[saqa]

G'day folks
We started work on the inshore boat build. I designed it in a CAD program called Hulls which I downloaded from Carlsen. The build started out as a 4.6m boat with a max beam of 1.6m. We cut out the ply and stitched her together and damn she was big, too big for what I had in mind. So took her apart again and lopped 60cm of the back and narrowed 5cm from each floor panel and 10cm from each side panel. Was lucky to have good help in form of a fellow fisho and my mrs

Salesh aka Lambu (tall) cutting up the binding wire


Stitching


Stopping work to pose for the camera


Cant get good help these days Nah just kidding, Lambu bwoy was awesome help. We managed to recut all the ply and finish most of the stitching in one afternoon


Been called a thug before!


More posing


Here she is, still more stitches left in the bow flare area

 

[Fishermex]

Quite an adventure! Keep us posted on your progress.

 

[north coast]

awesome! you have thought about a way to get it outside when complete I hope. lol
cant wait to see her finished.
I met a guy who built a real beauty in his garage, only to realize when he was near finished, he couldnt get it out.
He eventually had to take down one wall of the garage.

 

[Anuvat]

That's really cool. Love to see the progress.

 

[AaronD]

is that your kitchen? love it haha

 

[saqa]

Yeah its an open plan kitchen/living room combo. I did all the renovation inside and made all that cheap pine furniture. The boats ass is sitting on a pair of DJ speakers and the bow on an old kitchen stove table that we made from scrap pvc tubing and fitings

The hallway and doors are just under 70cm so hoping the boat will fit. We will do a test run after stitching and before any gluing! Then we have to lower it onto a trailer or back of a flatbed as we live on top of a shop

Heading out today to find some epoxy to glue the seams. Had wanted to try to use liquid nails heavy duty for this but a couple of internet hits showed it as not suitable

 

[saqa]

Been impossible to find anything other then pine lumber locally, finally found 20' pf dakua 6 x 1 lumber and can now go ahead. Also picked up 5L pack of marine epoxy glue. Build can move forward now

 

[red hunter]

Good yarn mate , been great following your posts . Keep them coming .

 

[saqa]

How are ya mate? I hung the 'flying esky' up on the ceiling for deco and thot to build something larger

 

[saqa]

Damn stuck at this point. I think I have all the gear I need. 5L kit of laminating resin, 5L kit of epoxy glue, 10m of 600gsm fibreglass roving and I dont know if i have the hull or stitching to proceed. Is the ply stitched on top of each other forming an "L" or edge on so there is a gap on the outer edge and lots of little things like that. I was hoping there be a few DIY guys on here could help out

 

[DenisB]

The strongest join uses a chamfered edge to achieve the pattern angles & a fairly neat fit with an even glue line................glue is a lot more brittle than the wood so thick gluelines don't make a strong join. ................even tho you are reinforcing the join with roving.

you don't want lumpy edges or bits sticking out of the join when you apply the roving & the cloth skin..................you want a slightly radiused edge on the outside to achieve maximum strength from the glass layers.
Inside edge is best with a small fillet of filler to create the radiused inside angle before applying the cloth. ( smearing a stiff epoxy/talc mix with a finger in a plastic glove works fine to achieve a radiused edge on the inside).

 

[saqa]

I bought a 9" jack plane yesterday, hopefully I can use this to shave the edges at an angle for a neatish fit? I can also use that to radius the outer edges. I honed the blade razor sharp But if I round out the outer edge, am I not removing most of the glue width in the seam?

 

[DenisB]

Its just a matter of slightly rounding the edge so that its not a knife edge that weakens the strength of the cloth matrix.
A plane is the tool to chamfer the ply edges for a neat glue line
The tool to radius the outer edge is a medium-fine emery paper ...................

You are correct............... planing the edge would remove too much material & structurally weaken the glue join.

 

[saqa]

I currently have it sitting with all the seams stitched so that the inner edges are just touching and and outer forming vees to various degrees around the curves, except the bow flare area where tightening the stitches result in the ply edges flat on flat. I have left a gap of a few mm in this area to allow pushing the glue in. Am going to the thick epoxy glue on an area and see if it needs additional thickening

Is 600gsm fg roving going to be a problem? Been told its too heavy for my use. I havent had any luck finding fg tape either. Only thing I found is 50mm drywall tape, the type we use to make arbors on rods. Wondering if I use the roving to overlap the seams and cover 50% or so of adjacent panels instead of covering full panel with a piece and overlapping the seam with the edge. I should be able to then still end up sheathing the outer surface of the hull and maybe get away from taping the seams?

 

[DenisB]

Drywall tape unsuitable for your application

600gsm is getting a bit thick for taping the seams on the outside , but should be OK on the inside seam.
( the heavier the cloth the more difficult it is to smoothly fold around a small radius bend on an outside bend).

seam strength ( read as hull strength) at chines etc is much more related to F/G cloth matrix in the cover than epoxy in the glue line.

 

[saqa]

I picked up a 60ml syringe from the vet and enlarged the nozzle to 3.5mm and used it to inject a bead of the thick epoxy glue into all the seams. Then used the point of a plastic knife to spread the resin onto the end grains in the vee formed at the seam. I let that sit till it started gelling. I mixed baby powder into more of the same epoxy till it was like cake icing and shoved it into the seams with a finger running along. Cleaned up as best as I could but concentrated on getting all the epoxy from the cup into the seam first before it started heating up. All the seams on the outside of the hull took 9 x 50ml batches of epoxy mix with 4 of those batches bing the filler for the fillets

This was last night. After letting it set through the day I am now removing the wire stitches few at a time and using the jack plane to slice away all the mess from the ply and beveling the fillets down flat to the ply edges. Prolly will be at this most of the night, when done I will use a sanding board to radius the seams a bit

 

[saqa]

Lol I started out with a spoon and then a knife but the first cup of putty started heating in my hand before I got very far. Took too long to mix the talc in

Pics of the current effort

Restitched


Cheer squad


Epoxy glue


Fill


Mess


Blade honed on 400 grit sic paper wetted

 

[saqa]

Progress had been halted a bit. Went back to Aus for a couple of days two weeks ago and used that opportunity to picked up some much needed materials. Picked up 450gsm double bias fg fabric and using it to sheath the outer hull with epoxy, took just over 3L of epoxy

 

[madday]

more..... more..... moreee........

 

[saqa]

Thanks, its a labor of love