Wooden Boat People2024-03-29T04:55:20ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHattenhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2518864498?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://woodenboatpeople.org/forum/topic/listForContributor?user=0ax9p9bm8omqb&feed=yes&xn_auth=noMcKenzie Wooden Boat Festivaltag:woodenboatpeople.org,2024-03-02:1312281:Topic:2620762024-03-02T20:00:15.088ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p>Can anyone tell me if a Festival as been planned for this year? Thanks Jim Hill</p>
<p>Can anyone tell me if a Festival as been planned for this year? Thanks Jim Hill</p> Drying Time Before Repairtag:woodenboatpeople.org,2024-01-31:1312281:Topic:2620392024-01-31T22:27:51.530ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12369468683?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12369468683?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left"/></a></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12369468683?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/12369468683?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-left"/></a></p> heat or sand?tag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-11-02:1312281:Topic:2607862023-11-02T18:09:29.225ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p>Years back I changed the bottom on my 17 1/2 Tatman from UHMW to glass/epoxy with graphite. I used fiberglass cloth with one layer of kelvar. Never did like it near as much as the UHMW. Now I am slowly repairing/refurbishing it and am thinking of stripping the bottom to the wood then using Wetlander or UHMW. Even without the kevlar it would be quite a chore & with the kevlar probably much worse. Anyone used heat to take a epoxy/ cloth layer off? Did it work?</p>
<p></p>
<p>Years back I changed the bottom on my 17 1/2 Tatman from UHMW to glass/epoxy with graphite. I used fiberglass cloth with one layer of kelvar. Never did like it near as much as the UHMW. Now I am slowly repairing/refurbishing it and am thinking of stripping the bottom to the wood then using Wetlander or UHMW. Even without the kevlar it would be quite a chore & with the kevlar probably much worse. Anyone used heat to take a epoxy/ cloth layer off? Did it work?</p>
<p></p> Building Jerry Briggs's legendary Rogue River Specialtag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-08-22:1312281:Topic:2605822023-08-22T21:10:03.684ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p>Hi all--Cricket and I will be teaching a class building the Rogue River Special in November, back at the historic Lowell's Boat Shop in Massachusetts. Check the link in my blog to the left if you're interested or know someone who is.</p>
<p>Hi all--Cricket and I will be teaching a class building the Rogue River Special in November, back at the historic Lowell's Boat Shop in Massachusetts. Check the link in my blog to the left if you're interested or know someone who is.</p> Wooden boat float on the Roguetag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-06-29:1312281:Topic:2600272023-06-29T03:48:05.733ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
Monday June 26, 2023<br />
<br />
WOODEN DRIFT BOAT PARADE UNDER THE 6TH & 7TH STREET BRIDGES IN GRANTS PASS PLANNED FOR SATURDAY, JULY 8, 2023, at NOON.<br />
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Local wooden drift boat owners are encouraged to bring their boats and join a wooden boat float through Grants Pass on Saturday July 8, 2023. Boats will launch from Chinook Park at 11am. The boats will parade under the 6th & 7th street bridges in Grants Pass at Noon, with a takeout at Schroeder Park. Anyone with a wooden drift boat wishing to…
Monday June 26, 2023<br />
<br />
WOODEN DRIFT BOAT PARADE UNDER THE 6TH & 7TH STREET BRIDGES IN GRANTS PASS PLANNED FOR SATURDAY, JULY 8, 2023, at NOON.<br />
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Local wooden drift boat owners are encouraged to bring their boats and join a wooden boat float through Grants Pass on Saturday July 8, 2023. Boats will launch from Chinook Park at 11am. The boats will parade under the 6th & 7th street bridges in Grants Pass at Noon, with a takeout at Schroeder Park. Anyone with a wooden drift boat wishing to participate is welcome. This is a self-captained float, must provide own gear, shuttle, and safety gear. Please arrive early enough to have your boat in the water before the launch at 11.<br />
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For more information, please contact Wayd at lunatoon2002@yahoo.com Main Salmon 2nd week of August in an open boat?tag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-06-20:1312281:Topic:2596172023-06-20T02:50:50.984ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>Have very much enjoyed your forum and learned a lot of useful things during the building of "Bob the boat" a few years ago. Many thanks for all the tips and useful information.</p>
