around the edges with thickened epoxy. In a couple days, the final shaping will be done with a belt sander and 80 grit before one last round of fairing to the hull height.
Fun fact, after 4 coats of epoxy I switched to varnish where I planned to add 3+ coats. One coat applied relatively thin and tipped out to reduce air took 3 days to dry out and cure. It did not self level very well and showed many air bubbles and dust depressions. As you can imagine I was really cranky. Decided to sand it out a bit with 220 grit then 400 removing all the air and leveling depressions. Applied a final 5th coat of epoxy instead of varnish. This restored the finish back to near glass as it was before. There is still one depression I couldn’t get out and a hand full of small air bubbles but all are barely noticeable and will be under the outboard anyway. That varnish could have ruined the entire panel. Lesson learned for internal trip pieces, no varnish for me!
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Full disclosure, the ratchet straps put enough pressure on the frame to rotate the panel on the transom while curing. This means the strips are not perfectly level to the boat. It’s not a big deal, but noticeable when you stare at it long enough and I think it will be noticeable on the top of the transom once the boat is flipped and the top and trimmed or sitting on the trailer. The top rub rail may hide some of it. Oh well, yet another lesson learned. I am still very happy with the result. That’s all for now, this will stay taped up and covered until the flip so I don’t do something silly and put scratches in it or spill epoxy or paint.
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Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

11/15/20
While waiting for the transom to cure I started the first application of fairing compound. I am using West Systems 410 for this. The first couple batches I used way too much epoxy so when it came time to thicken it to a peanut butter consistency things went awry. The first batch was a bit too thin and I ran out of space in the cup to mix it thick. The second batch kicked over too fast and expanded like foam after 10 minutes. The third and subsequent batches went well but I still think it was a little bit thin and watery. Next time I’ll work with more frequent, smaller, thicker, batches. Application was like drywall spackle. Dump some down and work it with a drywall trowel. Using a 14” trowel (which was great to span the low spots and really fill things in), I dumped filler at the keel and drew it down to the chine, then from chine to shear. Having never done this before, I assume you can leave this a bit thick and sand it down like drywall but for this first pass I scraped off a lot of the material. Next time I’ll go thicker. I’m pretty happy with how the first application went overall, weave and low spots seem filled and evened out, we’ll see how it sands out. I can tell the bow section is going to need some work, lots of uneven surface there to fair smooth! This stuff really fills in the last of the weave and any holes or pockets in the hull glass. It will be cold the next few days so I’ll leave this to cure up until the weekend when I can sand the first batch with the orbital sander. After that it is a repeating process to apply another batch, and sand manually with a long board.
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11/19/20
No one even noticed? I’m sure the build snobs out there did…. It seems I missed a step (or two). Seems I should have applied the strakes and sharpened the chine and transom edges before I started fairing. So here is how I am going to rationalize this… In the end, this luck mistake prevented another bigger mistake which would have been to apply the flexible strakes to an uneven hull. The mistake driven decision to fair the hull so I have a nice level surface to mount the strakes now seems like an advantage. The truth is, the hull does need it. Looks pretty from afar, but run your hand over the hull and you feel the uneven surface left behind from varying cedar strips. Use your eye level and look down the hull and you can see a wobbly country road. The sanding fixed a lot, glass epoxy leveling fixed a lot, but still uneven enough that it should be flat before anything else is glued to it or I risk compounding the issue (at least in my mind this makes sense). The edge sharpening, well, I just had steps out of order. Yeah, those steps I am making up as I go along cobbling together from build threads online so my guess is there is no real right or wrong way to do this stuff and afterall, it is all really just a plastic boat made of glue with some wood thrown in. So, I am going to sand off coat 1 of fairing, apply the strakes, sharpen chines, then go back to fairing. Oops. This wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time I skip steps…

11/22/20
I spent a few hours sanding this weekend with the long board. Remember how much I love sanding… well, I have nothing but expletives to describe long boarding. My shoulders hate me right now. I used the stiff board for the back half of the bottom and the flexible board for the front half and gunnels. In the end, Iearned a few things such as how not to apply the filler. I was drawing the blade down from the keel. All this did was scrape the material out of the low spots.
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Next time I need to draw down parallel to the keel to fill in all the low spots left behind from the strip build. If I stand the knife up perpendicular to the keel you can see what I mean. LOTS of low spots on this hull.
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All of the glossy areas are low spots the sander never hit. I will hit these again with the flexible sander just to scuff them for the next application, but they all need to be filled. The stiff sander started penetrating down into the weave on the high spots, so I stopped. So as not to ruin or compromise the strength. So, this next application will be applied differently and will liberally use a lot more filler. Second lesson, less is not more. Use a lot. And, thicken the consistency of the epoxy to a thick peanut butter so the blend is light and easy sanding. This first pass I left it a bit thin so the filler was too epoxy based, not enough West 410. It sanded, but took some work and I had to put some pressure on it to grind it down.
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After sanding and the usual Acetone bath, I took on the Strakes. The plans called for a pretty fine taper. I’m still not sure how I am going to do that, but using premium pine I ripped down lengths of 3/8” x 3/8” to start. Then, ripped a 15 degree angle (per plans) to sit on the hull. Considering this is pretty fine work for a table saw and my skill level I was pretty happy with the result.
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The four strakes are sacrificial, expected to be banged up, so they will get filler or epoxy and then glass tape on top. I’ll apply these last, after the hull is faired. The above photo shows the transom color tone. The longest edge is 3/8” tall by 3/8” wide.

