Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Introduction and Opinions

Hello to all,

I've been scoping this site out for the past few months and am impressed by the help and tips that many members regularly give out. So, I didn't feel "right" to contribute or really speak up until I myself was into a build. Now that I am I would like to introduce myself and ask some questions to gain a little knowledge so that I could be able to contribute to others discussions. Name is Tommy Danahy and I was born and raised here in Billings, MT. Began building a boat with my brother a couple weeks ago and have enjoyed everything about it.

So... Looking for some thoughts here and honesty is always appreciated. We have a plascore bottom for this boat and to lock the larger two pieces together there is a key joint that locks them together. I'm sure most of you are well aware of this and it may sound like redundant. The "key" locks together and epoxy is applied to hold to joint. Kevlar and fiberglass follow and before you know it you have a bottom ready to be stitched. Now, my partner (brother) and I have somewhat alternating schedules and although we do get to work on it together, there are times in which I come to it and find out that we are further along in the build then when I left it. Now, I don't mean to throw him under the bus (it is OUR build), but there is small ridges along the key joint from where the epoxy paste was not sanded down before the Kevlar was put down. Although it may be at or below a centimeter of height you can definitely feel there is a ridge present under the Kevlar. My question to the veteran builders is, will it matter upon completion if that ridge is still there or should we sand it down flat and re-lay some Kevlar to supplement what I just sanded away? If you are going to put down a truck bed lining type material on the inside and/or outside, would you be able to tell that the ridge is underneath?

It may sound like a novice question, but I wanted to throw it out here before I go too deep and resented myself for not bringing it up.

Thanks again for all the help. It's an awesome site.

Tommy

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Greg Jensen on July 25, 2012 at 11:49am

Tommy,
Congrats to you and your brother on starting this project. I know I am having alot of fun on my first build.
And from experience there are a bunch of helpfull and knowledgable people on this and other sites.
Since you are doing a Stitch and Glue, you might want to check out
montanariverboats.com
This is Sandy's site and he pretty much invented "frameless drift boats". Also, on that site, search for lhendricks, he builds alot with plascore.
Good luck and have fun.

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Permalink Reply by David Rogers on July 25, 2012 at 12:48pm

Don't try and sand the Kevlar. It won't work and will only get fuzzy. My advice, if the ridges bother you, would be to lay down some glass and either sand the ridges out of those layers or fair the ridges out with some epoxy/micro-ballon mix layed over that glass. Then finish the bottom with the last layer of glass or whatever cloth, not Kevlar, to protect the fairing compound. I like to finish my bottoms with a rolled on graphite mixture.

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Permalink Reply by lhedrick on July 27, 2012 at 8:08am

Like Dave posted. You can't sand kevlar. The sand paper will not cut the fibers and you wind up with a fuzz ball.

This isn't really the forum for discussions about plascore. I will say that if you have a ridge at the joint the best option will be to build up not grind down. Best not to cut down fibers once they are in place and since it's on the bottom I wouldn't worry about it. When working with epoxy fillers, you really need to smooth and clean up before the cure not after especially with plascore. Sand it after and it's easy to grind all the way through to the honeycomb core. 10 minutes of cleanup can save hours of scraping and sanding the next day. As for the joint I don't use much filler to bond the joint together. The fabric on each side will lock it all into 1 sheet.

You will find more information about foam core and honey comb over on montana-riverboats.com. It's not specifically a wood boat site and the builders who post there are working with composite cores as well as wood.