<p>My current question is this. I have an opportunity to take Bob down the main Salmon from Corn Creek to Carey Creek 2nd week of August this year. It will be a raft supported trip with more experienced people who have run the river many times, and I will be lightly loaded, just me and a…</p>
<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>Have very much enjoyed your forum and learned a lot of useful things during the building of "Bob the boat" a few years ago. Many thanks for all the tips and useful information.</p>
<p>My current question is this. I have an opportunity to take Bob down the main Salmon from Corn Creek to Carey Creek 2nd week of August this year. It will be a raft supported trip with more experienced people who have run the river many times, and I will be lightly loaded, just me and a guide in the boat. </p>
<p>To me this feels like about as well supported as I could be to try this. I've run the Skagit from above Marblemount to Mt Vernon, and several sections of the Yakima River, and feel comfortable managing those rivers fishing for steelhead salmon and trout, but haven't run anything with waves as large as I understand the Main Salmon will have.</p>
<p>As you can see Bob is a Don Hill 16 foot x 48 inch of pretty standard construction. The yellow tubes are lashed through the scupper holes to provide some flotation (and, side-benefit often make it easier to step in and out of the boat). I've never tested the flotation but am considering swamping Bob in a calm lake and seeing how it might help.</p>
<p>My question is, is it reasonable for a moderately skilled non-expert to run this section of the river in an open boat at the likely flows this summer? I don't want to be the guy who makes the trip a huge chore for everyone by having problems that could have been reliably predicted, but on the other hand, I don't want to pass up what seems like a pretty optimal set up for giving this a try and learning a bunch because I'm being overly cautious.</p>
<p>Side question, would you bring an anchoring set up for this trip? I was thinking to go without an anchor and removing that hardware for cleaner lines.</p>
<p>Many thanks in advance for your thoughts.</p>
<p></p>
<p>ying</p> Woodies 2.0tag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-03-20:1312281:Topic:2590312023-03-20T17:26:24.900ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p> <strong>Woodies 2.0 </strong></p>
<p> <br></br> I have been building drift boats with glue-laminated gunwales for more than a decade. I like it. I think it's the best way to make gunwales. It is cheaper and stiffer than any other method, which is close to a synonym for better. I mold those gunwales in place, over Visqueen inside or outside a partially finished hull. You can make glue-lam gunwales arbitrarily thick and arbitrarily tall, with cheap materials and all without steam…</p>
<p> <strong>Woodies 2.0 </strong></p>
<p> <br/> I have been building drift boats with glue-laminated gunwales for more than a decade. I like it. I think it's the best way to make gunwales. It is cheaper and stiffer than any other method, which is close to a synonym for better. I mold those gunwales in place, over Visqueen inside or outside a partially finished hull. You can make glue-lam gunwales arbitrarily thick and arbitrarily tall, with cheap materials and all without steam bending. <br/> </p>
<p> <strong>Traditional Woodies </strong><br/> <br/> Traditional woodies, regardless size are made with 1/2, 5/8 or 3/4" plywood bottoms and 1/4" or 3/8" plywood sides, typically glued and also nailed or screwed to wooden, U-shaped inner frames. A bent and angled chine strip along the inside bottom edge of the hull provides a common gluing and screwing structure for joining bottom panels to side panels. </p>
<p>Chine strips are seldom wider than 3/4" thick and are often planed down to 5/8" thick in order to make them easier to bend without steaming. Chine strips are an obvious candidate for glue-lamination too. A glue-laminated chine strip could be 2" inches thick and 3" tall, providing substantially stronger support for fastening bottom panels to side panels. </p>
<p>In an earlier post here on the forum I described building (traditional) wooden boats with no glue, using mechanical fasteners and strong-bonding marine silicone caulk instead, which bonds firmly. Wood-to-wood bonding with Torx screws and marine grade silicone--unlike permanent glues like Tightbond or Epoxies--can be taken apart however. This is a big change. Boats built with mechanical fasteners and marine silicone caulks can be taken completely apart and re-assembled at any time. This is important.</p>
<p>With modular, re-workable assemblies anything can be replaced. There is no longer any strong incentive to use the most expensive plywood. MDO sign painters plywood is more than strong enough. It is available at lumber yards and it can swapped out without major disruption, when and if it gets worn out. </p>