11/29/20
Thanksgiving gave me some time to do more sanding. 3 days of sanding 2-3 hours a day and I barely finished ½ the boat. After the last round of sanding and the obvious really low spots left behind from the belt sander on the soft cedar it was apparent that I would need a lot of fairing filler build up in some places.
Earlier this week I applied a very heavy coat of fairing over the entire hull. I ran out of West 410 and couldn’t find it locally, so I had to settle for purple 407. 407 is a fairing mix but a pain in the ass to sand compared to the 410, at least with the long boards. For the record, this is absolutely not how you’re supposed to fair a hull. I got lazy and went the volume route when what you’re supposed to do is layer upon layer and build up. Since I love sanding so much this let me spend several days trying to knock down all that filler with long boards. That will be the last time I try to be cute with the filler. Man did that suck. On the bright side, much of the hull is really smooth and level so I probably only have to do this two or three more times, yay :p. There is definitely a right way and a wrong way to do this so I like to think I’m demonstrating all the wrong ways for those that might take on a project like this, you know… for educational purposes and all.
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On the bright side, after sanding with the long board for a few days and a lot of shoulder pain there are certainly fewer or smaller low spots visible. I am guessing maybe 2 more rounds of fairing and it will be good to go. This time I will only fill the visible lows to reduce the amount of work. The bow section and gunnels are nice, other than the fact that it took a lot of filler to get it clean and even, I am pretty happy with the taper and how smooth the hull is.
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In the meantime, I laid out and marked the strakes at easy station again according to the plans. I am thinking the best way to get the taper is to glue them to the hull and hand plane them down to the surface. This will work, and probably be fairly easy, but I am a bit concerned with gluing to the hull. It will be a point of no return. Well, I guess if I really don’t like the result I can rip it off with the belt sander and fair over it to start again.
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Anyway, back to sanding this week to finish it up before another coat of fairing filler.
Last edited by Ruge13 on Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

12/6/20
This week brought a lot more sanding. As I said before, globing on a ton of fairing filler to sand down was the wrong way to go about it. I knew that, I did it anyway because I wasn’t patient. That lead to hours of sanding with the long board to knock down the volume of built up material. In the end, despite the pain and monotonous work, I was left with about 70% sanded surface and 30% low spots remaining. The image below shows the low spots that remain glossy where the long board didn’t touch the filler spanning from surface to surface where I started sanding into the glass weave. A plywood stitch and glue would have far fewer and less pronounced low spots but the aggressive way I dug holes in the cedar strips with the power sanders makes for a lot of filling. Lesson learned, I should have used the long board extensively on the cedar before glassing.
The darker areas are where the sanding is getting into the weave, in some places the weave is exposed so I had to stop. You can clearly see that happen along the keel and along the chines where the extra layer of 17oz biax tape cause high spots. On the gunnels you can see this clearly. The good news is I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. The keel and the chines are starting to sharpen as material builds up. Where I don’t have low spots, for example all along the bow 1/3 of the boat, I am really happy with the smooth consistent finish. I’m excited to see what primer shows.
In the next round I will only fill the low spots visible like spackle on drywall before the next round of sanding.
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12/13/20
Yet another weekend of sanding, this time into the evening with spot lights which actually helps to see the glossier low spots. It is hard to resist the temptation of a power sander or a more flexible fairing board to dip into low spots without building up material. I have to keep reminding myself to trust the board. In the end, I’m putting in the work so I’m happy to be circling the drain with visible low spots. At times it feels like I am chasing my tail with each successive application. My goal for the bottom is to get it about 90% of the way there, then apply the strakes. From there, smooth things to the point where the graphite and epoxy coats can lay smooth. I have a few spots to fix, then the keel and chines, both of which have been shaping up little by little with each application. You may recall from an earlier note that some builders make a concerted effort to sharpen the chines as a specific step, and in some cases yo can see it really needs it. In my case, much of that shape is happening on its own so I will dedicate a session to finalize this, but I think it will be far less work than anticipated. With the gunnels, I am nearly there and am shooting for a very clean prepped surface so the primer and paint make for a clean glossy finish.
Most builders are probably thinking, good god man you are using a lot of fairing filler! It is amazing how much low area there is to fill here. I’m starting to get jealous of the plywood stich and glue boats with more consistent surfaces to start with. You can see where I am grinding down to weave using the stiff long board so, I have to trust the board.
BTW – that white board is a 36” piece of 3” Azek trim. It is just flexible enough to make a great board in between my stiff 3M long board used on the wider flatter portions of the hull by the transom and flexible 3M long board needed for gunnels and bow, both of which were about $75 a piece. For paper I am using a 3M adhesive sanding tape in 100 grit while the 3M boards take specific 120 grit Velcro strips $10 apiece. So, you can certainly save some money by making your own boards.
At this point I’d say down to about 20% left to sand and re-fill overall. With Covid, since I am not traveling for the holidays my goal is to be primed and ready for paint by New Year’s Day (which will be tight) with what I am guessing to be at least 2 more rounds of fill/fairing plus the strake work to go.
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12/20/20
Not much to add this week. Spent another couple hours sanding with the long board through 2 rounds of filler. That last round seemed to fill most of the remaining lows. I only have a couple spots on one side of the keel and some chines to touch up along with the new transom panel area and I am done. I hope to have strakes on this weekend.

