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Cratering, or fish eyes, usually caused by some sort of surface contamination.
Try cleaning with dilute ammonia solution; then sand and recoat.
Could be caused by solvent residue left from cleaning, oil if using compressed air sander, or wax if using sterated sand paper.....or who knows what!
When I recoated the bottom of my dory with epoxy/graphite I had some problems where I had a tape
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
You have not lost any resin, just let it redisolve with heat. Use a microwave if you have one......we keep an old one in the garage....she uses it to sterilize potting soil, I use it for epoxy. It does not create any mess.
You could also get a heating pad, turn it up to high, and put the jug of epoxy on it. It will take a bit longer, but will dissolve.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
This is where one needs to learn Dynamite Payson's method of building a 'plug" model and then establishing the panel dimensions from the boat. Roger discusses this a bit in his book.
Rather than trial and error with a panel to finally arrive at the boat you want, you shape the boat and then establish the panel dimensions from the model.
I have no idea how to actually do it.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
When I roll epoxy I use the yellow 1/8 inch nap foam rollers.
Pour the mixed epoxy into a pan - 8" aluminum pie pans work - so it spreads out. It will remain cooler and not kick so rapidly. If you leave epoxy in cup with little surface area the as the epoxy kicks it will heat up and the reaction will accelerate. You can pick up epoxy on the roller cover from the pan.
I put a coat o
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
So, is there a use for biscuit joining? Instead of scarfing? For topside work? For gunwales?
The primary use of biscuit joining is to keep things lined up when glueing. I would not use them in place of a scarf in a side panel, or in the bottom panel for the joint that is perpendicular to the center line. If you are building a boat with a bottom wider than 48 inches, biscuits could be used t
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
Also I am assuming the sides attach to the edge of the plascore, right. Or does the plywood sit on top of the plascore?
My friend was thinking the sides sit on top of the plascore. I am pretty sure the plascore bottom is inside the plywood sides.
Montana Boat Builder Jason Cajun builds most of his boats open side up with the bottom inside the side panels.
Montana River Boats Sandy builds
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
For those interested there is a thorough thread on building a stitch and glue flats boat at the wooden boat forum under the title John Henry Scarfing and Glue Up.
The thread would also provide useful information for those building river sleds.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
Don't place glassed panels in the sun our under heat. Air in the material will expand and when you return there will be bubbles all of the surface of your work. Warm up the piece first then glass it. You can apply heat to speed up the cure after a few hours when the epoxy will no longer bubble.
I pre-coat wood panels with thinned (20% with lacuer thinner or ethanol) epoxy, let it cure, sa
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
If you only have gouges in the epoxy, and no penetration through to wood, I wouldn't think re-glassing the bottom was necessary.
I recently repaired the chines on my boat and had two dings that broke glass and hit wood. For those I cleaned up the area for a few inches beyond the fracture in each direction so a glass patch could be faired to the existing contour; thoroughly wetted the woo
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
While the plans from Jason and guidance from the forum and MRB instructions are more than adequate to give you the information for building a s&g drift boat, a general book is:
Devlin's Boat Building: How to build any boat the stitch-and-glue way, by Sam Devlin ISBN: 0-07-157990-7.
There are excellent building tips at the Chesapeak Light Craft website - they sell s&g kits for
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
To expand on a the issue of voids inside the plywood panel. First, condensation can occur within the voids and lead to rot from the inside out. This can happen with a fully encapsulated boat. Second, when you saw a panel it is very likely voids will be exposed on the edges of the cut. These will need to be filled with epoxy putty for the edge to have structural integrity. Same issue would oc
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
I've been weighing System 3 Silver Tip for several years now. A good way to go since balances are inexpensive. I pour resin and hardener out of gallon containers into pint plus size and keep those on my bench and pour/weigh from those. Usually I only mix a couple hundred grams at a time.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
I wouldn't hesitate to use MAS, or any epoxy marketed by the major suppliers.
However my experience does suggest there is major differences in blush, at least between West and System 3. I chose System 3 because it does not blush for me, but also because the Silver Tip cures down to 35 degrees F and does not need sanding or washing between coats if completed within 72 hours.
I live alo
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
The only purpose for the biscuits in the butt joint is to hold the panels together while the epoxy cures.
Scarfing is certainly a fine way to go. My dory has a 52 inch beam so I butt jointed 2, two inch panels. Once laminated with glass and kevlar and much of the area incorporated into a fillet, the joint seems pretty secure.
Also, I used 9 mm for the bottom. About six or seven years of
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
I'm using iMac OSX 10.5.8 with Safari 5.0.6.