<p>The combination of glue-laminated gunwales and glue-laminated chine strips, combined with mechanical fasteners and marine silicone caulk also makes it possible to dispose of any interior boat ribs. A dory or drift boat made with a 5/8" MDO bottom and 3/8" MDO sides can be fastened together over a massive chine strip, and then held stiff at the edges with glue-laminated gunwales. Ribs are superfluous. </p>
<p> <br/> Any such boat could be built as decked or as an open boat. An open boat could also have a side-to-side spanning passenger seat, in order to extra-reinforce beam rigidity. But it really isn't necessary. Not if the glue-laminated gunwale is made thick enough. </p>
<p></p>
<p>What would be the point? What are the advantages? Any boat without interior ribs is easier to maintain and to keep clean. Smooth is slicker. 3/8" thick side panels combined with a massive chine strip and gunwales makes the boat tremendously rigid. And yet eminently repairable. Any and all parts can be swapped out as needed. Skid shoes are suddenly irrelevant. If the 5/8" MDO bottom panel wears out after six or seven years take it off and replace it. It's suddenly not a big deal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What are the disadvantages? I can't think of any. I have not yet built a boat start to finish this way. I have built three now using bits and pieces of all these techniques. Later this summer I'll finish the first one built this way almost entirely. The only exception is that i did give it a fiberglass bottom. If I had it to do all over again I would not. Who needs a fiberglass bottom if you can swap the plywood out any time you want? Woody is better. Easier. Cheaper and faster. Easier to fix too. Easiest of all in fact. </p>
<p></p>
<p>That's my story. I think it's good stuff.<br/> </p> Caulk no guetag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-03-07:1312281:Topic:2582482023-03-07T17:27:02.887ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<h3>All wood Boats</h3>
<p>I built my first framed oat in 1979. I built a half a dozen or so more framed boats before plunging into wood/fiberglass composite construction, as per an article about Dynamite Payson's work in Wooden Boat magazine.</p>
<p>After that I spent close to 35 years building all fiberglass and wood/fiberglass boats. I'm retired now and I find myself interested in ail wood boats again. Before I jump into what I am doing now a few background, big-picture…</p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
<h3>All wood Boats</h3>
<p>I built my first framed oat in 1979. I built a half a dozen or so more framed boats before plunging into wood/fiberglass composite construction, as per an article about Dynamite Payson's work in Wooden Boat magazine.</p>
<p>After that I spent close to 35 years building all fiberglass and wood/fiberglass boats. I'm retired now and I find myself interested in ail wood boats again. Before I jump into what I am doing now a few background, big-picture words about framed boat building might help.</p>
<p>My good friend A.J. DeRosa of<span> </span><a href="http://woodboattours.com/">http://woodboattours.com</a><span> </span>keeps a remuda of a dozen or more framed boats going at all times, including a few 20' foot six passenger big boys designed by Cyrus Happy of Ray's River Dories. Aj's greatest contribution, for me, was all about trading oil for paints and varnishes. Perpetually cracking paint and varnish jobs were what drove me away from framed boats in the first place. Boat painting is arduous and exacting work requiring hours of preparation. Oil is easy. A mop attached to a long handle and a bucket of oil (there are recipes) is all it takes. It's easy to oil a boat twice or more every year. If you live in a dry Rocky Mountain climate it's the only way to go. Oregon might be a slightly different story.</p>
<p>Oil instead of paint helps make the framed boater's life easier to manage but there are other problems. Wooden boats do get broken. Bottom panels do get water-logged, fractured and rotten. Framed boats are traditionally glued together as they are built, in conjunction with wood screws and/or ring-shanked nails. When it comes time to remove and replace a bottom panel it's almost impossible without damaging the ribs that panel was glued to. Side panels are even worse, especially so if the gunwales were glued in place, which they often are.</p>
<p>Worn out bottom panels on framed boats have been a problem for a long time. Builders have tried to solve that problem with skid shoes, which are plastic or sacrificial plywood panels screwed on over the glued-in-place bottom panel. All those screws inevitably cause more trouble than they are worth however. 50 screw holes poking into the bottom panel dramatically accelerates the overall deterioration process.</p>
