Gluing on Front seat

YO.

Today I glued on the front seat. I also epoxy sealed the rear watertight compartment.

Im just going to let you know that today was the most productive, least disastrous, most efficient gluing event yet on this boat. Still some mistakes, but NOTHING like gluing the boat together or putting them bottom on. Which makes me worried that I screwed up or was deficient on the most important parts of building, but alas, what I have, I have, and well see if she sinks or swims. Hopefully, she soars.

Anyway.

When I realized that the garage was holding steady at 44 deg. F (7 C) I decided to get with some gluing. I mixed up about 3 pumps of resin and the corresponding hardener and dumped in a bunch of thickener, and applied it to my pre-coated seat cleats and BH1 + 2.


I just really dumped the thickener into the mix. I figure this: If I have a tight fit, less silica, if I have a loose fit, more silica for a more filling mix. It took me this long to figure it out. This, with some valuable information from the Storer forum has helped me make better epoxy mixes. One rule to follow: Pulling the mixing stick out of the glue, if the point droops, its good for gluing, if the point stands tall, its good for filleting. Variations apply to temperatures, however, as you will soon find out.

After I applied the glue, I realized it was stiffening up because of the cold temps in the garage. This is not conducive to smearing and filling holes. I grabbed a hair dryer and tried to warm it up the best I could. Using this information that is stiffens, I kept my fillet mix a little thinner than the point "standing tall." I applied the seat and it dropped right in nice and tight. I threw some bricks on it to weigh it down, and took a few pictures from inside the compartment to see how I was faring with the glue. Here, were looking towards the bow:


As you can see, good squeezage on the middle cleat, not so good up around the bow. I added some bricks. I DID have good squeezage from the sides of the seat upwards, so I know I have good contact. Im not bothered I dont have excess spilling off the side of the cleat. Next up was some fillet work. I was using a squeegee and then a PLASTIC SPOON that did absolute wonders to throw down a sweet sweet fillet. Nice and clean. I kind of eyeballed what looked good to me, and this was the result:


I think thats sufficient. Heres the forward seat glued in position with the forest of bricks:


Im pretty happy with the result. However, after I was done I wandered into the kitchen where my beautiful wife asked me what I did.

Wife: So howd it go?
Me: Oh it went great, Im the man, Im the next Herreshoff, I glued on the front seat. I am The Man.
Wife: Great! Youre great. Im so glad I married you! Thats the watertight compartment, right?
Me: Yup! The seat forms the forward watertight compartment!

Then I wandered downstairs to get a beer and realized... Son of a GUN... Do I have any gaps between the plywood seat and BH1 that forms that watertight compartment? OH NO! Look at this picture again, pay attention to BH1 starboard side and glue amounts:


Now look at this picture snapped from within the mast-well between BH1 and 2 looking forward on the starboard side!


Gaps! And while I dont think they run through, there are photodocumented gaps on the inside of the tank as well. Dammit.

Im too tired and whooped to worry about it tonight, I will make sure to squeeze some epoxy in there in the future. Its also a strange spot to get to, I have to get into the boat to make this one work, and shes up on buckets, so it will have to wait.

Thank you, wife.

OH YEAH, heres my heater tent. I can keep it 56 F (13 C) in there with my little space heater.

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Oar Prototype 1

I lost power and internet for a bit during the big blow the other day, and never posted pictures of the oar. The following day I decided to shape the oar up. Using my plane, block plane, random obit sander, chisel, and wishing that I had a spokeshave, I went to work. In about three hours I got the below product. As you may notice, there is a kink where the blade meets the loom. Also, I screwed up the shaping a bit.



I mean, for a first oar done in three hours, not bad.

The blade is kinked to the loom most likely because each measurement station was taken off the edge of the board as opposed to off a theoretically straight line connecting the two ends. So if there was any deviation in the way the board has been originally cut (most likely) then the oar would reflect that in waviness-- and thats what happened. My next oar measurements will be based off a straight line down the board.

Second, I started shaping the oar without squaring it first. This would have been an easy endeavor, however I was excited to get started and planed the thing into an oval. If I had made sure all 4 sides were square, it would have been a circle.

The grip is also oval, I think it might be rough on the hands. I should not have cut it out in the blanks, and shaped it at a block, that way I could have made it a circle with a 1 1/4" diameter as opposed to the 1" it is now (a little small for me).

In the end, an easy plan, a nice looking oar, its light, and with the pine was easy to shape.

Prototype #2 is in the works. This too, will probably be a scrapper because I already cut out the grip and then realized the advantages of cutting it out when the blank was glued up.

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Knees closer up rear seat inspection hatches

So earlier this month I neglected to show some closer up pictures of the knees and the breasthook.  Here they are.  You may notice that I chose to not stylize the knees in any fashion, as other Goat Island Skiffs do.  I am a big fan of straight lines, utilitarianism, and functionality.  (Also WPA artwork and air travel posters from the early 20th century, for very much the same reasons.)  Curvy knees and breasthooks are nice, but I dont think they deliver the straightforwardness I enjoy in design.  Obviously, this is personal preference.  Curvy knees can look fantastic.  The stem in the bow will be cleaned up at some point, maybe a small cover.

Today I also added the locations of my inspections ports.  I have chosen an 8" Beckson screw-in inspection port for easy ingress and egress of larger items.  The smaller 6" port is for access to the rudder gudgeon fittings.  It is off-center due to the seat cleat that runs down the middle of the compartment from BH4 to the transom.  This could have been circumnavigated had I thought about it beforehand, but I didnt, so this is what I get.  Not the end of the world.

Finally, a quick look on how I glued the knees in place:  Two tape covered shims held in place by clamps for vertical support, and the clamp just to weight it up against the side of the hull.  Not too much weight is needed, because the knee could slide up, also, if its beveled correctly it wont slide down.

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