Building a Boat

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SoonerATC

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I am by no means a "handy" man...but here it is so far. This is about 10-12 hours worth of work so far...mainly about 2-3 hours after I got home from work over the past week. Looking forward to tomorrow when I can really put some quality time into it.

The hardest part so far has been trying to find a way to bring in the bow without snapping the sides. I read that soaking the wood actually makes it more pliable and less likely to break, so I was planning on hosing it down for 20-30 minutes this afternoon. Thankfully, mother nature decided to throw me a bone and took care of that for me today! I still didn't have a good way of bringing it in, though. After kicking around a few ideas, I decided to drill a few holes in the sides of the bow and run a nylon cord through it like a shoestring, then simply pull it tight (that's the red stuff in the picture). It worked like a charm. Once I pulled it tight, I used some small gauge copper wire to tie it into place about every 4-5" vertically. You can barely see those in the picture.

Next step is to cut out the bottom from another sheet of plywood, use the copper wire to tie it to the sides and then epoxy and fiberglass the seams. Anyone who has done fiberglassing before, please chime in. This is all new to me and I don't want to mess it up.

Boat.jpg
 
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That is turning out really nice.
Fiberglass is fun to work with.. I mix it in an old sour cream container and use cheap toss in the trash paint brushes.
Wear some kind of toss in the trash gloves as you will have the resin on you.

Mix in resin and hardener and paint some of the mix onto the area to be glassed.. I use the fiberglass that has no pattern it is called Mat.
The cloth is for finish work and this is just if you want .. I do not use it though.

Cut the Mat into strips so it is easier to lay into your painted on resin.

Sometimes I cut them into triangles or circles depending on what I am covering up and the angle I am covering.

Take the fresh laed piece of mat and dob it with your brush and it will soak and lay into the resin under it,,, then paint on a little more resin.
More glass if you want it stronger. I usually have 2-3 layers of the Mat depending on the thickness of the Mat and the strength I need.

It is really simple.
When you feel the resin in the container start to get sticky you can quickly add more resin and mix it in and it will keep the brush from hardening.
then add more hardener and keep going.
 

SoonerATC

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That is turning out really nice.
Fiberglass is fun to work with.. I mix it in an old sour cream container and use cheap toss in the trash paint brushes.
Wear some kind of toss in the trash gloves as you will have the resin on you.

Mix in resin and hardener and paint some of the mix onto the area to be glassed.. I use the fiberglass that has no pattern it is called Mat.
The cloth is for finish work and this is just if you want .. I do not use it though.

Cut the Mat into strips so it is easier to lay into your painted on resin.

Sometimes I cut them into triangles or circles depending on what I am covering up and the angle I am covering.

Take the fresh laed piece of mat and dob it with your brush and it will soak and lay into the resin under it,,, then paint on a little more resin.
More glass if you want it stronger. I usually have 2-3 layers of the Mat depending on the thickness of the Mat and the strength I need.

It is really simple.
When you feel the resin in the container start to get sticky you can quickly add more resin and mix it in and it will keep the brush from hardening.
then add more hardener and keep going.

Great info, thanks!
 

SoonerATC

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3 weeks over schedule and way over budget...but here it is. The paint scheme is actually based on a painting we have of a small farm house that has a pond in front. there's a rowboat in the pond that is white with red trim.

For being my first one, i'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Sea trials later today haha.

image.jpg
 

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