12/29/20
Lot of progress over the holiday to date. I was able to get the last of the fairing done as well as the strakes applied. Starting with the bottom of the hull and chines before Christmas I patched the last few low spots, pin holes, and rounded chines with a bunch of fairing filler to shape with sanding. The day after Christmas I sanded all that down to finish and traced out the strake dimensions on the hull and drew a line the entire length of each strake as straight as possible to be a guide for applying the wood pieces I prepped a few weeks earlier. Using Gorilla Glue, I ran a bead down the length of each line and placed the wood down using any weight I had laying around to hold in place.
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The next day I took the weight off and was left with four straight lines to apply the angle mix.
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First, I went over all with a knife to slice away the excess glue that bubbles out like expanding foam. The next step was one that has intimidated me from the start of the project, how to get the taper to a finer point flush with the hull, then to build up thickened epoxy to shape the angles. I had decided to glue down the cut wood which had already been marked out with lines as to the plans for taper and height, then use a hand planer to get the shape. If that didn’t work, I’d use a sander and just take the time to sand down the soft pine to shape. Well, I don’t know what was so intimidating. The hand planer worked beautifully and after about 5 minutes each I had exactly the shape I wanted. This was far easier than I imagined and seems I guessed right as to how to do this. Some 120 grit paper let me get the final shape on the fine point towards the bow.
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One cleaned up, I measured out the width per plans at each station (pre detemined point along the length) and used those measurements to lay down painters tape. Note: I always used the every day blue painted tape my entire life but used green frog tape on a recent room project… I will neer go back. Sooooo much better. It is more expensive, but worth every penny when you don’t want bleed through.
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Once taped, I mixed up a quart of thickened epoxy using wood flour and lathered it on with a drywall knife. Using the wood and the tape adge as a guide, I filled the knife and ran it down the length making sure to fill in the void entirely. Again, this part intimidated me for some reason. I was worried I wouldn’t get the shape as clean as I wanted or sloppy work after I just spent over a month fiaring the hull. Again, nothing to be agfraid of, this step went easily and smoothly. Once completed I laid a 1/8th inch filet on the reverse side using my finger to place a bead and smooth out along the wood. The last step was to built up some material at the transom to be shapped with a sander later on, and pull the tape.
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After curing overnight I used a Dremel wedge sander to shape the angle by using the wood as a guide making sure not to change the shape of the wood nor its height. The size of the sanding head is perfect for this width. The Dremel makes short work of sanding with 80 grit. Near the bow where the tape is fine I hand sanded. Same for the inside filets, hand sanded all. The end result had the shape I wanted in far less time than I expected so I was really happy with this.
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There are a few rough spots and some edged the tape left behind that need some fairing. I could probably get away with leaving it and alowing the epoxy graphite coats to fill and self level but I’ve come too far to start getting lazy. I mixed up another batch of fairing mix and applied it with my fingers along the entire length of each. Sanding should leave this wil a very smooth surface and smooth transition to the hull at every edge.
And that is where this happy story ends…
I got down to the end of the 4 gallon jug of resin and 1 gallon hardener so I was pouring them out into measuring cups instead of using the hand pumps form West Systems that meters evenly in a 5:1 ratio. All was working fine until I ran out and went back to a full 4 gallon jug of resin. Rather than make a mess, I put the hand pumps back in so I could make smaller batches of fairing filler. The first one was for the strakes. What I forgot was that each pump is already measured, so you pump them at 1:1 to get a 5:1 mix. Instead, I pumped 5 of resin, 1 of hardener. No where near enough hardener. I didn’t realize this at the time before I applied the batch and left it to cure over night. Well, 3 days later and it is still curing. The mix is tacky, and a bit harder to the touch than when first applied, but for sure has a long was to go before it cures hard enough to sand. My understanding is that it will set up and cure eventually, you just have to wait it out but I think I am going to call West Systems tomorrow to find out.
Stupid mistake that will cost me days. This should have been sanded down and I should be on my second coat of graphite epoxy by now ☹. Lets hope I don’t have to strip off the tacky filler. That will be a nightmare.
In the mean time I finished sanding the hull sides. One last round of fairing to plug up some pin holes, a couple divots I found, and one or two sander marks and I have it about as good as it is going to get. The first application of Pettit primer was two coats in one day. I knew I would have some sanding to do so I used 2 coats to build up the material.
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Even with 2 heaters running in my garage it doesn’t get up past 65 degrees when the outside temp is below 40 ish so it takes all day to dry out a high build primer. The following morning I sanded the layer out with 220 grit then went back over the entire hull a few times with a pen to circle all the marks the primer calls attention to. The good news, nothing major that couldn’t either be sanded out with 120 grit down into the fairing material other than a handful of spots. For those, I added more fairing mix and let cure. The following day I sanded those out and hit what I hope is the last round of primer.
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It better be, I used up the quart I had. This stuff is nasty, it leaves a nasty smell that permiates the entire house even with garage ventilation and off-gasses for a long time, going on 3 days now. My wife is ready to kill me.
Below is what I did for the transom. It seems unavoidable to nick up the edges and I needed to sand the strakes so I decided to leave a border around the edge to be painted. Using blue 1 ¼” tape I marked out the edge. I then bordered this with green frog tape and pulled the blue, leaving behind 1 ¼” wide strip around the entire transome to be painted with a clean edge. What you see below will be pulled and retaped when I apply the graphite epoxy.
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Last edited by Ruge13 on Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