Pictures are no longer showing up in thumbnails in the messages. Usually I can click on them and they open a new window with the picture. For this thread the November 6 pictures didn't open anything, but didn't crash my computer.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
MacBeath Hardwood in Salt Lake would be an option. Larry H. has commented on MacBeath's prices. Edensaw in Washington and Almquist Lumber in Arcata, CA are options for shipping. You may also want to check with High Desert Dories and builders in Flagstaff to see where they get plywood.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
You will need a custom boat cover.....but they are very easy to obtain......a local awning supply shop can usually construct one. That is the route I went. I got to pick the material and color, dropped my boat off, and picked the whole thing up in a week or so.
As for the oarlocks, it looks like you have a decked Honky Dory, and the rower is sitting up pretty high. You may need more room be
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
MRB subscription for 3 plans at $25.......a great deal....... especially since most boat plans cost $75 to $150 for a single set.
Dory bottom dimensions could be reasonably established from the strongback dimensions and locations on the side panel. Take a fair batten, an eight footer is long enough, just have to use half the dimensions. Mark the locations of the frames along the batten, t
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
Consider checking the "drift pram?" thread on woodenboatpeople August 29, 2010. AJ DeRosa provided pictures of a "Snake River Pram" that looks about 16'. It was designed to handle big water. Looks interesting as a large pram design
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
Oar shafts can be rounded with a spoke shave if setting up the lathe is not an option. For commercial production the lathe would probably decrease the time it takes per oar, but for a one-off a spoke shave is a great way to go.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
You state that most of your panels will be fabricated flat....does that include the bottom? Per the honeycomb core delamination thread, should all the panels be formed into boat shape before adding the glass skins. If the panels are laminated flat, and then bend, the skins will be stressed. It seems I have seen pictures of corecell yachts where the panels are vacuum bagged and laminated in mol
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
Also check the temperature ranges of the epoxies, and consider your conditions when you will be building. I chose System 3 because it didn't blush like West, and because it cured down to temps in the high 30s. West required temps above 70 to cure properly. Since I live in a coastal area that rarely reaches 70 I selected the System 3.
System 3 sells a starter/demo kit of all the Silver
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
Rounding a Square Oar or Paddle Shaft
A good source of information on paddling making, that applies to oar making is:
Canoe Paddles: A complete guide to making your own. G. Warren and D. Gidmark. Firefly Books.
An essential element in making paddles and oars is putting guidelines on a paddle or oar blank. A traditional method of establishing guidelines for converting a square shaft
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
Since I plan on making a few sets of oars and paddles I built what I call a laminating beam - 9ft long clear doug fir 2 x 4 that has been planned flat on one surface. At six locations along the bean I attach 3/8 plywood about 3 inches high, one side of the plywood is flat, the other has a second piece of 3/8 glued at the level of the beam. If I fasten it flat I can laminate a shaft about 1.5 in
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
I've made oars.....using just about the sequence you describe. A couple points though - I wouldn't use ash, very heavy. Use sitka spruce or alaskan yellow cedar, or port orford cedar, or even doug fir. Mine were alaksan yellow cedar. I also built a greenland kayak paddle for my son-in-law using redwood and port orford cedar. My preference would be port orford cedar.
I wouldn
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
You may want to make a model - something like 1/8" luan using 1 cm equals 1 inch - to test the changes in design. The "vee" transom on the front is likely to change the side panel, the bottom panel, or both, and the characteristics of the boat.
A motor of that size should work with a 3/4 transom. If you are using 3/8 for the side panel try to develop of cut list that permits l
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
These boats (McKenzie and Rogue) perform best with passengers up front, so the angling is designed around that. But, fishing a sink-tip out in front of the angler would not work well from behind the oarsman.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
The reference I made to fishing from a dory on the Rogue River had three people in the boat...oarsman and two passengers. There was no set up for a passenger behind the oarsman.
Because of the fishing style for fall steelhead the set up works fine. Most of the fishing is done at the tail out of pools, before a break into a riffle. Both anglers are fishing with sink tips and weighted steelhe
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
It would be interesting for you to row a Beavertail and other boats designed with the intention of having a second caster behind the rower, to see how they all perform.
I built with a forward seat for one, so have no relevant comparison.
A friend of mine has a Willie and he had the factory add a rear position. He says rowing sucks if someone is back there...and has abandoned the practice (
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building
A recent issue of Wooden Boat has an article with plans for a stitch-and-glue SUP built with 4 mm plywood.
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Eric L
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Drift Boat Building