<p>There is a better way. I have been experimenting with a new idea. I am close to finishing a big decked white water dory now using almost no glue at all. </p>
<p>DIY all wood and plywood drift boats can be put together without glue. When everything goes together with Torx screws and marine grade silicone caulk, any major or minor part of the boat can be removed or swapped out at any time. You can build a traditional framed boat the old way, changing nothing other than the bonding material. Instead of glue use hot-rod caulk instead. Traditional kitchen and bathroom silicone caulk is pretty good stuff. It is acetic acid based, which gives it a characteristic nose tingling smell. Marine silicone has no smell, and for reasons I do not in any way chemically understand it makes a substantially stronger bond as well. Marine silicone also has a long ope time which is just what the DIY boat builder ordered. Marine silicone bonds are almost as strong as the wood itself. Almost but not quite. Epoxies and Tightbond glues do make a bond as strong as the wood itself, and therein lies the problem. With Tightbond or epoxy you cannot take two wooden components apart without major collateral damage. Prying wooden parts apart that have been bonded with marine silicone is not easy. But it is possible, without collateral damage of any kind.</p>
<p>All of a sudden worn out bottom panels are no longer a big problem. Back out a bunch of screws and pry that bottom panel off. Then replace it. Wooden boat parts joined with marine silicone are not easy to get apart. Pry bars, chisels and magic cuss words are part of the process. But it can be done, without damaging the parts that were originally joined. In that sense you can think of marine silicone as moderately strong glue--almost as strong as the surrounding wood. But not quite as strong.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you want to build all wood consider giving up glue and use caulk instead. I use Dowsil 795. There are other brands. Dowsil is good stuff. I buy it by the case now. The following boat does have a molded fiberglass bottom but everything else is wood above that. And caulked instead of glued. The molded bottom was a waste of time. Now that I see how easy it is to swap out major components, I think I'm done with fiberglass forever.</p>
<p></p> Launch assist device on trailertag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-03-04:1312281:Topic:2582332023-03-04T16:19:46.493ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p>Years ago, I saw a launch assist device advertised (I think it was Clackacraft) on their trailers. When you were ready to get the boat off the trailer, you would stomp down on a foot pedal, which would raise two arms with pads (one on each side of the boat) forcing the bow up and back thereby dislodging the boat off the trailer. It was a back saver. You didn't have to lift the boat bow to get it launched.</p>
<p>Is anyone currently offering this feature on their trailers? Better yet, are…</p>
<p>Years ago, I saw a launch assist device advertised (I think it was Clackacraft) on their trailers. When you were ready to get the boat off the trailer, you would stomp down on a foot pedal, which would raise two arms with pads (one on each side of the boat) forcing the bow up and back thereby dislodging the boat off the trailer. It was a back saver. You didn't have to lift the boat bow to get it launched.</p>
<p>Is anyone currently offering this feature on their trailers? Better yet, are there plans out there to fab up an addition to my current trailer? Anyone remember this feature?</p> Hardware Nomenclaturetag:woodenboatpeople.org,2023-03-02:1312281:Topic:2583272023-03-02T18:36:06.387ZGreg Hattenhttp://woodenboatpeople.org/profile/GregHatten
<p>Ladies and Gents,</p>
<p></p>
<p>Years ago, I saw a drift boat that had a plank floor that was held in place with what looked like a spring loaded, quarter turn to lock or unlock, pin, that had a vertices rectangular housing that it locked into that was attached to various ribs. The description is a little fuzzy, as is my memory, but I’m hoping someone will say, “Oh yeah, I know what he is talking about”. Anyway, the idea is to have a way to quickly remove the flooring for cleaning…</p>
<p>Ladies and Gents,</p>
<p></p>
<p>Years ago, I saw a drift boat that had a plank floor that was held in place with what looked like a spring loaded, quarter turn to lock or unlock, pin, that had a vertices rectangular housing that it locked into that was attached to various ribs. The description is a little fuzzy, as is my memory, but I’m hoping someone will say, “Oh yeah, I know what he is talking about”. Anyway, the idea is to have a way to quickly remove the flooring for cleaning purposes or to retrieve something dropped through the planks.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help,</p>
<p>Bill Dodson</p>
<p>Troy, Montana</p>