12/30/20
Applied the 3rd coat of primer last night, sanded it down with 220 grit this morning. Seems pretty good at this point, not sure any additional coats are going to improve anything. Running a bare hand over the entire hull I can’t feel any raised areas or uneven surfaces. I don’t see any further issues the primer uncovered that I have not filled and fixed. A quick pass with acetone to kill the dust and it is ready to go.
So, on to the next step. I set up a laser level to run the line where epoxy and paint meet from chine to the bow. This will let me set up a tape line on the graphite epoxy side so I know where I need to paint to. Essentially, I don’t care if I paint the bottom, black epoxy will cover it, but I do want to conserve paint considering the cost of the material and I would prefer the epoxy to bond to the hull rather than paint. When I go back to finish the epoxy, the tape line then will be be right at the laser.
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Once marked, I let things sit a while to warm up to at least 60 degrees with the heaters running and since I forgot to bring the paint inside the house last night I brought that in to warm it up near the baseboard heaters for a bit. I don’t want the first run at paint to be at 40 degrees. After a couple hours things heated up so I mixed up the paint. I wrapped the 4” microfiber roller in tape to remove lint. That was a waste of time, I still got lint, maybe less, who knows. Moving at about 3 feet of hull at a time I rolled on the paint the tipped it out with an Ox tail brush. Wow what a difference between the rolled paint and after it is tippd out. Now I see why that is a necessary step.
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Took about 30 minutes to roll and tip then closed up the shop for the rest of the day so I don’t stir up dust. I’m guessing at least 3 coats, one per day, to get the finish I want and likely some light sanding in between at least after coat 1.
I called Tech Support at Jamestown Distributors. General consensus is that the ratio mix on the strakes is way too short so it needs to be stripped off as it will never kick over and cure. Sounds like tomorrow will be a fun day of scraping, sanding, and acetone ☹.

1/3/21
Happy New Year! My first project was the strakes. The uncured fairing epoxy was the consistency of thick play dough. It actually came off relatively easy with a dry wall knife and what didn’t scrape off, a liberal splash of acetone dissolved the rest in seconds.
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Once cleaned up I mixed a batch of epoxy mixed with Graphite to seal the strakes and level them out before the final bottom coats.
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The unused epoxy was used on the keel where I expect multiple coats for protection.
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In the mean time, over the past couple days several more coats of topside paint went on. One more coat and I would have been done. This weekend I sanded down the edges of the graphite on the keel. Guess what? Black graphite dust on yellow paint doesn’t mix well. Basically ruined the bow section of paint because the graphite doesn’t come off. So, I cleaned it up, tacked it off and put on another coat of paint. I also noticed more lint in the paint then I would like, it is preventing from getting the mirror finish I wanted on the gel coat finish. Sanding with 220 wasn’t enough between coats. I was using a microfiber roller and masking tape to remove lint which works on the larger free pieces but not on the tiny little hairs that stick in the paint. Going back to the drawing board I started over using a foam roller. After 2 coats of paint now I can really see a difference. No lint. The roller also requires to load more paint, more often, to get full coverage so in the end more paint is applied which makes tipping it out easier and a much better glossy coat once cured. One more coat should achieve the finish I wanted and consistent color over the graphite mess. Lesson learned, no touching the graphite until it is all I will work on.
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I do like the color contrast with the transom wood. The hull should only have needed 3 coats but instead will be 6 coats in the end but if I ended early, I would not have been happy with the finish in the long run.

1/6/21
There is something very satisfying about peeling tape after painting to find a perfect edge with no bleed through. Finally finished the paint work, 3 coats more than I expected and a week later than expected.
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Overall, I am very pleased with how this came out. I was under no illusions that I would end up with a perfect fairing job nor perfectly clear gel coat with no visible imperfections. I did not expect to have a perfect mirror finish. On the range of work boat to perfection, I was hoping for something I could at least be proud of and wouldn’t make a piece of me die inside each time I looked at it because I compromised. I would say I achieved that so I am satisfied with the results. It is not a perfect mirror, but up close it is pretty and 5-10 ft away it looks near perfect in my humble opinion. I do notice a few low spots on the gunnels that were not perfectly faired in places where using the long board was not doable but nothing that stands out and for sure I am overly critical for a first time boat builder. Never the less, now I can move on to the Graphite Epoxy work.
Now back to the laser level and taping out the hull for graphite epoxy on the bottom.
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I set the level such that the laser followed about ½” below (towards the sheer line) the chine at the end of the last strake (black in the photo) and terminating at the bow at a level that seemed to match the height of the chine even though at this point the chine is no longer visible due to the shape of the curved hull. Marked both ends with tape, then went back and applied tape horizontally at this height following down the chine about ½” below.
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At the Transom I used the double tape method again. Used one strip along the edge to set the height, the followed again with another below it, removing the first strip. I needed to be about 1 ½” of tape width to cover up some mistakes on the edge of the transom epoxy that was scratched up and from where I sanded the Strakes. This did not meet the ½” height at the edge of the hull, so I leveled this out from the end of the last Strake as a guide.
I wanted to overlap down onto the gunnel because the purpose of the graphite is to provide abrasion resistance and the bottom edges are where I am likely to impact with sand, rocks, trailer, etc. On all the flats boats I have seen this is the area that seems the most beat up.
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After that I rotated the boat around o the casters and repeated on the other side so the tape lined up at the transom identically and at the bow together with the other side. What I didn’t do was tape on paper to cover everything below the tape not to be painted before I got started… that was a mistake. Fortunately, I saw mistakes happening as I applied the epoxy where roller spray dropped a few tiny tiny black drops on the yellow hull paint and was able to wipe them clean before anything set up. Got ahead of myself, I mixed up about 18 oz of Epoxy and Graphite then poured and rolled this over the hull from keel to chine. Moving quickly, I was able to tip out the work with a chip brush to remove much of the air bubbles before the epoxy set up. That will save me some messy black sanding later. 18oz was enough for one side of the hull so I mixed up another batch and completed the opposite side in the same fashion. This is clearly going to take additional coat, likely two to get the color blacked out with no transparency to the yellow below where there are overlaps.
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BTW – that weird blemish above near the rear strakes is actually a reflection from my garage door opener. The area is as smooth and glossy as the rest of the bottom.
An hour later I pulled the tape after the epoxy kicked and was tacky but before it cured and glued the tape in place. Remember when I said I was done painting and how great that Frog tape was with zero bleed through? Well, this happened…
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Not a knock on the tape, still the best I’ve used. Now I see why other builders often epoxy first then tape and paint. Yet another lesson learned. Apparently, the epoxy is caustic enough to bleed under the tape even though I really pressed the tape down excessively along the edges before painting. I’m not going to worry about this now, I’ll re-tape and apply the additional coats of epoxy then after the hull is flipped I will likely go back and try to edge out by re-painting. Uggg… It is really not terribly visible a few feet away from the hull, but I know it is there and I expected better so now it is going to bug me until I fix it.
Anyway, here was the final result this morning of coat 1. Now on to coats 2 and 3 repeating the process.
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1/8/20

