Boat Plans Catamaran
Yesterday was a bomber of a day. Total Goat Island Skiff immersion. Well over 14 hours of spanking.
Basically, I want to float test this boat. My pond, frozen with several feet of New Hampshire ice iced out overnight. I woke up two mornings ago to find that the ice cap had literally disappeared, and the boat was not ready. So the hustle began.
First, I planed to fit a 3/8" poplar dowel for the the bow. I scratched up the epoxy on the bow, scratched up the dowel, and stuck it on. This will be glassed over with fiberglass tape.
Then, off to the races. Taping the chines with fiberglass tape (FT) is easy, and kind of rewarding. First, I measured the tape to fit the chine, and cut it off. Then I slopped on some unthickened epoxy along the chine, and placed the tape along it, dabbing it down to hold it in place. This tape has a "selvage" edge to it, which according to the plans should be removed. Basically, its a plastic string that holds the fabric together, but its a real pain in the ass to sand down, or so I am told. It came out really smooth on the fiberglass I used for the blades, but on this FT it just mocked me incessantly. So I said "screw it!" and glued it down with the edge on the bottom. In case I couldnt sand it down at least it would partly hidden. After the tape is laid down in position, I slopped on epoxy to wet it out and get it to stick. Work from the middle to the ends of the boat. Some gentle tugging got it in a good straight line and evenly over the rounded chine (round with a few passes of a plane and hit it with the sander).
I did this to both sides, and the bottom/transom joint. Im not sure if the side/transom joint needs to be done or not, and I can always do that later. The bow will be glassed when the epoxy has cured on the dowel and I can fair it to the hull.
After that came the fun fun job of spreading the epoxy on the bottom and the sides. I did the bottom first while I debated how to do the sides.
I did not pre-coat my panels because A: I wanted to see my boat! and B: I wanted to ensure the most effective gluing surfaces and I did not feel like taping their positions off.
In retrospect, the bottom was very easy, the sides a little more work. I would suggest that any builder at the very least, pre-coat the outside side of the sides for simplicities sake. Pouring the epoxy onto the sides and spreading it around was a little more of a challenge on the vertical surface, but due diligence paid off for a pretty neat job.
Back to that selvage edge. After the epoxy had cured a bit on the glass, I decided to grab my utility knife and see if I could cut it off! I could, and it worked awesome. Pulling it out first before glassing would have been preferred, but this was the next best thing. Holding the blade close to the edge I was able to get a nice clean cut down the the length of the hull, and then all I had to do was pull it up.
Presto! As you may notice you can still see the weave in the FT. This weave took a lot more work to fill in than the glass on the blades. On the suggestion of my compatriot in Sacramento, I threw on two coats of slightly thickened epoxy and it filled it in much better than the straight undiluted stuff.
Heres a before and after:
A long day, but worth it. A float test is quickly looming in my future!
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