Wooden Boat People
By McKenzieDriftBoat.com
16' Double ender w/ transom
My first glimpse of a drift boat was on the Cal Salmon as a kayaker in the late 70s - i was intrigued by the way the boat rode through the wave trains and could handle the water. I got a better look a bit later on a couple of Rogue trips, watching them through Blossom Bar... I thought I'd like to try that. The idea of building one was cemented a few years ago after a visit to Andy Hutchinson's shop and seeing his build of a decked boat in sapele - what a beautiful boat. So as a start, I got Roger's book and built a model, getting an idea of how things went together and where the challenges might be. This spring, I traveled to Flagstaff to attend Brad Dimock's class, where I met an incredible variety of skilled folks, all interested in building - not to mention a shop to die for. Then it was off to Oregon and the wooden boat festival. I stopped in Bend, where I picked up a trailer and a bunch of great information from Mike Baker - now I had a trailer, and needed a boat. Materials were a bit of a challenge - I originally wanted Port Orford Cedar for the frames - in Bend, there's a reliable supply from Orepac, but in Victor, where I live, no such luck. I ended up with Alaskan Yellow Cedar for about $7/bf. Hydrotek was next on the list. McBeath lists it on their web page, but there was a 2 month wait, so I ended up getting mine from Edensaw. Following Brad's lead, I'm using epoxy from Resin Research. Now for the fun stuff...
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike Thomas on
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Ouch, thats a pretty bad owwy. Glad your mostly ok. I`m still thinking about that cart, maybe this weekend. I need to be able to move the boat out to work on some other stuff with winter coming fast. Hoping to do that and still work on some trim stuff this weekend just to keep things moving forward. Your boat is looking good ;)
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Permalink Reply by David Witton on
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All things considered, I'm pretty lucky the offcut hit my hard head - it could have done some real damage elsewhere.
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Steam bending the chines and chine logs would be a multi-step process - since I didn't want to expose the scarf joint to heat, I needed to first steam one end, then the other. Mike Baker pointed out how he steamed his pieces while clamped on the boat, and that led me to try something I'd seen on Youtube.
I've steam bent short pieces of wood before in home-made steam boxes, but building a box to hold the parts seemed like more work that was needed. Another option is using a section of PVC pipe, but I thought I'd try what Louis Sauzedde demonstrates here. The first step was locating the poly sleeve material. I found it supplied by Uline - in 1000' rolls - so if anyone's interested, I have a bit left over. I cobbled together some parts from the nearest Ace hardware to set up a 5 gallon bucket as a steam kettle
and used my trusty Coleman 2 burner as a heat source. Yesterday I did the starboard side, today I'll tackle the port.
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I've been scratching my head over exactly how to minimize the mess when using 5200 to caulk between the chine logs and the sides, and decided to use a technique I saw at Brad Dimock's shop last spring. I used a screwdriver to open a space between the two parts and laid in a bead of 5200
then worked the caulk down between the parts with a plastic putty knife. All in all, the mess was pretty manageable.
I've always thought that a new project was a good excuse to buy tools - here's a new one
I've never really liked all in one countersink bits - the depth stop has prevented chips from ejecting, and they clog up the countersink. This one came from Lee Valley, and it's a big improvement over others I've used.
I'm looking forward to getting the bottom on, but I need to wait for the 5200 to dry in a 45 degree shop before I flatten everything with a planer - that could take a while.
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I have a partial tube of 5200 left over - the instructions say it needs to be used within 24 hours of breaking the seal. Does anyone know a trick to prolong its useful life?
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Permalink Reply by Kurt Selisch on
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I put a nail or screw in the nozzle hole, depending on how big the opening, then wrap some cling food wrap over it, put the tube in a big zip lock bag and try to squeeze as much air out as possible before sealing. Seems to keep it usable for a couple of weeks or so. The new countersink depth stop looks pretty cool and nice work on the boat David!!
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Next step was installing the bottom. First, I installed the stem cap, not thinking that this way the end grain of the bottom will be exposed.. Looks like I'll need a trim piece to cover that later. Next step was to flatten the chine logs to accept the bottom. I tried a few approaches, power planer, belt sander, but settled on the technique in Roger's book, a hand plane and a straight piece of wood with 36 grit paper glued to it. I figure my choice of meranti over white oak for the chine logs made this a bit easier.
Now I'll check to ensure that the boat and the bottom of each frame is straight, and install the first layer of the bottom.
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I'm about to add a layer of 6 oz cloth to the bottom of the boat. I've done some reading, and it seems there's a difference of opinion on whether I would need to seal the plywood with a coat of epoxy before adding the cloth. The Laughing loon site says yes, Russell Brown's excellent epoxy primer says no - what has your experience been?
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Permalink Reply by tungsten on
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Well the problem you can encounter is the plywood can suck resin out of the glass leaving it dry.Plywood will absorb epoxy at different rates all over the panel.
For a true waterproof coating i would apply epoxy first,spread it around let it absorb keep moving it around until theirs no dry spots and no shinny spots,shinny means theirs too much so move it off or around.Once this kicks apply a second coat,again not thick just enough to cover, no pooling.
Let cure long enough that its not tacky anymore but not so cured that you cant get a chemical bond so 12 -24 hrs pending on hardener and shop temp.
At this point you could scuff with sand paper or just lay the glass ontop and wet out as normal.
6 oz glass will need about 20 grams of goo per sq ft to wet out,let tack again and fill with more coats.
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It seems like folks prefer rollers to move the epoxy around, is that your opinion?
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plastic trowel,so you can mash or push the epoxy into the ply,rollers just make air bubbles and doesnt push the goo in.you could use rollers to apply then push mash around with trowel.
And dont tip your cup upside down on bare ply to drain the goo it will leave a ring.
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