And….Done. Well, aside from some touch up with paint to fix the bleed through but I’ll do that along the way as it doesn’t prevent flipping the hull. This week I finished up the last of 3 coats of bottom Graphite Epoxy. In photos you can’t see much of a difference but in person I can. I see why it is used to protect hull bottoms. The stuff cures shiny slick. It also responds strangely to sand paper. Almost feels like sanding rubber. It sands, but you have to work at it a bit harder than straight hard epoxy. It has some give to it. When you scratch it, it doesn’t seem to gouge. Instead it leaves more of a scuff so deeper scratches likely won’t leave air under the hull. At first I thought “what’s the point? It is just like black paint” but after a few coats I get it now and glad I followed recommendations and used it. Started in August, flipping the week of Jan 10. 154 hours into this project not to mention many hours of store visits, research, forums, and of course typing this log. Now on to the fun part.

1/10/20
10 days later than I hoped, but the boat is now right side up 😊. There were a few spots where epoxy had leaked through when I filled some voids along the keel and that annoying fix patch along the bow chine early on that glued the hull to some of the frame members but overall they were easily broken. The painter’s tape on the frame panels did its job so the hull lifted off relatively easily. The transom is damn heavy. The rest of the hull is surprisingly light, I’d say in total maybe 150 lbs with 75% of that in the transom. I re-used some of the negatives from the transom pattern cut outs, secured them to the strongback frames, notched out some space for the strakes, then sat the boat on it.
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On the bow I’ll soon support with some 2x4’s like a bunk trailer and throw a towel over them to avoid scratches etc.
The legs of the strongback were removed and the casters mounted directly to the frame. Lowering the boat to waste height will make it mush easier to reach the inside for work. Building the hull, chest height saved my back from constant bending even though reaching the keel on the widest areas was sometimes tough.
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Anyway, overall this was easy with the help of a friend and took about 20 minutes start to finish. In the coming week I’ll get the work space cleaned up and likely start filling fillets along chines and keel, as well as the transom area at the bottom of the hull (remember early on I noticed a void there) before sanding then entire inside down prepping for glass.
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Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

12/29/20
While waiting for primer to dry I got to work on the inside wood. The plans did not have patterns to trace like the mold frames. Instead, the plans show dimensions and measurements that require lofting to the ½” plywood. I didn’t expect to start this yet considering it will take another month to get the hull flipped, sanded, fiber glassed and ready for stringers but I had time off from work so I started anyway. At least I can get most of the cutting done during the day without relying on kiddie nap times over the winter. Given the complexity of the curved shapes, this is proving to be time consuming. None of the stringers have much for straight edges and the measurements are a bit complex. Some are straightforward while others take a bit of math and some thought. At least they don’t need to be perfect. As close to perfect as possible, but filets and epoxy is a wonderful thing.
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Some of the compound curves require using a batton (I am reusing one of the leftover cedar strips as they are quite flexible) and finish nails to shape the curves to trace lines. I also need to think ahead at this point as to how the panels will join with the deck and sole because there are a few modifications from the stock plans I want to make. For example, I am not cutting the rear bulkhead access hatches because I’ll add hatches on the deck instead.
I got about 80% of them lofted and cut yesterday, the rest today. Too bad they will sit in my basement for at least another month before I am ready. I miss cut one of the stringer pairs (same pattern, one on each side of boat). The end result cut off one of the scarf joints say about a fifth of the length at 16”. I would have needed to get a new sheet of plywood just for those two small pieces to keep them full length or use them as-is and reinforce the joints with fiberglass and maybe extra plywood down the length. We’ll see when I get to that point in the build, I can always re-cut them then. After seeing the strength added by thickened epoxy and fiberglass that doesn’t scare me too much.
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1/14/20
Last weekend the boat was flipped. Spent a few hours this week cleaning out the as much of the tape as I could get out then wrapped the entire boat in floor paper to protect the paint.
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Mixed up a few batches of thickened epoxy with wood flour and filled the transom gap as well as the fillets the plans called for down the keel and chines.
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Yah yah, it’s sloppy. Don’t care, no one will ever see it and it will be sanded down along with the hull. At the bow, the angle is such that the sander can’t get in there so to cut down the amount of manual sanding I used some heavy mil plastic as poor man’s peel ply. This should make for a more smooth surface in this area and less sanding to prep for fiberglass.
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Wrapped up the week laying out and cutting all the 4” and 6” fiberglass tape for the inside seems.
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1/20/21
Took a long weekend to get moving on the interior glass work. A few hours of sanding knocked the hull flat and ready for glass.
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Started with the Keel and chines, then went back over wet on wet for the 1208 biax interior and a second layer of 1708 biax on the transom. Really happy I didn’t do each individually and sanding in between. That would have taken another week, maybe two if I did. The result was better too I think, just a few air pockets to fill up and the transom is solid.
Overall, the fiberglass this time around was a bitch even though I followed the same process and used lighter weight cloth. I laid everything out dry, worked out the fabric and cut to shape leaving some overhang. I thought the couple things I learned on the exterior would make things faster and smooth. I also thought the lower temp this time of year would buy me some more working time with slow hardener. Well, what I didn’t account for was the interior folds and the harder to reach interior keel, and the concave shape where gravity doesn’t help (on the exterior gravity helped pull the cloth tight)... all of which seemed like no issue when I laid it out dry. So, I wet out one side of the boat using a liberal amount of epoxy. Rolled out cloth side one, and immediately noticed I was fighting the way the cloth laid out. Flustered knowing I was now up against a 20-30 minute timer I started rushing around. The trouble area was the transom corners. So, I started there to work that out... should have started mid hull and worked outwards towards bow and stern. Learned that lesson and fixed for side two. Anyway, by the time I got the transom and first 1/4 of the hull ironed out the epoxy started to kick on the rest so I got frantic. Mixing and dumping epoxy as fast as I could go alone. Rolling it out as best I could and smoothing bubbles and rolls as I went. In the end I made it work but it fought me the entire way.
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There were still two problem areas where rolls in the fabric started to kick and I couldn’t work them flat so I decided to use force. I added two heavy mill gallon size sandwich bags as pseudo peel ply, added a lot of epoxy, then heavy lead acid batteries to smash down the bubbles.
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The next day, problem basically solved :). The rest would sand out no problem but who cares, it will be buried under the sole encased in foam. Turned out to be a good solution, structurally, it is solid.
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Overall, took 4 hours to do what I thought would take 2 max.
When I was running around I knocked over the center frame piece which proceeded to split in half near one of the notches for stringers. Rather than cut again, I thought I would try fixing. Using scrap pieces of 17oz biax tape backed with chop strand, I epoxied the joint and wet out tape. Sandwiched that between 2 pieces of plastic, then a flat board and 20lb of weight.
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The next day, nice and smooth, stronger than the original wood. Glad I didn’t re-cut.
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Before glassing the rest of the hull while the chines were tacky I couldn’t help but drop in a few frames dry fit to see how the hull will shape up. Going to have a TON of dry storage space.
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1/25/21
Didn’t have a lot of time this week but moved forward on a couple items in parallel. First, filled all the bigger air bubbles I could get a drill into. I wanted to be careful about this because the cedar is so soft. It is VERY easy to pop though the glass and then right through the other side ruining the hull. After filling, I trimmed up the fiberglass from last week, most of all the transom.
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Who has two thumbs and can over-build the crap out of a transom? This guy…. Below is a cross section. The plans are supposed to be just the two sheets of ¾” plywood. The extra ¾” is the failed attempt at a stained transom, then the new panel, then the strips of Walnut and a few layers of thickened epoxy and fiberglass.
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The wood, especially the walnut, and glue is so dense it took 2 full 18V batteries and a new metal Sawzall blade to get through it. Standard blade wouldn’t cut it.
In the mean time I bedded a 1’x1” scrap piece of oak into the bow with thickened epoxy under 3 layers of 17oz biax tape to serve at the mount for the bow eye. The photo angle is deceiving, it is higher up the bow than it looks.
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While that was curing, I started working on the two visible faces of the interior bulkheads in the cockpit. I want to strip these out so they have a veneer that matches the spirit of the strip build boat. Using scrap cedar I covered the visible surface area. I didn’t need to use them but used staples in the panel to keep the final look/feel true to the hull construction. Laid out strips, sorted pseudo randomly for color, then glued in place. Staples pulled, this will get trimmed to the hull dry fit then sanded down and epoxied before installation.
I hope to complete this during the evenings this week, this is holding up installation of the frames and unlocking a bunch of next steps.
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Last, I used the last of ¼” Okoume and ripped down 4 ½” wide strips to use as a base for the inside Gunnel rails. Sandwiched them together with 17oz tape on both sides as a pseudo scarf joint. That joint is quite strong, especially for something that will be primarily aesthetic. My intention is to use walnut to strip these out to length (maybe 75” long) which will add quite a bit of additional strength. I won’t need these until a month or two from now but I have an idea for engraving the walnut that I want to get started in parallel considering that work is outsourced.
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Last edited by Ruge13 on Tue Sep 27, 2022 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

1/29/21
Time escaping me lately. I got the bulkheads stripped out so this weekend I can get them sanded down and epoxied. That step is holding me up from moving forward.
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I have also started to think about rigging and a switch panel. I’ll be honest, with small boats I have always struggled with simplicity when it comes to electronics and wiring. Experience says make it simple because you will be forever fixing or changing electrical work but my nature to tinker there wants lots of wiring, switches, lights, smart sensor stuff, etc. Dude, it is a 16ft wooden boat… pump the breaks…
I considered a customer Acrylic or carbon fiber type panel made with resettable pushbutton Bocatech switches which looks like it would add up to be around $700 to $1K. Coming back to reality for this build, I’m going to keep the same spirit as the rest of the build and DIY. The Gunnel rails will be Cedar stripped to match the bulkheads and because the lighter wood will contrast better with the engraving idea and some other ideas like a dark wood switch panel. So, I started by making a blank from some scrap transom walnut to make a 5 or 6 switch panel that I plan to embed into the left gunnel rail. Glued up some strips and sandwiched them between plastic and weight to keep it flat. I’ll let this sit for a few days.
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1/31/21
Just crossed the 175 hour mark into this project. I ripped all the 16ft 1x4” Fir into 1”x1” for the frame cleats and a 1x1 ½” for the soul beam. I stripped out two unmatching color cedar 1”x4”x6’ boards to be used for the gunnel rails. I chose one dark board and one light board to have a lot of color contrast. Originally, I planned to do walnut here but decided I wanted to stay consistent in the cockpit with the cedar look. I also planed down the Walnut panel to be cut for the switch panel. I love the grain and tone of this wood. I ordered samples of two switch options, one with a chrome bezel and the other with a black bezel. I’m guessing I will like the black better because it matches the switch labels but we’ll see.
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In the forward bulkhead I cut an 8” opening for the round access hatch. That front void is dead space but I wanted access because the bow light will be mounted inside so I wanted access to the wiring. This for sure weakens the frame piece so I will reinforce this panel on both sides with 17oz fiberglass just to be on the safe side. I expect the bow to take a beating so better safe than sorry.
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All the frames were test fit again, this time with the cockpit bulkheads so I could massage them to fit. Some trimming required but all seem good now. I also made the limber holes a little deeper.
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With a little persuasion all the stringers and frames fit. A few of the joints are spaced wider than I would like along the hull but if there is one thing this boat has taught me it is that working with epoxy and glass is very forgiving, so gaps are easily filled and stronger than the wood itself. For now, it was a final test fit. The cockpit bulkheads came back out and will get a few coats of epoxy to seal up the strips.
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Back in the basement they are getting at least 4 coats of epoxy with 207 Special Clear hardener. I am glad I added the staples and pulled them out to stay true to the hull construction. They add a raw look just like distressed wood furniture that matches the real construction of the hull. It is amazing how much darker the hull cedar is with 17oz glass and normal hardener on it. These panels were the last thing holding me up from moving faster on the frames.

2/2/21
Frames back in. Finished bulkhead panels protected with paper. Tacked in the front half of the boat with random spots of thickened epoxy. Some people use hot glue for this, just enough to hold them tightly in place without traveling or rattling as I work on the rest and fillets. I did not apply full fillets yet because I plan to do that and tabbing wet on wet in one application for each section so I don’t have to sand in between. Once those cure up I’ll tack in the back half.
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2/5/21
Made some progress on the gunnel rails. Alternating natural colors of cedar. I love how this came out, off to the engraver for some bling.
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2/7/21
Nothing terribly exciting here this week. Finished about ¾ of the frame fillets and tabbing. Just need to finish up the rear storage and transom this week. I tried to stay neat with the interior fillets overlapping the stripped bulkheads. I am not going to tab this side so I went heavier on the hatch side and a thicker than normal fillet along the strip side. I’ll prime and paint a border along this side to cover this up.
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While things were curing up, I went back to the transom and drilled a hole. This was difficult to do, entered a point of no return 😊. I probably overthought the crap out of it, measured about 10 times, but in the end turned out near perfect. The bottom of the drain lip is about 1/8” above the keel on the outside, on the inside it is about ¼” above the keel in the bilge. This was over drilled 1 1/4”, filled with thickened epoxy, then drilled to 1” and bedded again into thickened epoxy. Same for the screws… over size drilled out, filled, then tapped for the screws and bedded when the entire thing was installed. Entire process took 2 days for in-between cure time.
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Last, I spent hours filleting and tabbing wet on wet. It is boring and time consuming. Fortunately all of this will be either hidden in foam or sanded and covered in tinted epoxy so it does not need to be neat. There are some air pockets here and there but nothing I am worried about considering I am using 17oz tape which holds a lot of epoxy when saturated. The hull is now rock solid. It is amazing how much epoxy I am burning through and adding weight ☹.
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2/15/21
Fun day sanding Saturday. Dragged the boat out into the snow and got the entire interior sanded down in a few hours and ready for final epoxy coats as well as all the excess tabbing trimmed off. It gets a little dusty. I should have put on a tyvec suit for this.
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Ruge13
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Re: SMD Crystal 16 Build Thread

Post by Ruge13 »

2/14/21
Sunday I caught up on a bunch of tasks. First, I started prepping for the sheer clamps. These will be 1x 1/4” cedar and doubled up to achieve the curve of the hull. The exterior will get a single layer for the clamp so with the hull thickness, the entire width will be just over 1”. The top deck gets glued to this eventually. Ripped them down from a 2x4 cedar board.
With the strips cut, I clamped them in place and did a bunch of measuring to be sure one side matched the other. Once set, I marked the top line to cut down the sheer. Later on I used a jig saw and a sawzall to trim the sheer along the traced line. Amazing how strong the hull is now that it takes metal cutting blades to get through it cleanly.
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Next I grabbed a couple sheets of 1/2” okoume plywood and rough cut the bow deck panel as well as the two cockpit sole panels. I needed these to test fit the support clamps along the stringers in the sole and the front bow panel to level the bow sheer. My project for evenings this week is to get the sole in place and ready for 2-part foam.
With those panels cut I went back to the sheer clamps. Mixed up some thickened epoxy but left it a bit wetter than normal. Filled up a gallon ziploc bag and cut the corner so that it worked like a pastry bag. This let me lay a clean bead of epoxy down each sheer clamp strip.
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Once I had those all glued and clamped into place it was time to move on to start prep on the hatches. Earlier in the week I glued together sets of cedar 2x4’s which was a lot cheaper than using cedar 4x4” posts. Using a Dado blade on the table saw, I cut 1x1” channels 1” from one edge. I can then cut these to length for each hatch lid to serve as deck stability and gutters for dry hatches.
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I am definitely getting into parts of the project that are not always so well described in other build threads online so I am definitely making things up as I go along.
Last, I coated the inside of the cockpit with a second fill coat of clear epoxy, glued on the second set of ¼”x 1” strips on the sheer clamps, and then coated several of the support clamps that will be adhered to the stringers for the cockpit sole.
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Truth time… snobby builders avert your eyes for a bit… the boat isn’t square anymore. It was, but ain’t now. The starboard side is about ¼” high so I definitely have some hull twist. Not enough that I am concerned, but enough that I am noticing it in the level especially when dealing with the sole and the bow deck panel. The transom is level but by the front 1/3 of the boat it has creeped up. Ahh well. Nothing I can do about it now that all the tabbing bulkheads and stringers are in permanent. Hopefully it isn’t bad enough to be noticeable and the boat isn’t like Zoolander, not an ambi-turner. Will be built for Nascar, can only turn left 😊. I also see some irregularity in the hull along the sheer in the cockpit on both sides. It is a bit wavy sort of speak. To fix this, I wedged I a piece of scrap 2x3” temporarily before I applied the second fill coat of epoxy and the sheer clamps in this area. I am hoping the clamps and the epoxy will help stiffen and straighten the area. If not, I’ll need to do this again before I epoxy on the gunnel decking and rub rails and knock out the 2x3 after it cures up.

2/21/21
Finished up the clamps for the sole. This is taking far longer than I expected because the stringers are uneven height. A combination of not perfect cuts and an uneven hull surface caused some unevenness so leveling the clamps has been a progression instead of just cutting all and gluing all at once flush with the stringer top. Took a week to get that done over almost every day.
While I had the saws out I cut all the larger deck panels so I can begin measuring and drawing out the hatches. I left all edges a bit long so once glued down I can go back with a flush cut router bit and trip to the exact edges especially along the bulkheads and splash well.
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I planed out all the hatch wood after it was glues together, then used the Dado to get a bit deeper. I also forgot to cut ¼” off the inside lip of the boards so that I can use weather seal for the hatch lids to rest against to get water tight. With that done I started framing up the two rear hatches. I am at a point where there are no more plans left for the build. I was figuring things out as I went until now matching up to plan drawings but now I am definitely on my own. I’ll be honest, the hatches are the part of the project that has been the most intimidating. Aesthetically, if they look like crap that entire boat will look like crap so I am nervous about them. I’m not as good with a router as I would like to be I think. I mocked up a couple and dry fit t see if I like the dimensions. I hope so, the wood ain’t cheap! All good so far.
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2/25/21
Put in a few hours the past couple evenings. I cut all the panels I need for the deck in the back hatches and the battery box mount for the forward hatch. I also cut all the panels I needed for the engine splash well. I also laid out a practice panel of leftover MDF from the mold frames and sketched out the measurements to router the hatches and lids. I’ll play with this first before cutting plywood.
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Laid all panels out and coated the under sides with Epoxy. The splash well panel was glassed because I made this from two scrap pieces of plywood fit together.
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Started cleaning up the hatch frames. Dremmeled out the excess glue and sanded them down. I am adding drains to all the hatches that will drain to the sole or bilge. To make the drains I repurposed some older ½” barb fittings I had from saltwater aquariums. Sliced off the threads and sanded down the surface. Used Forstner bits and countersunk both sides of the drain so I can recess the surface flush and connect up the ½” tubing underneath. Once done, coated everything with first coat of epoxy.
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Experimented a little with two-part pour in foam in the hatch well. Given the cost of this stuff and the cold temps retarding expansion I am going to have to go another lower cost way to fill the cubic ft. of space I need to fill. Based on this experiment it will take nearly $1K in foam alone… nope, I am a decent swimmer. That entire space is 32” x 20” to give you an idea and I used about 20% of a quart can set @ $70 a pair my cost. Stupid.
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2/28/21
After the expandable foam experiment I sat on it for a few days. Online I found a bunch of threads were guys making over John boats into bass boats used insulation another close cell foam just to fill space. The building I work in is being remodeled with new tenants, and one of our neighbors I was also doing a bunch of foam last week when they were cleaning out their space. A little dumpster diving later and I have more than enough foam to fill all the areas I wanted filled. I ran all the wiring now because I wanted to be sure I could sneak it through the conduit before I buried everything in the foam. Hatch LED lights, NAV lights, under gunnel LEDs.
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I sanded off the sheer clamps for the rear hatches and leveled off the panels. That is now all set when I’m ready to go them down to the hull. I used the flush trim bit on the router to get them flush to the frame pieces.

Before I started drawing out the hatches I made the experimental cuts on the MDF board I traced out last week. I am really glad I did this, because the first thing I found out was that measuring it close is not the way to do it, at least not for me. I ended up missing the edges of the hatch in a couple places by maybe a 16th of an inch. Overhang the other way around would’ve been fine because that’s what the flush trim bit is for. I played around with some different round over edges and got a sequence I’m happy with.
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With new measurements, I went back and traced out my hatch dimensions on each panel and then cut them. This time I got a little bit of overhang like I wanted so once these are all glued up, the flush trim bit on the router will make them all nice and clean. Using spacers and clamps are dry fit them just to be sure.
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In the meantime I drilled out the through hulls for the hatch drains and for the bilge pump. Hatches drain to the bilge. Bilge pump out the side. Rather than go out the transom I went through a bulkhead with a two-way ¾” barb fitting and out the side of the hull just forward of the transom with a three-quarter inch through hull. Almost made a catastrophic mistake by cutting the through hull venting outside too high. This would have put the flange up into the rub rail once installed. Dropped that down by an inch or two before drilling. Fortunately, I caught it as the drill bit was resting on the pain ready to pull the trigger.
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Last, I decided to foam in and cover the side voids from stringers to hull in the forward hatches. I rough cut these panels, not too concerned about quality here. Coated the under sides with epoxy, glued them down. Later will fill, sand, and paint the area that no one will see. The center voids will remain open for increased storage space. Also glued down the panel used to level the battery box mount.
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